Posted by Moonwalker Jacki

Michael Jackson said "everybody knows that Charlie Chaplin is a genius, and he's my inspiration" Charlie Chaplain does a sort of forward and backward "Moonwalk" here. Michael Jackson's Billy Jean...his signature Moonwalk song. Buster Keaton and others join the party in this edited with much "artistic licence" comedic sketch. It's a fascinating thing how dance moves progess in pop culture. MJ loved to watch some of the Silent Film stars dance. It is not a stretch to believe that he got inspiration for some of his moves from them. "The moonwalk or backslide is a dance technique that presents the illusion that the dancer is stepping forward whilst actually moving backward. The dance move gained widespread popularity after being performed by Michael Jackson on the 1983 television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, and has since become his signature move.[1] The moonwalk has since become the best known dance move in the world.[2] As Stern and Stern wrote in their 1992 Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Michael Jackson's signature moonwalk "became the single best-known bit of celebrity body language since the four Beatles."[3]The move commonly referred to as the moonwalk today was originally known as the backslide or "walking on your toes". The moonwalk was the name of another dance now known as the circle moonwalk. This step has two distinct types. One is called the turnwalk. This is usually performed very quickly giving the impression that the dancer is walking quickly in a circle. The other circular moonwalk type is known as the 360 or Four-Corner Moonwalk and is often done much slower in a floating style. This involves sliding a heel back (usually the left heel), pivoting both heels to change direction, and then pivoting the non-sliding heel 45 degrees. Other moonwalk variants include the "sidewalk" or "side glide," in which the dancer appears to glide sideways, and the "spotwalk," in which the dancer appears to moonwalk in place. In numerous interviews, Jackson has attributed the dance that he now is credited for, to ordinary children, whom he saw doing a variation of what we now call the moonwalk and he took it that step further to first perform it on Motown 25 where he wowed fans and is now a feature of perhaps his most popular single Billie Jean. "Backslides have been performed on numerous earlier occasions. The moonwalk was recorded as early as 1943 in a performance by tap dancer Bill Bailey. Prior to Jackson, Jeffrey Daniel was "moonwalking" in a performance of Shalamar's "A Night To Remember" on Top of the Pops in 1982. A member of the Electric Boogaloos performance group, Timothy 'Popin Pete' Solomon, also performed a "moonwalking" move in the Talking Heads video 'Crosseyed And Painless' which aired around 1981. Marcel Marceau's famous Walking Against the Wind routine was the original influence that Michael drew from" From Wikipedia.