John Singleton was in his early twenties and had just shaken up Hollywood with “Boyz n the Hood,” his hard-hitting film about growing up in South Central Los Angeles. He was the hot new name everybody in town wanted. So when the phone rang late one night and a soft, high voice said it was Michael Jackson, Singleton did what a lot of tired people would do. He didn’t really buy it.
He was half asleep. Figured he’d sort it out in the morning.
The voice on the line that night wasn’t Michael at all.
It was a friend of Singleton’s from his old neighborhood, goofing around with a spot-on Michael impression to pull his leg. Singleton played along, half annoyed, and told the guy he’d call him back the next day. Then he hung up and went back to sleep, sure it was nothing.
But he mentioned it to his agent anyway. And that’s where it gets strange, because Michael’s people really had been trying to reach him.
Years later, on the daytime talk show “The Real,” Singleton told the whole tangled thing out loud, still laughing at how it all lined up.
John Singleton tells how the late-night call really started
Here’s how he put it: “No, no, it started as a prank. It was a friend of mine, he’s no longer with us. … He’s from my neighborhood and he called me up late at night. He did a high voice like Michael Jackson… I was like half asleep. I was like, ‘Fine, whatever. I’ll call you tomorrow. Is this really Michael?'”
When the real meeting finally happened, nobody could untangle who had started what. Singleton remembered it like this: “Michael Jackson called me for a meeting and said, ‘Hey, I wanted to talk to you about doing a video.’ I said, ‘You called me right?’ He says, ‘No, I didn’t call you.'”
So a joke between two old friends somehow matched up with the biggest pop star in the world wanting the very same director. As Singleton said, “It was all from a prank that I ended up doing it.”
The video was “Remember the Time.” Singleton shot it in January 1992 on the Universal Studios backlot and set it in ancient Egypt, with a cast that turned heads. Eddie Murphy played the Pharaoh, the model Iman played his queen and basketball legend Magic Johnson showed up too. The dancing was created by Fatima Robinson, who was barely out of her teens.
It was such an event that it premiered on February 2, 1992, on Fox, MTV and BET all at the same time.
And Singleton was only getting started. A few weeks after the video aired, he became the youngest person ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar, and the first Black director to earn that nomination.
Watch how he turns a few minutes of music into a short movie, dancers and all.
The full “Remember the Time” short film
It’s something to think the whole thing nearly slipped away because one sleepy guy didn’t believe his own phone. Good thing his agent followed up.