David Spade rejected an idea submitted by David Bowie for ‘SNL’
American actor and comedian David Spade has revealed that he once had to reject an idea submitted by David Bowie for a Saturday Night Live sketch.
As his appearance in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Extras attests, Bowie had a discerning eye for comedy. Always keen to get involved in anything side-splitting on television, Bowie agreed to partake in an SNL sketch aired in November 1991. The episode was hosted by a young Macaulay Culkin and featured Bowie and Tin Machine as the musical guest.
During a recent episode of the Fly on the Wall podcast, which Spade co-hosts with Dana Carvey, the actor remembered casting himself in a sketch. In the segment, he portrayed a receptionist that “stops you because he thinks they’re better than you”, with Bowie making an appearance as an exaggerated version of himself.
Bowie couldn’t make the pitch meeting but asked Spade to contact him later to suggest a small change to the sketch. “I called him and he answers and it’s fucking Bowie,” Spade revealed. “And he’s like, ‘This [sketch] is so fucking funny. This is exactly my life and these people I see.’ And he goes, ‘One tweak: Can I play the receptionist?”
Bowie explained that the receptionist was “the funnier part” and felt that playing himself was “kind of boring” because “everyone’s seen that”.
Although he wanted to comply with Bowie’s wishes, Spade declined because he had hoped the receptionist would become a recurring character. “Well, what if the sketch never gets on [the show],” he recalled Bowie saying in reply.
“I’m like, ‘God, how do you know this show this well?'” Spade recalled thinking at the time. “It’s so true. What if it doesn’t get on? I’m fucking blowing it. He’s like, ‘It’ll get on if I do it.'”
Ultimately, the sketch wasn’t accepted for the show, but Bowie apologised to Spade all the same. “Hey, sorry, man…I get what was going on, and I shouldn’t have been, like, a little chilly about it,” Bowie said, per Spade’s memory.
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