The surreal kids TV show that inspired David Bowie’s an otherworldly song in 2002
David Bowie was famed for his ability to find inspiration in the most unexpected places. Take the time he took the staccato bleep of the AFN station ident and turned it into the riff for Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust For Life’ or when news of the Moor Murders gave birth to ‘Please Mr. Gravedigger.’
This gift remained an essential feature of Bowie’s music well into the latter phases of his career, as evidenced in this bizarre and utterly unique track from 2002’s Heathen.
Originally titled ‘Uncle Floyd’, this dream-soaked piano ballad was inspired by and written in homage to The Uncle Floyd Show, created by New Jersey native, comedian and puppeteer Floyd Vivino, who hosted the vaudevillian show for 20 years between 1974 and 1998. Though marketed as a colourful kid’s show, The Uncle Floyd Show was written for adults, with the show providing an unsettling contrast to the psychologist-approved Sesame Street.
With a single microphone, some simple but effective lighting and a variety of props – a lot of them food-based – Vivino crafted one of the strangest and most anarchical shows on television.
Floyd was also joined by a host of side-characters, including Oogie, a ventriloquist’s clown salvaged from a crumbling magic store in Times Square, and Bones Boy the skeleton, both of whom are name-checked by Bowie, who I can’t help thinking decided to use piano on ‘Slip Away’ in an oblique reference to Floyd’s own talent as a pianist, which the host often showcased during The Uncle Floyd Show.
Floyd and the rest of the cast became aware of Bowie’s interest in the show after he attended a live version of The Uncle Floyd Show at New York’s Bottom Line Nightclub in 1981. It’s believed John Lennon, himself a big fan, introduced Bowie to the programme after their first meeting. Shortly before the release of Heathen many years later, Bowie called Floyd and told him about ‘Slip Away’.
Discussing the album in an article subsequently posted on davidbowie.com, David recalled: “Back in the late ’70s, everyone that I knew would rush home at a certain point in the afternoon to catch the Uncle Floyd Show. He was on UHF Channel 68, and the show looked like it was done out of his living room in New Jersey.”
Bowie continued, “All his pals were involved, and it was a hoot. It had that Soupy Sales kind of appeal, and though ostensibly aimed at kids, I knew so many people of my age who just wouldn’t miss it. We would be on the floor it was so funny. Two of the regulars on the show were Oogie and Bones Boy, ridiculous puppets made out of ping-pong balls or some such. They feature in the song. I just loved that show.”
Like much of Bowie’s greatest work, ‘Slip Away’ proved that no source of inspiration was ever too strange or insignificant in his eyes. Where most artists would have dismissed a chaotic local television programme as disposable nostalgia, Bowie found genuine beauty in its oddball charm and transformed it into something deeply melancholic and dreamlike.
In doing so, he once again demonstrated his rare ability to turn forgotten corners of popular culture into timeless art, giving The Uncle Floyd Show an unlikely immortality through one of the most tender moments on Heathen.
Listen to David Bowie’s oddly-inspired classic, ‘Slip Away’, below.
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