Michael Jackson: A life on television

His influence and importance were still to grow, nevertheless. Fame multiplying into superstardom, Jackson not only broke the color line at MTV, which, having styled itself as a visual version of white FM radio, had declined to play videos by black artists, he changed music video itself. He amplified its scale, with ambitious, long-form, cast-of-dancing-dozens mini-movies whose influence is still seen today. You can argue the artistic merits of "Thriller," with its corps of zombies, or "Beat It," with its "West Side Story" rumble, but they brought storytelling and Hollywood production values to what had been a medium of glorified infomercials.

As his personal strangeness began to eclipse his music, as his public career diverged from his private life, he became a person seen and not seen. The videos showed you a person in control, or at least desperately asserting it; the news clips showed you a man in a mask, running scared. A 30th anniversary CBS special in 2001 showed bursts of energy, but he had become ghostly long before he died, pale and paper-thin and skeletal.

And yet the spirit of that first "Ed Sullivan" date sustains: On Monday night's premiere of the fourth season of "America's Got Talent," the EriAm Sisters offered "I Want You Back" as an audition piece, with 11-year-old Haben Abraham taking the lead, alive and excited and at the beginning.

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robert.lloyd@latimes.com