[5] The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in December 1983, representing sales of one million copies.

The short film centres around two con artists called "Mac and Jack" (played by McCartney and Jackson).

[9] While at the dining table one evening, Paul McCartney brought out a booklet that displayed all the songs to which he owned the publishing rights.

This soon evolved into a 24-track studio recording with a rhythm section, horns and harmonica laid down, which Michael presented to McCartney instead and this was kept in the final version.

[16][17][18] It remained atop Billboard's Hot 100 for six weeks and became Jackson's seventh top ten hit of 1983, breaking a record that until then was held jointly by The Beatles and Elvis Presley.

[21][23] With wholesale shipments of at least one million units, the single was later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The lyrics were named the worst of 1983 by The Buffalo News's Anthony Violanti,[25] while the Lexington Herald-Leader stated in a review of Pipes of Peace that, aside from "Say Say Say" and "The Man", "McCartney waste[d] the rest of the album on bathos and whimsy".

[26] The Los Angeles Times' Paul Grein also reviewed the McCartney album and opined that the singer had redeemed himself with the success of the "spunky" song "but plunged back into wimpdom with 'No More Lonely Nights'".

The writer commented that the song was "a true falsetto fantasy" and that it was "still thrilling to hear the sweet-voiced duo trade harmonies on the chorus".

Directed and choreographed by Ryan Heffington,[41] it featured a group of young dancers, filmed in black and white in Los Angeles neighbourhoods, with moves that are reminiscent of Michael Jackson's.

[45] Cameo appearances in the video are made by McCartney's then wife Linda, as well as Jackson's older sister La Toya.

[21] In the short film, the duo play "Mac and Jack", a pair of medicine show con men who sell a "miracle potion".

The salesman (McCartney) offers Jackson the potion, and claims that it is "guaranteed to give you the strength of a raging bull".

[55] The video also features appearances by director Giraldi as a pool shark who is conned by McCartney, Sonny Barnes (whose cameo was wrongly attributed to Mr. T) as the carriage driver, and Art Carney as an audience member for the vaudeville show.

[61] In a list compiled by Billboard at the end of 1984, the music video was named the fourth best of the year, and the rest of the top four were also short films by Jackson.

[63] PopMatters stated that the music videos of "Say Say Say" and "Goodnight Tonight" turned "a pair of otherwise forgettable songs into something worth watching".

[64] Steven Greenlee of The Boston Globe reflected that the video was both "horrifying and compelling", and stated the ridiculousness of a potion which could aid Jackson in beating somebody at arm wrestling.

He added, "It's even harder to believe that the two of them didn't get the pulp beaten out of them in that bar for dressing like a pair of Chess King employees.

The first is a "Child/Man" theme; the role of both a boy and an adult, which writer James M. Curtis states Jackson plays throughout the music video for "Say Say Say".

[55] Curtis writes that the bathroom scene involving the shaving foam is reminiscent of boys copying their fathers.

[55] Furthermore, Curtis observes that Paul and Linda McCartney seem to act as if they are Jackson's parents in the short film.

[55] The author also notes that in a scene where Jackson is handed a bouquet of flowers from a girl, it is a reversal of one from City Lights, a 1931 film starring Charlie Chaplin, whom the singer greatly adored.

[55] The second of the two main themes in the music video is of African American history and culture, as some of the vaudeville scenes in the short film acknowledge minstrel shows and blackface.

[56] Author W. T. Lhamon writes that the video is set in the Great Depression, and that McCartney and Jackson "convey a compactly corrupt history of blackface" as they con their way to riches with the Mac and Jack show.