Katy Perry Transforms Into Elderly Burlesque Dancer for New Video

“Have you ever heard that song ‘The Lady Is a Tramp’? That might be about me.” So says Katy Perry, made up to look like an elderly Las Vegas entertainer, in the teaser clip for her new video, “Birthday.”

The label has already dropped cash on a high-production-value cake-and-icing-filled lyrics video for “Birthday,” but there’s more to come. For this new clip, in addition to the aging dancer, Katy dresses up as an MC named “Yosef Shulem” who does a Jewish schtick; a Craigslist clown; an animal trainer named Ace; and “Princess Mandee,” who is social-media-obsessed and has severe vocal fry. These are, supposedly, the “world’s worst birthday party entertainers.” Perry says this new video — which drops Thursday — will be her “most insane yet.” We’ve seen her try out comedy before — she did a nerdy ’80s teen in the “Last Friday Night (TGIF)” video and did that Elmo T-shirt boob bounce thing on SNL — but taking a page from Eddie Murphy and transforming into a bunch of characters is new. These days, with Vine stars and viral clips, you have to do something attention-grabbing in your music video to get the people talking. And frankly, the ladies — Beyoncé, Rihanna, Gaga, Miley and Katy — are the only ones who keep raising the bar. Even if you don’t like any of their videos, at least they’re trying to push the envelope — without them, we’re stuck with folks like Justin Bieber, who just keeps making the same boring video over and over.