The video for MICHAEL JACKSON's "Leave Me Alone" was in heavy rotation on MTV when I was a kid. I wasn't old enough to be in charge of the remote yet so whenever I heard the music start for it, I knew I had at least a minute to get away from the T.V. and find something else to do. The part that freaked me out about it when I was a kid was when MICHAEL dances with the Elephant Man's skeleton. My Mom had told me that M.J. bought the Elephant Man's bones which she said was pretty morbid. At 8 years old, I also thought it was very strange.
I didn't know who the Elephant Man really was. The only frame of reference for a man that resembled an elephant I had was my Snout Spout figure from the HE-MAN/SHE-RA cartoons. To think that there was an actual 6-foot-tall man with the head of an elephant walking around at one time and now MICHAEL JACKSON had his bones at his house really disturbed me.
Years later, I saw the movie THE ELEPHANT MAN with my Mom. I remember feeling sorry for him and thinking how silly I felt believing the Elephant Man actually had the head of an elephant as portrayed in the video for "Leave Me Alone." It also turns out JACKSON never actually purchased the bones, although he did make an offer to buy them.
— Grimpressions
THATS when you know you have too much money: when you start bidding on the remains of The Elephant Man. What was Mike gonna do with them? Play a really weird version of JENGA?
I loved Mike but he had some really strange habits, to say the least.
Love me some Jim Blashfield! I think MJ must have had some kind of sense of humor to participate in a video which made fun of all of thse legends.
I grew up watching MJ's movie Moonwalker. This video was shown near the beginning. It didn't scare me, though I had no idea why he was dancing with a skeleton hehe. Being a kid with ADD, the beginning videos of Moonwalker did a lot to stimulate my attention.
I will tell you what did scare me, though. The second half of the movie. Joe Pesci playing the drug dealer who didn't know how to talk in an inside voice. He scared me to death with that stick-up ponytail and those tiny little sunglasses, plus the perpetual yelling.
It also disturbed me a little when MJ turned into the robot and yelled.