The 11 Most Unintentionally Poignant Drunk Celebrity Videos

Drunken celebrities are the very lifeblood of Internet video. YouTube would be a dark, lonely place without them.

In CRACKED's never-ending mission to bring a sense of class and dignity to the Web, we look beneath the surface to present the life lessons we can learn when famous people drink themselves into a stupor.

The Clip:
Orson Welles films a commercial for Champagne, and, always the model of integrity, has insisted on sampling several bottles beforehand.

Highlights:
In the actress' quick glance into the camera at 0:21, you can see her clearly dreading what is about to come. Then, a minute into the video, Orson has nearly dozed off and wakes up to the "action" call from the director with a startled, "Mwaahaaa the French ..."

What Makes It Poignant:
At 25, he wrote and directed Citizen Cane Kane, still considered by countless snobs the best movie ever made. After that, there's apparently not a lot left to do with your life other than pit obesity and alcoholism against each other in a race to stop your heart.

Stop and smell the roses, guys. This is what happens when you peak too early.

The Clip:
Kiefer Sutherland proves he is a pirate by boarding what he believes to be an enemy ship.

Highlights:
Kiefer's response to the assertion that he is a pirate is easily the best possible response he could have given. We tried to think of a better one, but all we could come up with was "That explains all the scurvy and gay sex," which doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

What Makes It Poignant:
This is actually a clip from I Trust You to Kill Me, a documentary following Kiefer's band on tour. The poignancy becomes apparent when you learn that he's not the frontman for this band, or even the double bassist. No, he is the road manager.

Look, Hollywood, we need to believe in Jack Bauer. We need to believe that if a dirty bomb is about to explode in L.A., there's a Jack Bauer out there who can stop it by killing 135 people in a single frantic day. It does not help us to see Jack Bauer as a 40-year-old frat boy, trying desperately to cling to the rock-band fantasy of his youth and flinging himself into Christmas decorations to prove what a wild, rocking guy he is.

The Clip:
Sporting a white tank top and trucker hat to obscure, and yet ironically highlight, her identity, world-famous hillbilly Britney Spears waxes poetic to then-lover Federline about her hopes, regrets and the movie Spawn.

Highlights:
When she complains that her touring schedule has caused her to miss out on "things, and ... things" it's hard not to picture a reality TV producer off camera madly scribbling on oversized cue cards.

Warning: Britney's bizarre, jerky body movements starting at about 2 minutes might make you instinctively fling your hands up to protect your face.

What Makes It Poignant:
This clip is moving and disconcerting. The moving part comes when you view it as a portrait of someone who has about six layers of smoked glass between her and reality. She understands vaguely that her sheltered, shallow existence is causing her to miss out on normal life, but she can only articulate this condition via monosyllabic outbursts, haunting questions about the possibility of time travel and the occasional lonely, wailing belch.

As for the disconcerting part, how fucking weird is it to see a clip where Kevin Federline strikes you as the informed, level-headed one in the room? Well, maybe until the last 4 seconds, anyway.

The Clip:
A pre-Presidential George W. Bush gets his drink on and chats with the least-investigative journalist, ever.

Highlights:
You slowly realize that while inebriated, the man can only think of four adjectives and one phrase to describe both his dear friends and outlook on life. The manic repetition of the phrases "slim, hates to smoke, marathon runner" and "only in America" leaves you with the frightening impression that he either doesn't know these people and crashed the wedding just for the open bar, or literally just streams words from his brain directly to his mouth when drunk.

What Makes It Poignant:
Watching that goofball up there, there is no way in hell he had even the slightest desire to be president. We bet if you could travel back in time and tell 1992 George W. Bush that someday the lives of thousands would hang on his decisions, he'd have been just as terrified as we are now.

Admit it: If this guy was your local bartender, or neighbor, or UPS delivery man--any position where he couldn't do any real damage--it'd be easy to like him. Look at him toss back the drink the second he steps away from the interviewer. That guy would have been happy in some sales job, one where he's always on the road and flirting with the ladies at every stop. But, no, his name was George Bush and as a result, he was destined to become the closest thing to King of the world.

Only in America.

The Clip:
Anna Nicole Smith presents some sort of music award, as well as her immense shame and fathomless vapidity, to the viewers at home.

Highlights:
Surprisingly, neither Anna's drunkenness nor her making-a-break-for-freedom boobs are the highlight of this clip. After all, we've seen plenty of both before. What really makes the clip is the listless, phoned-in sympathy of the anchorwomen at the end, who just finished airing a humiliating video of a fellow human being.

What Makes It Poignant:
Not just that she's dead, or that her son accidentally killed himself, or that her lover/lawyer used her more thoroughly than the last square of toilet paper in a public restroom, but rather that no one, not even us, can muster any sort of real sympathy for the woman.

She staggered through life, married a rich old guy, yelled at everyone around her, and became one of the world's greatest living sideshows of all time in the process, complete with clown makeup. It's not funny like a Judd Apatow movie; it's funny like a three-hour montage of guys getting hit in the nuts.

Continue the schadenfreude on Page 2!
Find out which other celebs can't handle their fame OR their booze.