Halloween lands this Saturday, and every year Google quietly keeps track of which costumes people look up the most. The tool is called Frightgeist, and it turns all those millions of searches into a ranked list of what America is planning to wear this year.
One name on the 2026 list goes back more than 40 years.
Michael Jackson made the top 10 for kids. Not a brand new character from some movie or video game, but Michael in that red and black “Thriller” jacket, the one from the short film that first aired back in December 1983. Little ones who were not even born when their grandparents first saw it are asking to dress up as him.
So who showed a whole new generation that look? Have a look at the clip below, then we will get to the part everybody is trying to guess.
Here is the jacket and the moves the kids are copying this year.
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” short film, the look the kids are after
Now for the answer. On the kids’ list, “Thriller” Michael comes in at No. 8. And the costume kids are searching for more than any other, sitting right at No. 1, is Dolly Parton, the country singer America has loved for generations.
Dolly passed away this August, and the love for her clearly has not slowed down one bit. A whole new batch of little ones want to be her this weekend.
On the full list for everybody, grown-ups included, Michael comes in at No. 18, Dolly at No. 12 and fellow country great Kenny Rogers at No. 14. So the King of Pop and two country legends are all still pulling kids and parents into the costume aisle this year.
The surprise is how strong Michael’s numbers still are. Complex reported on Oct 26 that Google is seeing more searches for Michael Jackson costumes than at any point in the last ten years. Four decades on, the red jacket is having a bigger moment than it has had in a long while.
And it is not just numbers on a screen. On Oct 27, Yahoo Life stopped and asked 45 real kids what they were going to be this Halloween. Two of them said Michael. One was a six-year-old who had come across Michael’s music at summer camp and made up his mind right there that this was who he wanted to be.
A boy that age found Michael all on his own, and picked him over everything else out there this year.