The Dick Cavett Show (2005)

In The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bowie played an alien withering from the probing and prodding of mere humans. He plays a similar role in a fascinatingly awkward chat with Cavett, captured in The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons. It reveals how much like aliens all rockers were in the late '60s and early '70s, in rare instances when they got actual ''couch time,'' goosing parents but delighting kids otherwise reliant on Creemfor insight into these mysterious creatures. Cavett really wanted to talk with them; he's respectful and informed, while never pretending to be anything but an effete East Coast wit. Not everyone's up to talking back: Sly Stone is so out of it that he makes Farrah on Letterman look like William F. Buckley on Firing Line. But even when minds don't meet, performances soar, like Joni Mitchell's a cappella ''Fiddle and the Drum'' and Bowie's ''Young Americans'' soul shtick. EXTRAS Fresh Cavett recollections; footage of a 1972 backstage Stones visit.

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