How Michael Jackson's Legendary Super Bowl Halftime Performance Changed Everything

Michael Jackson's 1993 Super Bowl performance: The show that changed everything. After Jackson's performance, dogs self-rocketed to the moon and danced the rhumba. Eyes bled orange juice that dripped upwards into a giant golden chalice in the sky, and rivers burped up shoulderless arms that scrabbled across vast plains of scrambled eggs. Everything across all the infinite demi-planes intersecting time and space changed in an instant — even that one realm where everything is a soup of sriracha-infused cheese.   

Okay, fine. Maybe Michael Jackson's 1993 Super Bowl halftime show performance didn't change "everything," but it sure changed everything about Super Bowl halftime shows. To those who've grown up watching increasingly high-budget, wow-factor, light-and-dance pageants, Jackson's performance back in the day might seem quaint. No leaping from the top of the stadium like Lady Gaga did in 2017? No row of diorama-like Compton apartments with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on top, like in 2022? No bandana-wearing Prince performing Purple Rain in the rain while his guitar gently wept, like in 2007? 

Nonetheless, Jackson's 1993 performance set the stage for all subsequent halftime shows that folks love and remember. Before Jackson and going back to the first Superbowl in 1967, halftime shows were composed mostly of marching bands. 1992's "Winter Magic" theme featured white-dressed ballroom dancers and a bit of Tchaikovsky meets hip-hop. That's cool in its own right, and creative, but not quite a spectacle befitting that most grand of gridiron showdowns. Jackson set a new, high bar that all performers since have had to try and meet.

It's strange to think that it took 26 years from 1967 to 1993 for the Super Bowl halftime show to shift away from their original, college football military marching band roots in 1887. Granted, Jackson wasn't the first modern musician to put on a halftime show. That honor belongs to New Kids on the Block in 1991, followed by Gloria Estefan in 1992 joining the aforementioned "Winter Magic" show. Then, halftime shows leveled up hugely when Jackson — and two duplicates, if folks remember — took to the stadium in 1993.

Jackson's halftime show started with two giant screens sitting on opposite sides of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Folks who attended or tuned in on January 31, 1993, were stunned to see a sunglassed Michael Jackson show up on one screen and rise — UFO-beam style — out of frame. There's a poof of smoke on top of the screen, and bam: Jackson pops up, dancing, as though he rose into real life. Then, the same thing happened on the second screen. Then, the real Jackson leapt out of the actual stage on the field. He stood there like a statue as people cheered, and performed a medley of hit songs. And even though he was clearly lip-syncing, and even though the Rose Bowl is a flat, dull, unimpressive structure and the whole performance happened in daylight without the aid of a light show, it was awesome enough to leave a permanent impression.

Looking at Michael Jackson's 1993 halftime performance, it's got all the elements of a halftime show still employed today. There's a fusion of hit songs roughly 12-plus minutes in length, a big musical personality at the center of things, some central theme that informs the set design, costumes, and performance, and choreographed movement by a horde of supporting dancers and musicians. Basically, Jackson gave everyone else a template to follow, and it's been followed to a T. 

The New York Post describes the impact of Jackson's show best, saying that it, "turned the Super Bowl halftime show into its own blockbuster event, marking the first time that ratings increased from the game's first half to its second half as viewers watched worldwide." That's pretty significant, especially since Michael Jackson was/is a globally known figure. On that note, Jackson choreographer Travis Payne said via the New York Post, "The whole world cared — not just America."

In other words, not just any artist would have done. It took a performer of Jackson's caliber, right down to his understanding of how to work an audience. Jackson's two-minute-long silence and stillness after showing up on stage made the crowd go wild. "Don't cue my musicians until my hands go up and remove my glasses," the New York Post quotes him, which kept his crew on edge, as well. This is how and why every subsequent performer still steps into Jackson's original space and is given an impossible pair of shoes to fill.