This comment for the win — I LOL’d heartily.

Two tidbits that come to mind:

1. Good point about the difference between what Jam/Lewis did here and what Rodgers did on “Reflex”; I always think of these two songs as two peas in the (needing remixing) pod. In a way, given what you said, “Monkey” is a progenitor for the way rerecorded-remixes took off in the ’90s and ’00s: all of the hits from Jewel’s mid-’90s blockbuster Pieces of Me were redone before hitting radio, and especially the hits from Jennifer Lopez’s second album. So completely overhauled were the hits from J. Lo (”I’m Real,” “Ain’t It Funny”) that around 2002 Billboard had to come up with a new rule that if a so-called “remix” didn’t retain enough elements of the original recording, the label couldn’t aggregate chart points from the different mixes as it was climbing the singles charts. I now call it “the J.Lo rule.”

2. Fun Hot 100 tidbit about this song: during the two weeks it was at No. 1, it held back Michael’s BFF Elton John, who got stuck at No. 2 with his comeback hit “I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That.” George made it up to him: in 1991–92 their live duet remake of John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” recorded at a Michael concert, went to No. 1, giving Elton his first credited American chart-topper since the mid-’70s.

Monkey actually did better on MTV than its chart position here suggests, hitting #1 on the top 20 countdown (supposedly bumped by Sweet Child O’ Mine), and being one of Michael’s more recurrently replayed videos throughout the next few years, even making an all-time list or two (only if it were top 200 or 300 or so). The thing here was that this is the first of 4 videos he has on the countdown, and MTV had a tendency of spacing out videos by the same artists, supposedly for the sake of flow, and perhaps even equal opportunity, even if the results are deceptive, for lack of better word.