Cartoons Tuesday, Plus: Larry David vs. Bill Maher

And music from I'm With Her, Robbie Robertson and that haunting "The Last of Us" scene.

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.

Well, we have to start with the (unintentionally) hilarious NY Times headline today:

White House Birthrate Boosters See an Ally in Musk

Next, speaking of funny, Larry David also at the Times, offers a brutal parody of Bill Maher’s account of his surprisingly splendid and humanizing meeting with Trump a couple of weeks back. Except this time it’s Larry spending some time chatting with Hitler back in 1939.

He was wearing a tan suit with a swastika armband and gave me an enthusiastic greeting that caught me off guard. Frankly, it was a warmer greeting than I normally get from my parents, and it was accompanied by a slap on my back. I found the whole thing quite disarming. I joked that I was surprised to see him in a tan suit because if he wore that out, it would be perceived as un-Führer-like. That amused him to no end, and I realized I’d never seen him laugh before. Suddenly he seemed so human. Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I’d seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning.

Although it must be said, venerable cartoonist Rob Rogers did this, one week ago:

Then, back to reality, front page of Wall St. Journal:

It seems that the last music (or so they say) composed by Robbie Robertson was for an upcoming History Channel doc on the great chief, Sitting Bull. He wrote it with his son who say Robbie’s health was already failing, but they completed it. Here is the trailer:

Now on to more music. Last week we presented a couple of songs by Aoife O’Donovan after she appeared (though a bit hazy) singing a couple of tunes in a final sequence in the season premiere of “The Last of Us.” The songs came from one of her old string bands, who reunited last year for some shows. It turns out she also got together with her two colleagues, Sarah Jarosz and Sara Watkins, from another former group, I’m With Her. They will tour and have an album coming out in early May. Here is a cut just released:

And since we mentioned “The Last Us”: if you watched last night’s shocker you probably were struck by the haunting song on the soundtrack at the end, “Through the Valley.” It’s sung by the woman who voiced Ellie in the game version of the story, but was written some time ago by Shawn James, who sings it here

From Tunes to Toons

Steve Brodner on the Kristi Noem purse snatching:

Jean Duquette:

Tjeerd Royaards for Earth Day: