Thriller

I mentioned yesterday that I had another Michael Jackson tribute up my sleeve, so here we go.

Eric and I spent the weekend out preparing for our Europe trip (we leave one week from today!). We did lots of shopping for travel necessities - new walking shoes, comfy yoga pants for the flight, golf pants for Eric, and all the travel size toiletries a person could want. The weather was really nice too, except for some quick evening storms (what is this, Florida?).

On Saturday, we made sure to wrap up our shopping by 4:30p.m. or so. We had to get to Times Square, because I had heard through the world of Facebook and Twitter that a Thriller "flash mob" was planned for 5:00 p.m. in front of the TKTS booth in Times Square. The instructions were to dress up, come ready to dance, and bring your iPod. Then, in theory, at 5:00 sharp a whole crowd of people would start doing the Thriller dance together in the middle of Times Square. It was majorly hyped up, and crowds grew to watch, including lots of photographers. Eric and I got to Times Square early and picked up some Ray's pizza, then staked out a spot on the TKTS steps to get a good view of the action.

The red steps over the TKTS booth in Times Square

Times Square was SO CROWDED. Not that that's anything new, but still.

Eric on the steps, waiting for some dancing fun

Both of us on the steps, with the crowds behind us

People finally started showing up a little before 5:00 to dance. A few of them were dressed up either as zombies, or sporting the signature Michael Jackson white glove.

White glove guy
(photo taken from JoanJHuang on Twitter)

One of the zombies, and lots o' spectators behind him
(photo also taken from JoanJHuang on Twitter)

The dancing didn't get started until around 5:15, and then to be honest, it was a bit disappointing. It had been hyped up as a flash mob, but the "mob" was really about 10 people. It was also pretty disorganized - only a couple people seemed to actually know the dance, and the rest of them just sort of hopped around randomly. But, I appreciate the sentiment and I video-ed it anyway. I added the music after the fact, of course, since they were all dancing to their iPods. Also, the dancers are in the middle of a huge crowd, so they might be hard to spot at first. Look for some head twitching by the people at the bottom of the picture starting around the 20 second mark. The dancing does get a little better as the video goes on.

VIDEO: Thriller flash mob in Times Square

So, it could have been really awesome, but ah well. But, it made me think of Thriller dances that really ARE awesome. Have you ever seen the video of over 1,500 prisoners from the Philippines doing the Thriller dance? It's pretty awesome.

VIDEO: Prisoner performance of Thriller

And, if you really want to appreciate some Thriller-dancing awesomeness, you must go to the original source. Below is the dance portion of the original Thriller video.

VIDEO: Dance segment in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video

So good, no? Nothing beats the original! Although I do wish I could have posted little 5th grade Eric's interpretation for you...maybe someday!