Flashback: Michael Jordan And Michael Jackson Team Up

A few weeks back, I got into a discussion about Michael Jackson, which stemmed from the hilarious video he did with Eddie Murphy for “What’s Up With You.” Did anyone ever take that thing seriously? It’s terrible.

Anyway, my argument was this: when Michael Jackson was in his prime — I’m talking late 80’s/early 90’s before his child abuse allegations hit — there was not a more famous person walking this Earth ever. He set Guinness records for concert attendance, and it was the pre-Internet and pre-reality TV era, before people who shouldn’t be famous have become famous. He had less competition to stay relevant.

It was the perfect fuse in time: we’d become globalized and Jackson’s brand spread around the world. Everything the guy did was a major event.

Anyway, when he teamed up with Michael Jordan back in 1992 for the “Jam” video, what you have is the most famous athlete of all-time teaming up with the most famous solo music artist of all-time. It’s a mega-fusion likely never to be matched again. You also have another horrible video. Here, NBC Sports/NBA Entertainment goes behind the scenes of the video shoot during halftime of one of the 1992 NBA Finals games. And somehow they managed to interview Jordan with what looks to be a swing set in the background.

Just watch it: