Cartoons Saturday--Plus an Historic Dylan Day

And David Bowie's first TV appearance, 1965, Tim Robbins and The Lumineers

Mar 08, 2025

Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre.” Now watch trailer for acclaimed 2025 film “The Atomic Bowl.” Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. At Blue Sky and Twitter: as @gregmitch. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for FREE. Sustain this newsletter by ordering one of his books.

One could call this another Kennedy assassination, I suppose:

The Colbert show responded to the Trump takeover on Thursday in a cold open this way:

Then there’s this headline today. No worries, move along:

Alarmed by Trump, Poland Must Look at Nuclear Options, Premier Says

As President Trump casts doubt on U.S. alliances, Poland needs to double its military manpower and consider more destructive weapons, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.

Now, thankfully, to music.

On this day in 1965, David Bowie made his TV debut with The Manish Boys on a UK program called “Gadzooks! It's All Happening” when they performed their current single, the Bobby Bland classic, “I Pity The Fool.” Dave—then still known as David Jones—on vocal and sax. Here’s the song and that’s him, of course, toward the left below:

Today also marks the same 60th anniversary for the release of Dylan’s breakthrough electric single, “Subterranean Homesick” which would become his first top 40 hit. The classic and influential “video” of (to quote Bob) Shakespeare in the alley—with Allen Ginsberg and those signs, shot in London—would not emerge until the “Don’t Look Back” doc emerged much later. You’ve seen that 100 times but here is the alt-take mashup (opens acoustic and with sidekick Bobby Neuwirth and producer Tom Wilson off to the side). We are told that Ginsberg and Donovan, with Bob himself, lettered the signs. Whew!