Michael Jackson Invents the Moonwalk on Live TV

Michael Jackson · 1983

“He told the producer he had something. Nobody knew what.”

Eight seconds of glide on the Pasadena Civic stage in March 1983 separated MJ from every entertainer alive and gave pop performance a new physical vocabulary. He'd worked the move privately for months. Live TV, no rehearsal, one take. The visual language of the next four decades starts here.