Here's why Will Smith's "A Nightmare On My Street" music video was locked away for 30 years. Following his debut in the original A Nightmare On Elm Street in 1984, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) quickly became a pop culture phenomenon. At the height of his popularity, Freddy was appearing in annual sequels, a TV series, a video game and he even recorded some albums. His overexposure eventually led to audience burnout, so New Line "ended" the series with Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare in 1991.
Of course, he was resurrected numerous times in the years that followed, most notably for 2003's crossover Freddy Vs Jason. While some major horror icons like Michael Myers or Candyman have been revived in recent years, Freddy has been absent from the big screen since 2010's poorly received remake. Robert Englund briefly reprised the character for a cameo in The Goldbergs but has often ruled out a movie comeback as he feels he's now too old for the physical demands of the makeup.
Freddy himself made a few appearances in music videos in the 1980s, including Dokken's "Dream Warriors" for A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Fat Boys "Are You Ready For Freddy?" for the fifth movie. Before Will Smith became a movie star, he was a recording artist in the hip hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. They recorded the song "A Nightmare On My Street," which sees Smith stalked by "Fred" during a nightmare, but he wakes up in time to avoid a slashing before realizing it really happened. The song was recorded for 1988's A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, but New Line opted not to use it.
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince included "A Nightmare On My Street" on their album He's The DJ, I'm The Rapper and shot a music video for it. The video is a fun but dated homage to the franchise, with "Fred" not the traditional Freddy Kruger but some kind of weird, Terminator-inspired creation with great hair. While the song itself reached number 15 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, New Line was less than impressed with the video's existence.
New Line sued the record company and the singles of "A Nightmare On My Street" came with disclaimers declaring the song had nothing to do with the movie series. Reportedly, as part of the lawsuit settlement, all copies of the video had to be destroyed too, and for decades the existence of a video was considered an urban legend. Stills for the video suddenly appeared 30 years later in 2018, shortly followed by the full "A Nightmare On My Street" music video. It's unclear exactly who held onto copies of the supposedly destroyed promo, though DJ Jazzy Jeff did upload a HD version to YouTube, suggesting he may have stashed one away following the lawsuit.