Recent Rabbit Holes 1

5/23/25 - The Odd Relationship Between Willard, Ben, and Michael.

A few years ago, I watched the 1971 film, Willard, about a weird kid who trains packs of hyper-intelligent rats to kill for him (the leader of the rats being Ben). 50 year old Spoiler Alert: Willard tries to kill Ben in the end, but Ben outsmarts him and sics the entire pack of rats on Willard and they murder him. In the 1972 sequel, Ben, Ben escapes and makes a new friend; a sick little boy who's name I can't remember because he was annoying. The annoying sick boy writes a song for Ben, his new best friend (mean while, at night, Ben and the rat pack kill people). In the finale minute of that film, we hear Michael Jackson's cover of the annoying sick boy's song. I remember as a kid, my mom telling me about a song by Michael Jackson, called "Ben". She said she always hated it because it was about a rat. I had never heard it until yesterday, but it always felt like one of those songs partially, or completely lost to to time because only the generation of people that heard it when it came out ever cared enough to remember it. What she must not have remembered is that Michael Jackson was actually singing a theme song about loving and befriending a murderous (but honestly quite cute) rat In the sequel to a cult classic film that hardly anyone seemed to enjoy or talk about. Then he went on to name his second solo album after said murderous rat. This was not one of his most popular solo releases.