18 Things You Didn't Know About Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

An executive at Sony freaked out and rejected a $900,000 budget Jackson proposed for the video, and talked him down to $500,000. (An expensive video at the time would top out around $100,000.) To balance the budget, a behind the scenes documentary was sold to MTV for $250,000 and Showtime for $300,000.

He was the best-selling pop star in the world, but was living with his folks in Encino, California. This is part of the reason why Landis and the producers rejected Jackson's offer to pay for the entire video out of his own pocket.

When the Jehovah’s Witnesses found out he was making a werewolf video, they threatened to excommunicate him because it violated their strict rules about occult imagery.

Michael ordered the film to be destroyed when he found out that he was in trouble with the Jehovah's Witnesses, but the editor and director hid the film canisters until the singer changed his mind.

"He was shy, she tried not to scare him by coming on too strong," Ray told Vanity Fair. “What we had was such like a little kindergarten thing going on." In the same interview, Ray confirmed that she and Jackson had “kissing and puppy-love make-out sessions,” and teased that there was "a little more than that.”

She appeared in the June 1980 issue.

Fonda was filming a workout video near the "Thriller" studio and ended up giving Ray some tips on wooing Jackson while they got their makeup done.

It was the final single and video from the record, and came out over a year after the album was released. Thriller was already the best-selling album ever before the video for the title track was released, and the sales doubled once the clip was in heavy rotation on MTV.

They had to cut corners on the budget somewhere!

"Thriller" never received an Academy Award nomination, but the video was screened before Fantasia for a week in Westwood, California just so it could be eligible for a short film nod.

The Making of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," which includes the video in full, was the best-selling musical on VHS ever, worldwide. It was sold at a lower price point than most VHS tapes at the time, which helped boost sales.

The Library of Congress deemed the short film "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" in 2009.

Jackson hired Landis on the strength of his work on An American Werewolf In London, which came out in 1981.

It appeared in An American Werewolf In London too.

Part of the inspiration for the video came from his father's attempt to frighten him as a child. According to Jackson biographer J. Randy Tabmorrelli, Joe Jackson once "put on a fright mask and crawled into Michael’s bedroom through a window at night, screaming" to teach his young son that he should keep the window closed when he slept. It's just like when George Sr. hired the one-armed guy to teach his kids "lessons" on Arrested Development.

The iconic jacket, designed by Deborah Nadoolman, sold for an absurd amount of money at an auction in 2011.