Gotta love collectors. They go all out to find rare things to add to their collection that really stand out, whether it’s a cartridge that never made its way into production, or a bootleg of something that never got a U.S. release.
Videos by ComicBook.com
But then there are those production games that have something that didn’t quite make it into the final cut of the game. That’s exactly what happened when a savvy gamer located a pre-production sample cartridge of the Sega Genesis game Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker.
In case you forget, this side-scrolling action game had a Smooth Criminal-dressed Jackson fighting off bad guys while rescuing kids, using his dance moves to his advantage.
But there was one song conspicuously missing from the soundtrack when it was released – “Thriller”, one of Jackson’s most iconic songs. But it turns out that it was originally included in the game, it just got cut out during production.
As you can see in the video above, when Jackson initially fights his way through a graveyard in the pre-production cartridge, there’s actually a chiptune version of “Thriller” playing in the background.
Some Reddit users have already been questioning the authenticity of the EPROM cartridge, which the user claims to have paid $20 for. They were wondering if it was perhaps a customized cartridge with the music programmed, or perhaps even a bootleg cart.
That said, the user, going by the name of Oliade677, posted a picture of the cartridge to prove its legitimacy. And as you can see from the label below, it looks to be a pre-production cartridge from Sega of America, with an address and stamped date to boot.
We’re not sure how the production cartridge got out, but this is indeed quite the collectible if it’s legitimate. And it leaves us wondering why “Thriller” would be cut out of a game that has dancing zombies in it. I mean, it just makes sense, right?
If you want to check out Moonwalker, you can probably track down a used cartridge for the Sega Genesis for cheap. It’s not bad for a game that relies on dance moves, really.
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