The Cracked Actor cracks us up...
- In the studio footage of his special concert for The Midnight Special in 1973, he suffers a safe for work Wardrobe Malfunction and soldiers on regardless...complete with a new lyric for "Time": "Just busted me zip"!
- "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.
- And then there's the lyrics, which describe the advantages of being a boy. Although the song makes a serious point, song of the things Bowie mentions are either so mundane ("You can buy a home of your own! Learn to drive and everything!") or off-the-wall random ("They'll never clone ya!") that they become hilarious in context (or lack thereof). Bowie's Large Ham delivery helps too.
- The promo clip
- 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 Say 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....
- The video for "Absolute Beginners" - Bowie spends almost eight minutes in a quest for a packet of cigarettes. 0:23-0:33 is worth it for his facial reactions alone.
- 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. Or replaced with "Cotton-Eyed Joe".
- From the 1999 Comic Relief telethon, "Requiem for a Laughing Gnome".
- His Late Night with Conan O'Brien appearances were always fun-filled. A tribute to Bowie in the wake of his death gives a good summary:
- 1997 had Bowie claim he used to hang out Elvis Presley on their birthdays.note Conan then proceeds to embarrass Bowie about his less successful characters, topped off with Bowie's Corn-on-the-Cob period.
- 1999 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 string on Conan's guitar broke ("you've... burst your g-string").
- 2002 included a Bowie-style rendition of "Hickory Dickory Dock"; 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. (Beat) It is."
- The above overlaps with Heartwarming in Hindsight and Tearjerker when at the time of his passing, he and Iman were married for 23 years.
- 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...."
- This interview clip is called "David Bowie Gets Distracted" (by a pair of sunglasses). Turns out he has a gift for prop comedy too...
- This anecdote from the early days of pre-fame Ziggy Stardust touring.Well, backstage one night I was desperate to use the bathroom. I was dressed in my full, battle finery of Tokyo-spaceboy and a pair of shoes high enough that it induced nose bleeds. I went up to the promoter—actually I tottered over to the promoter—and I asked, "Could you please tell me where the lavatory is?"
And he said, "Yeah, look down that corridor. On the far end of that wall. You see that sink? There you go."
I said, "My good man, I'm not taking a piss in the sink."
He said, "Listen son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you." - One interview (starts at about 0:32) has him mocking both himself and his critics when asked about "virtual reincarnation", with a hilarious put-on accent to boot."Oh, I'm the chameleon of rock, you know. Self-reinvention is my middle name. Because you know my motto: 'ch-ch-ch-ch-changes'."
- Bowie cracking up at the end of "The Laughing Gnome".
- The second pre-chorus of "Ashes to Ashes", where the whispering ominous backing vocals instead repeat everything Bowie sings, right down to the Scatting with "woah-wo-oh" note .
- His cameo from Zoolander being used for his appearance in the "In Memoriam" segment of the 2016 Academy Awards. Bowie himself would have definitely approved.
- Bowie's cameo in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is both this with surreal Nightmare Fuel. And being Bowie, he does such humor for it.
- HELL GOD BABY DAMN NO!
- Even with that, the way he comes in comes off as hilarious, just rushing out of the elevator with a blank stare.
- Finally, there's just something darkly funny (and very Bowie-esque) about the fact that he died at the age of 69. Proof that a certain guy upstairs has a pretty demented sense of humour.
- As pants shitting the music video for "I'm Afraid of Americans" is, there's something rather amusing of David Bowie being chased down by Trent Reznor. When you get down to it, it's literally just a video of Bowie being stalked by his biggest fan.
