--- title: Barack and Michelle Obama Dance to Thriller for Halloween description: The President and First Lady danced to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" canonical: https://time.com/4552542/barack-michelle-obama-thriller-dance-halloween/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-31T22:05:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T01:32:11.401Z article:section: Politics og:title: Watch Barack and Michelle Obama Dance to 'Thriller' for Halloween og:description: "We don't know how it's going to go" og:url: https://time.com/4552542/barack-michelle-obama-thriller-dance-halloween/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7c82802fcd0e6c3/6988ac5c8e06015d61468108/obama-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Barack and Michelle Obama Dance to 'Thriller' for Halloween twitter:description: "We don't know how it's going to go" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7c82802fcd0e6c3/6988ac5c8e06015d61468108/obama-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Barack and Michelle Obama Dance to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' for Halloween by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Oct 31, 2016 10:05 PM UTC  President Barack Obama and the first lady Michelle Obama dance to the beat of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" as they welcome families to celebrate Halloween at the White House in Washington on Oct. 31, 2016. President Barack Obama and the first lady Michelle Obama dance to the beat of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" as they welcome families to celebrate Halloween at the White House in Washington on Oct. 31, 2016.Manuel Balce Ceneta—AP by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Oct 31, 2016 10:05 PM UTC President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are not afraid to break it down — especially to spooky tunes during the White House’s annual Halloween party. During the White House Halloween reception, the Obamas welcomed area students and children of military families for trick-or-treating and a brief dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” “We’ve been working on a little dance. We don’t know how it’s going to go, but we think we should all just try it anyway,” Obama, dressed in his very best dad-sweater, said before getting the crowd ready. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4552542/barack-michelle-obama-thriller-dance-halloween/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4552542/barack-michelle-obama-thriller-dance-halloween/"},"headline":"Watch Barack and Michelle Obama Dance to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' for Halloween","datePublished":"2016-10-31T22:05:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T01:32:11.401Z","description":"\"We don't know how it's going to go, but we think we should all just try it anyway\"","url":"https://time.com/4552542/barack-michelle-obama-thriller-dance-halloween/","keywords":["White House"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7c82802fcd0e6c3/6988ac5c8e06015d61468108/obama-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7c82802fcd0e6c3/6988ac5c8e06015d61468108/obama-halloween.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Barack Obama, Michelle Obama","caption":"President Barack Obama and the first lady Michelle Obama dance to the beat of Michael Jackson's \"Thriller\" at they welcome children from Washington area and children of military families to trick-or-treat celebrating Halloween at the South Portico of the","creditText":"Manuel Balce Ceneta—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4552542/barack-michelle-obama-thriller-dance-halloween/","name":"Watch Barack and Michelle Obama Dance to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' for Halloween"}}]}] ```