David Bowie/Funny

The Cracked Actor cracks us up...

• In this studio footage of his special concert for The Midnight Special in 1973, he suffers a Wardrobe Malfunction (safe for work) and soldiers on regardless...complete with a new lyric for "Time"! (Relevant part starts around 1:45.)
• "Boys Keep Swinging", from 1979's Lodger, is a cheerfully Camp song as it is, but it became three kinds of fun and funny via visualization...
  • The promo clip, where his backup singers steal the show...
  • The performance on The Kenny Everett Video Show that leads into a brief skit with the host's "Angry of Mayfair" character...
  • The Saturday Night Live performance in which a little Chroma Key magic places his head on a dancing puppet body -- more funny-surreal than funny-ha-ha, but still!
    • The best part about this performance was the fact that although the network censored out the line "Other boys check you out," Bowie managed to slip a giant dildo coming out of the puppet's pants past the radar.
• His really-a-Short Film-at-20-minutes Jazzin' for Blue Jean may not be as famous as Michael Jackson's much-ballyhooed longer clips, but it sure is funnier. Bowie plays two roles -- one is Adorkable, one is sheer Adam Westing. Highlights include:
  • Vic deciding not to wear a "Frankie Says Relax" T-shirt because "I'm not advertising Frankie until they tell us who he is."
  • Screamin' Lord Byron cowering in a corner after Vic literally drops in on him in his dressing room. "Pleasegoaway!"
  • The ending, in which Bowie breaks character to complain to the director about the girl going off with "Mr. Screamin'"; the argument gradually degenerates into Bowie complaining that he's weary, hungry, and whatnot....
• This crosses over with Narm, but the music video for Bowie and Mick Jagger's cover of "Dancing in the Street" is actually funnier if you watch it with the sound off.
• From the 1999 Comic Relief telethon, "Requiem for a Laughing Gnome".
• His Late Night with Conan O'Brien appearances, mostly scrubbed from online availability, were always fun-filled. 2002 included a Bowie-style rendition of "Hickory Dickory Dock"; 2003 had him pressured into singing a pro-Conan song ("There are many talk show hosts/But he is clearly better than most") that "thankfully" ended when the G-string on Conan's guitar broke. He also revealed several "Celebrity Secrets": he lied when he said "It's great to be in Cincinnati!" at one concert, and lives in denial that, before all his reinventions, he was an overweight Korean woman. Also:

"You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is."

• From a 2002 Berlin show, he gives the Brecht/Weill standard "Alabama Song" just the right touch of lechery in the climactic verse as he goes hunting for that "little girl" he soooooo desperately needs...
• From the concert video A Reality Tour, filmed in 2003 when he was 56, this line that follows up the performance of "Never Get Old":

"Oh, that's a lie, but it's only a little lie!"

• Crossing over with Live Action TV, his appearance on Extras: "Little fat man who sold his soul...."
• Given that Bowie never seemed like the type...

"I was looking for your ass."

—Lazarus