On the night of March 25, 1983, NBC aired Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, a two-hour special celebrating the 25th anniversary of Berry Gordy's label. The lineup was a once-in-a-lifetime parade of Motown's greatest acts: Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, and a Jackson 5 reunion that pulled all six brothers back together for the first time in years.
Michael had agreed to the reunion on one condition — that he be allowed to perform one solo song at the end, and that he could pick it himself. He chose Billie Jean from Thriller, an album that had been out for less than four months at that point and was just beginning its global ascent.
The choreography was almost entirely improvised. Michael had been rehearsing a single move at home for weeks — a gliding step where the foot pulled back while the body looked like it was walking forward. He had learned a primitive version of it from soul singers Jeffrey Daniel and Geron Candidate, and had been refining it in front of a bedroom mirror with his sister Janet watching.
The performance was filmed live on March 25 and broadcast on NBC on May 16, 1983. Roughly 47 million Americans tuned in. When Michael, dressed in a black sequined jacket, fedora, and a single white rhinestone glove, hit the spin and then slid four feet backward without appearing to lift his feet, the studio audience gasped audibly. Fred Astaire reportedly called him the next day to say it was the greatest performance he had ever seen.
The move was instantly named the moonwalk, and within weeks every kid in America was trying it on linoleum kitchen floors. Billie Jean shot to number one. Thriller, already selling well, accelerated into a sales pattern that no album before or since has ever matched. One four-and-a-half-minute live performance turned a great record into the biggest record of all time.