What is the big deal with this video? Yes the make-up was cool, and yes it's got Vincent Price, but geez, I think it is HIGHLY overrated. My favorite videos are Madonna's Like a Prayer, Rage Against The Machine's Testify, and Genisis' Land of Confusion.

It was a big deal at the time mainly for two reasons: it was the first very expensive video, at around $1mil, give or take (this was 1983 or '84, remember), plus it was directed by John Landis, still stinging from his Twilight Zone: The Movie disaster. You know, where Vic Morrow and two Asian kids were beheaded by helicopter blades when a stunt went wrong. I once saw a program that actually showed the footage of it, and even though it was so fast that it was blurred you could still see it clearly enough. I remember Entertainment Tonight couldn't seem to talk about anything else but that for weeks.

I saw that footage!

"Thriller" was also important because it broke a couple of rules. It was longer than most videos (I keep wanting to say 20 minutes). The length was due to the framing sequences. (Which helped lengthen the song.) Few videos had such framing sequences in them. It was certainly influential. Look at Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher". The full-length version has the opening bit with Waldo, that was undoubtedly influenced by "Thriller".

Keep in mind, I don't like the video, the song, or the artist. I just know why it's important.

It was also one of, if not the video that broke black artists on MTV. Up til then, the network was pretty vanilla. ("Billie Jean" may be the video to get credit as the breakthrough clip, though.)

My favorite videos are Madonna's Like a Prayer, Rage Against The Machine's Testify

Why am I not suprised that you dig those 2 videos. Not that it's a bad thing, I love both of them.