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David Bowie was rescued from the “most glorious outtake in history” on the set of Labyrinth
We nearly had a very different version of Magic Dance, if it wasn't for a difficult sound system on the set of Labyrinth
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Labyrinth remains one of the most beloved movies of the 80s, largely because of the remarkable performance of David Bowie as well as the excellent puppetry on display. And both those things collide beautifully in the Magic Dance performance. However, it could have been even more amazing if the crew had managed to pull off a hilarious prank on David Bowie. However, a tricky sound system robbed us all of the greatest outtake in history.
During a recent interview to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Labyrinth, Karen Prell, one of the puppeteers on the film, shared the story of the outtake that could have been. “When we were getting ready to shoot Magic Dance with David [Bowie] and all the goblins, we decided: we’re gonna play a joke. Someone had a cassette tape with a copy of David’s The Laughing Gnome song on it. When they started filming, instead of playing Magic Dance, we wanted to play The Laughing Gnome.”
Apparently, goblins struggle with technology, which stopped the prank from coming together. “We were trying to get the cassette player to hook into the sound system to play over the speakers, but we couldn’t get it to work. It would have been the most glorious outtake in history.”
The frustrating thing is that we’re certain that David Bowie would have happily played along. Running around, dancing with puppets as he lip- synced to one of his songs. He would have made the Labyrinth outtake that never happened something remarkable to watch.
In the U.S., Labyrinth is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
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