In early 1984 Michael Jackson was the biggest name on earth. Thriller was selling by the truckload and he’d just signed a giant deal with Pepsi. Everything seemed to be going his way.
Then a shoot went wrong.
He was at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, filming a commercial where he came down a lit staircase while fireworks went off behind him. On the sixth take the pyrotechnics fired too soon. A spark caught the gel in his hair, and the top of his head went up before anyone understood what was happening.
His brothers got to him fast and smothered the flames. Doctors treated him for second-degree burns to his scalp, and he spent time at a burn center in Culver City.
Most stars would’ve vanished for months after something like that.
Here’s the footage of the accident, including the moment the people around him realize how bad it is.
Michael Jackson Pepsi Ad Accident 1984 (July 16, 2009)
Michael didn’t vanish. About a month later he turned up in New York, still healing, for one of the glitziest nights Pepsi had ever put on.
The company booked Lincoln Center for a black-tie reception. Close to a thousand of its bottlers crowded in to finally watch the two commercials he’d made. The ads had been kept under lock and key, the hype was enormous and some TV stations later offered to run them for free just to be part of the moment.
But Michael wasn’t the only star in those commercials.
Dancing right beside him was a skinny twelve-year-old in a bright red jacket, matching the King of Pop spin for spin. Pepsi had cast a real song-and-dance kid, and the camera clearly loved him.
Keep your eye on that boy in the red jacket shadowing Michael through the whole ad.
Michael Jackson with Alfonso Ribeiro – Pepsi Commercial – Next generation (1984)
That kid was Alfonso Ribeiro. At the time he’d been starring in the Broadway musical The Tap Dance Kid, so dancing next to Michael Jackson wasn’t going to rattle him.
A few years later he got famous all over again for a very different dance. In 1990 he joined The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as Carlton Banks, the preppy cousin whose stiff little shuffle to a Tom Jones song turned into one of the most copied moves on television.
So the next time someone does “the Carlton,” remember where that kid got his start. Hit play and watch him keep pace with Michael Jackson.