On “Man within the Mirror,” his 1988 No. 1 smash, Michael Jackson famously got down to “make that change.”
And after the King of Pop shot up from below and hit the stage at Super Bowl XXVII 30 years ago on Jan. 31, 1993, the halftime show would never be the identical. Taking within the history-making moment on the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, he remained frozen in a mannequin pose — save for one quick flip of his head — for some 90 seconds.
“Michael said to me, ‘Don’t cue my musicians until my hands go up and take away my glasses,’” Don Mischer — who produced and directed the halftime show — told The Post. “So he pops up, the gang’s going crazy, about 30 seconds goes by, and he doesn’t move. Now I’m within the [production] truck screaming, ‘Come on, Michael! Allow us to go, man, and provides us the cue!’ Finally, his hands got here up, he touched his glasses, and we were off and running.”
Three many years later, the Super Bowl halftime show has never looked back, booking everyone from rock royalty similar to Prince and Bruce Springsteen (each of whom also worked with Mischer) to today’s pop superstars including Beyoncé and Rihanna — the “Umbrella” singer will headline this yr’s big game on Feb. 12. But before Jackson ruled the Rose Bowl — midway through the Dallas Cowboys’ win over the Buffalo Bills — the halftime show was hardly must-see TV, featuring marching bands, drill teams and nonprofit groups similar to Up With People.
In truth, in 1992, viewers passed on the cornball “Winter Magic”-themed halftime show featuring figure skaters Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano and dancers dressed as snowflakes to look at a special counterprogrammed episode of the sketch comedy “In Living Color.”
“They flipped over to Fox, and the difficulty is that they never got here back [to CBS],” said Mischer. “This was a serious wake-up call for the NFL. They realized that a Super Bowl halftime show could not be filler in the course of America’s premier football game.”
Determined to tackle its halftime-show problem, the NFL hired Radio City Music Hall Productions to seek out an enormous name for the 1993 Super Bowl, and in consequence booked Jackson at the peak of his pop reign. But MJ would only comply with do it if Mischer produced and directed the show.
“Michael and I had done many shows together, including ‘Motown 25,’ where he first did the moonwalk,” said Mischer. “But there was a variety of ‘Only a sports director could direct this.’ And Michael, who really knew the best way to get what he wanted, said, ‘Nope — Don’s gotta do it.’”
But there was one request that even Jackson was denied.
“I’ll always remember the primary meeting once we agreed to do that,” said Mischer. “Michael comes into the room; he’s very gentle and friendly. And the very first thing he said was, ‘I’d prefer to move the sport three hours [back] so my halftime show could be in darkness.’ And I said to Michael, ‘That implies that, within the Central and Eastern time zones, it’s gonna be like midnight if we try this. So we will’t try this.’”
And although Jackson reportedly asked for $1 million to perform, he — like each halftime show headliner since — was not paid. “But,” Mischer noted, “Michael got $35 or $40 million value of exposure.”
Mischer also warned Jackson about doing an excessive amount of of his trademark crotch-grabbing for the family audience — although he did it anyway. ”I said, ‘Be prepared that you simply might get some some negative feedback on that.’”
Background singer Siedah Garrett — who had co-written “Man within the Mirror” and duetted with Jackson on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” — was in the course of the “Dangerous” tour with him, but wasn’t particularly pumped about playing the Super Bowl.
“I wasn’t thrilled about it in any respect,” she said. “I used to be like, ‘OK, we gotta do that. It’s a job.’ And it turned out to be so rather more than that. I didn’t realize how special it was.”
Rehearsing under an enormous tent within the Rose Bowl parking zone within the week leading as much as the large game, Garrett said that Jackson “wasn’t nervous — he was excited.” Still, he was well aware that football fans weren’t his normal crowd.
“He was nervous concerning the good ol’ boys and the way he was gonna come off to them,” said Garrett. “He was more concerned about entertaining those football guys who were just there to see the sport, didn’t care who was on on the halftime show. They’d normally leave and go to the toilet or do whatever. But no one left their seats with this halftime show.”
Indubitably, Jackson’s set — which kicked off with “Jam” after which went into “Billie Jean,” “Black or White” and “We Are the World” before ending with “Heal the World” — turned the Super Bowl halftime show into its own blockbuster event, marking the primary time that rankings increased from the sport’s first half to its second half as viewers watched worldwide.
“The difference between Michael Jackson’s performance on the Super Bowl and everybody else’s before him was that Michael’s became global,” said longtime MJ dancer/choreographer Travis Payne. “The entire world cared — not only America.”
And when Beyoncé paid tribute to Jackson with an outfit honoring his Super Bowl look in 2016, it was clear that the late icon’s legacy lives on 30 years after that historic moment midway through the Dallas Cowboys’ rout of the Buffalo Bills.
“Beyoncé, Janet — everyone after was conjuring up MJ,” said Garrett. “It warms my heart.”
