You Tube Fun

Both "Thriller" and "King Tut" were total hits with the kids today. "King Tut" was especially great, though, probably because Steve Martin is just so dorky and his movements are so easy to imitate, while Micheal Jackson, well, he is a dancing genius and pretty hard to imitate. For a memory from 1979, here is Steve Martin (my sister and I wore this '45 out! Remember, the lyrics are so inaccurate they shouldn't be played for an ancient history class!)

(I could not embed this video; click the link below!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP7AJiQM2RI

Imagine a classroom full of 6th graders (and me) doing this.

And, if you have never seen Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (I'm thinking of my parents), here is the link, in honor of Halloween: (the famous zombie dance is about nine minutes in if you don't want to see the storyline):

(I could not embed this video; click the link below!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8

Then, I highly recommend watching this next video, which is of an entire prison yard in the Phillipines doing the Thriller Dance (I found quite an interesting "Thriller" subculture while preparing for this):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o

And, finally, a really, really funny "80's Dances, How to do 'The Thriller'" where "Dancing Kim" shows you how to do it. She does give very simple instructions for parts of the complicated dance, so I showed it to them, and again, every student was up dancing like a zombie. High school kids have lunch during one of the periods we did this and they were all peering in the window at us. My students didn't care at all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byx8kt0O_mk

OK, that is all for today!