Every kid has heard it from a parent at least once. Turn that music down and go to bed.
In 1991, Michael Jackson turned that moment into the opening of one of the most famous music videos ever made.
“Black or White” came out in November 1991, and it was huge. It premiered on TV in the US and around the world on the same night, and it was reportedly watched by about 500 million people. The song went to number one and stayed there for seven weeks.
But before Michael even shows up, the video starts with a little story about a family at home.
The boy in that story is Macaulay Culkin. A year earlier, “Home Alone” had made him the most famous kid in America. He was 11, and he was a real friend of Michael’s.
He’s up in his bedroom, rocking out to loud guitar music. His dad doesn’t like it one bit. He storms upstairs, tells the boy to turn it off and go to bed, then slams the door so hard that a framed Michael poster on the wall shatters.
That turns out to be a mistake.
The boy wheels out a giant amplifier, plugs in his guitar and cranks it all the way up. The blast sends his dad, still sitting in his armchair, right through the roof of the house. He comes down a long way from home, in the middle of Africa, where Michael is about to start dancing.
His mom has one very calm line about it, and it’s one of the funniest moments in the whole video.
Here’s the thing most people never caught. The grumpy dad wasn’t some unknown actor. He was one of the best-known faces on American TV at the time, a man millions of families had welcomed into their living rooms every week for years.
He didn’t even get his name in the credits.
Watch the opening closely and see if you can spot him.
The opening scene with the boy, the angry dad and the giant amp
Did you recognize him?
That’s George Wendt. For 11 years, from 1982 to 1993, he played Norm Peterson on “Cheers,” the friendly guy on the barstool who got a loud “Norm!” from the whole bar every time he walked in. He was in all 275 episodes and was nominated for six Emmys for the part.
In the middle of all that, he took a few minutes off from the most famous barstool on TV to yell at Macaulay Culkin and get launched across the world for Michael.
The kid won that round.
His short trip to Africa in Michael’s video is still one of the most fun cameos of the 1990s.