Working Day And Night illusion – Dangerous Tour Michael Jackson – How did they do it?

Michael Jackson performed an amazing magic trick on his Dangerous Tour between “Working day and night” and “Beat it”, but how was it done?”

Michael Jackson’s Dangerous Tour in 1992 was jam packed with magic tricks and illusions. Apparently, illusionist David Copperfield, helped put together some of the stage illusions. Yesterday we had a look at the History Tour “Torture chamber” illusion between “Thriller” and “Beat it” and today we are going to look at the amazing trick which gave Michael an explosive surprise entrance to “Beat it”. This particular illusion was performed by the King of Pop 20 years ago now, so I feel that enough time has passed to give it Historical reference and good reason to take a closer look at this amazing illusion – Probably Michael’s best stage illusion he ever performed.

Working Day and Night live stage illusion – What happened?

Toward the end of Michael’s live performance of “Working Day and Night” we have Michael run to the left of the stage, where his dancers have laid out a chair for him to have a quick rest! Michael is dressed in a totally different outfit, including blue trousers and a shiny gold coloured (ish) jacket, with belts.

Michael takes a seat in full view of the audience and the dancers place a large sheet cover, over his head and body. Michael and the chair are completely covered. Whilst the music builds up we can see Michael sitting in the chair but not doing anything. The dancers point at him and give him energy but he still doesn’t move.

At the climax of the music the sheet is ripped from Michael’s head to reveal that Michael Jackson has disappeared! At the exact moment an explosion occurs and we hear and see Michael hovering above the crowd on the opposite side of the stage kicking of his legendary “Beat it”! Wow! One of my Michael’s best illusions – but how did they do it?

Michael Jackson illusion – How did they do it?

One of the best things about this illusion is the total costume change! With or without magic the amount of time from the illusion to Michael’s reappearance is so short that it would seem that he doesn’t have enough time to change the costume let alone, disappear and reappear somewhere else!

That said, he did it. All right, let’s take a closer look!

It is definitely Michael Jackson that sit’s down in the chair. No doubles are used for this illusion. One thing which we determined yesterday is that when somebody stands and sits for an illusion the WAY they sit or stand is important. Are they positioning themselves for something? Are they sitting naturally? If not … why not?

Michael Jackson sit’s down in a very odd way – Important point one!

Take a look at the way Michael Jackson sit’s down. He performs his Michael Jackson dance moves a few feet in front of the chair but when he steps back and sit’s down he specifically puts his knees together and has his feet about 2 apart. We determined yesterday that if they put their feet apart it is usually because there is something going on and probably something is going to happen between their legs!

So, with that said, we can determine that, Michael is purposefully sitting in a strange way to cover up something and not disturb something on the stage in between his legs.

Can we see any evidence of anything unusual on the stage below the stage, or specifically between his legs?

This illusion is actually revealed somewhat by the HBO version of the Bucharest Dangerous Tour broadcast. The HBO edit was a much faster edit with more shots from various concerts, than the original live BBC broadcast of the same concert. Consequently, they show more of the stage and more of the action but key to us today, reveal more.

If you have the DVD, put it on and watch it again and look at the stage between his legs. Did you see it?

Yes, there is a clear trapdoor between his legs! That explains why he placed his legs in a particular way to not trigger the trapdoor inadvertently. That said we can still see that the door is SLIGHTLY open.

So far we have determined that:

1) Michael Jackson is sitting strangely, with his legs open for a reason

2) It is definitely Michael Jackson

3) There is a TRAP DOOR between his legs!

Michael runs underneath the stage!

As you can probably tell, this part is quite obvious. Michael, underneath the sheet, puts his feet together and slips underneath the stage. He then runs underneath the stage and Michael Bush and his team give him a quick costume change – a VERY quick costume change! I don’t know if he is wearing his black trousers underneath the blue trousers, it seems like a obvious conclusion but I think that he has the time, just about to change the trousers, put on the jacket and the big black gown.

After Michael changes, he steps out of his secret entrance and straight on to the crane and on cue the music rises, explosion goes off, spotlights move to his side of stage and off he goes for “Beat it!”.

What about the sheet?

A good question is: How does the sheet retain Michael’s shape when he is not sitting there? The sheet is a specially made sheet which retains the shape of whatever is underneath it. The sheet has a skeleton support system inside it which can be collapsed. We see a dancer on the right hand side purposefully hold the sheet through out and we also see a very choreographed way – if the sheet fails – the illusion fails.

It is my understanding that this illusion worked well on every occasion and didn’t fail for any of the shows.We have no mistakes like on the History tour.

And that is that! That’s how he did it! This article is dedicated to Twitter user “Dan Ratcliffe” who asked how it was done.

For me, this is the height of Michael Jackson’s stage illusions and shows and one of my favourites.

By Anthony King (c)

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