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CLASSIC - Presidents Love Their Ridiculous Pets · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, special announcement at the top of the week.
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Speaker 1: Today we are airing a classic episode. Uh, Noel, Max
0:09
Speaker 1: and I were talking off air. We have a we
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Speaker 1: have a Presidential Pets episode coming out. It's part two.
0:18
Speaker 1: So a while back Nowel, you'll remember we did Presidential
0:22
Speaker 1: Pets Part one and uh, we really listened to it
0:25
Speaker 1: and it's actually it's a lot of fun. It is
0:28
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. And you know, we wouldn't usually
0:29
Speaker 1: do this, but we figured if we're gonna do a
0:31
Speaker 1: part two way way in the future. Um, from the
0:35
Speaker 1: part one that you may or may not have heard already,
0:37
Speaker 1: and we haven't released this one as a class, we
0:39
Speaker 1: thought we'd um, you know, do ourselves a solid. It's
0:42
Speaker 1: our birthday month. Things have been happening. Uh. And this
0:45
Speaker 1: way you get part one followed by part two. So
0:49
Speaker 1: here's part one. Ridiculous History is a production of I
0:53
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Of all the addresses in the fair United
1:21
Speaker 1: States of America, perhaps the most prestigious is six Pennsylvania Avenue.
1:27
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. My name is Ben. Bears and
1:29
Speaker 1: raccoons and alligators and stuffy old white men. Oh my
1:34
Speaker 1: my name is Noel. And this is ridiculous history. And
1:38
Speaker 1: we were just chatting off air with the uh, the
1:41
Speaker 1: third member of our Triumvirts, a super producer, Casey Pegram,
1:47
Speaker 1: about animals, right, about pets, about the government, and of
1:51
Speaker 1: course about history because we've looked at some weird presidential
1:57
Speaker 1: things before. We've mentioned some, um but when you would
2:00
Speaker 1: you get down to the nitty gritty the legoons and peanuts. Oh,
2:06
Speaker 1: those are the same thing, uh, the beans and nuts
2:09
Speaker 1: of the of the situation. Presidents and presidential families or
2:16
Speaker 1: like any other family, they're just like you or I.
2:20
Speaker 1: Of course, yes, yeah, you know, they do people stuff.
2:25
Speaker 1: They wear pants, put them on, you know, one leg
2:28
Speaker 1: at a time, as they say, yeah, they brush their teeth.
2:32
Speaker 1: They might have servants that put their pants on for
2:34
Speaker 1: them in this case, that's that's different and I don't
2:36
Speaker 1: have that right. Or they might have someone brushing their teeth.
2:40
Speaker 1: They might have a machine that's been custom built to
2:42
Speaker 1: put pants on them. But we're not talking about pants
2:45
Speaker 1: machines today, are we been. No? No, we are talking
2:48
Speaker 1: about something that is I would say, at the very
2:50
Speaker 1: least equally fascinating. Yeah, we're talking about pets because you know,
2:54
Speaker 1: in the interest of of appearing as as normal human beings,
2:58
Speaker 1: and you know, and possibly because of anuine love of animals,
3:01
Speaker 1: Presidents often traditionally have pets, although number forty five has
3:08
Speaker 1: a shoot pets and has spoken against pets, saying they
3:12
Speaker 1: were quote low class. But we're not here to talk
3:15
Speaker 1: about that today. We're talking about the legacy of presidential pets,
3:19
Speaker 1: particularly some kind of weird ones. Yes, first off, I
3:24
Speaker 1: am baffled. That's new information to me. I can't believe. Really,
3:27
Speaker 1: no pets. Huh, no pets. Wow, that's kind of unusual
3:31
Speaker 1: historically because the other forty four presidents, the majority of
3:36
Speaker 1: them did have some sort of well they were a
3:39
Speaker 1: family member, did have some sort of animal companion and
3:44
Speaker 1: familiar if you will. Yeah, so familiar if you will.
3:47
Speaker 1: And when we say animal companion, of course, we mean
3:50
Speaker 1: stuff like your typical dog. You know, they might have
3:53
Speaker 1: a pooch, they might have a cat or something. But
3:56
Speaker 1: that's not it, because you see, although the base similarity remains,
4:04
Speaker 1: the fact is that when you hold the highest office
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Speaker 1: in the land, you and your family members get a
4:09
Speaker 1: little more a leeway, you have a little more agency.
4:12
Speaker 1: And so it turns out that there are quite a
4:15
Speaker 1: few exotic pets the presidents have had in the past. Yeah,
4:19
Speaker 1: did you know there's a thing called the Presidential Pet Museum,
4:22
Speaker 1: Then yes, I would love to check that out. But
4:25
Speaker 1: according to them, John Quincy Adams, who was the son
4:28
Speaker 1: of John Adams and also, as it happens, the sixth
4:32
Speaker 1: President of the United States, he was about to say,
4:35
Speaker 1: ruled Coverned from eighteen eighty nine, and legend has it,
4:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe that's not a legend, but uh, allegedly,
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Speaker 1: let's say he had an alligator that he kept in
4:50
Speaker 1: an unfinished room, the east room of what was then
4:54
Speaker 1: called the President's House. That's not very creative. It wasn't
4:57
Speaker 1: until Teddy Roosevelt changed the n and officially to the
5:00
Speaker 1: White House in nineteen one. But this alligator apparently was
5:05
Speaker 1: gifted to Adams by the French military officer and revolutionary
5:13
Speaker 1: hero and uh and a important historical figure in the
5:18
Speaker 1: play Hamilton's Marquis de Lafayette Um, who fought with the
5:23
Speaker 1: US against the British forces during the American Revolution and
5:27
Speaker 1: also lays down some sick bars in Hamilton. So the
5:32
Speaker 1: story goes that he would keep he kept this gator
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Speaker 1: in a bathtub. Yeah, in this unfinished room and what
5:42
Speaker 1: was then called the President's House, and his his presidential
5:45
Speaker 1: prank was to surprise people by having this alligator got you. Oh,
5:51
Speaker 1: there goes your leg. Ha ha. President. That's how he
5:55
Speaker 1: ends every prank. He laughs and mentions he's president. There
5:58
Speaker 1: are some people who would raise plot holes in this, right.
6:04
Speaker 1: So Frank Masati, who is an ecologist and biologist at
6:07
Speaker 1: the University of Florida, says, he points out that if
6:10
Speaker 1: you had a large alligator in a bathtub in today's world,
6:13
Speaker 1: that's the thing. The alligators started off small, and you know,
6:16
Speaker 1: as it matured, it grew larger and larger. Uh. He
6:20
Speaker 1: said that it would be cruelty to animals, but also
6:23
Speaker 1: in that day and age, people didn't think about cruelty
6:26
Speaker 1: to animals near the same way. Here's the thing, there's
6:31
Speaker 1: kind of this cycle of I would say legends or
6:35
Speaker 1: folklore about gators in the White House. Because there's also
6:40
Speaker 1: another story that says, uh, the son of thirty first
6:43
Speaker 1: President Herbert Hoover. A century later, in three his son
6:49
Speaker 1: Alan Henry Hoover also allegedly had two gators. But the
6:55
Speaker 1: problem is there aren't many primary sources. Right, this is
6:58
Speaker 1: sort of lore. We don't even know the names of
7:01
Speaker 1: these three alleged gaiters, right, Yeah, it's true. According to
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Speaker 1: the White House Historical Association's Evan Phifer, the whole thing
7:09
Speaker 1: with Lafayette, it's it is has been passed around, but
7:13
Speaker 1: they can't They haven't placed their hands on the actual
7:17
Speaker 1: origin of this story or, like you said, any kind
7:20
Speaker 1: of real primary documentation that is based, as Phifer says,
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Speaker 1: in reality. Joel Tree of the w h h A says, quote,
7:29
Speaker 1: there's no verifiable documentary evidence of that story. I think
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Speaker 1: it's probably a legend, but it's it's a pretty interesting
7:37
Speaker 1: legend just the same. And that's legend or no, not
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Speaker 1: the only weird exotic pet that traped through the White House, Right,
7:48
Speaker 1: we have phantom gaiters, which is a cool phrase, and
7:51
Speaker 1: I'm so happy that we got a chance to say
7:54
Speaker 1: it on air. I'm gonna just milk that one more time.
7:55
Speaker 1: Phantom gaiters, antom gators. But you are absolutely right, No,
7:59
Speaker 1: they're I've been quite a few strange pets. One thing
8:03
Speaker 1: that probably sticks out to a lot of people when
8:05
Speaker 1: you hear it is Thomas Jefferson, the third President from
8:09
Speaker 1: eighteen o one to eighteen o nine had a pair
8:12
Speaker 1: of grizzly bears. Yeah, we're talking to super producer Casey
8:15
Speaker 1: before the show, and he was reminded of a Paul F.
8:18
Speaker 1: Tompkins bit talking about how wouldn't it be great if
8:21
Speaker 1: we could just keep like something like a bear small forever?
8:25
Speaker 1: And even though it was ravenous and wanted, you just
8:28
Speaker 1: kind of pawt you like a cat attacking your hand. Um,
8:31
Speaker 1: and you know that'd be pretty manageable. So Jefferson got
8:34
Speaker 1: a pair of little grizzly bear cubs. I hope the
8:38
Speaker 1: mom isn't around. That would be a blood bath. But
8:41
Speaker 1: he got those as a gift from an explorer of
8:44
Speaker 1: the American West. Yeah, Captain Zebulon Pike love that name.
8:49
Speaker 1: So names were so much cooler. Our names are okay,
8:52
Speaker 1: but Zebulon, so you should be followed with like the great, right,
8:58
Speaker 1: Zebulon the Great and Terrible. The bears arrived around the
9:03
Speaker 1: same time. Pike sent a letter in October of eighteen
9:06
Speaker 1: o seven explaining he had found the male and female
9:09
Speaker 1: cubs in the southern region of the Continental Divide, so
9:12
Speaker 1: the mother was not around. Um. He recognized Pike that
9:17
Speaker 1: is that the grizzly was a different species of bear
9:20
Speaker 1: from those found in the East, and he said that
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Speaker 1: they are considered by the natives of that country as
9:25
Speaker 1: the most ferocious animals on the continent. And he Jefferson
9:30
Speaker 1: must have been aware of this because he would have
9:32
Speaker 1: heard from Lewis and Clark about encounters with grizzlies, and
9:37
Speaker 1: our buddy Evan Phifer over at the White House Historical
9:39
Speaker 1: Association made a point that these bear cubs were a
9:44
Speaker 1: smash sensation because people had never seen these before. This
9:48
Speaker 1: was not something that was around. They did not have
9:50
Speaker 1: them in zoos in the area. The zoos probably weren't
9:54
Speaker 1: even a thing yet. This was this is very early
9:57
Speaker 1: on in the existence of again the time the President's House,
10:01
Speaker 1: so it was a big deal. People were excited to
10:04
Speaker 1: see it. The bears lived in a little enclosure that
10:07
Speaker 1: was on the lawn um and then eventually they were
10:09
Speaker 1: moved to Philadelphia, right. Yeah, And people assume that because
10:15
Speaker 1: they have been in continual contact with humans as cubs,
10:19
Speaker 1: that they would maybe grow up to be gentle giants
10:23
Speaker 1: and large and calm and more docile. Yeah, and that
10:26
Speaker 1: was not the case. One of them eventually broke out
10:30
Speaker 1: of its cage and terrorized the family of the man
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Speaker 1: who was taking care of them and had to be shot,
10:37
Speaker 1: and then they the other one had to be put
10:39
Speaker 1: down as well, because it turns out that one of
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Speaker 1: our continent's most ferocious apex predators is not the kind
10:47
Speaker 1: of thing that you can just take home and hang
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Speaker 1: out with unless you could miniaturize them. Unless you could
10:53
Speaker 1: miniaturize them. Yes, And speaking of smaller pets, I gotta
10:59
Speaker 1: tell you, man, have you ever seen those those YouTube
11:02
Speaker 1: videos of people who have a raccoon that just hangs
11:05
Speaker 1: out with them? I have. I have a friend whose
11:07
Speaker 1: parents kept several raccoons and kind of a glass enclosure
11:11
Speaker 1: that was sort of built into the wall kind of,
11:14
Speaker 1: and they take them out and they were pretty chill
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Speaker 1: and cuddly and kind of fun play with. I don't
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Speaker 1: remember if I did, but I definitely saw them handling them,
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Speaker 1: and it sort of acts sort of like a combination
11:25
Speaker 1: between a monkey and a cat. That's a good description.
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Speaker 1: And Grace Coolidge, who was the wife of Calvin Coolidge,
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Speaker 1: President number thirty from nineteen to nineteen nine, did the
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Speaker 1: very same thing with a raccoon named Rebecca, Rebecca the raccoon.
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Speaker 1: My heart is melting. Uh. So the weird thing about
11:47
Speaker 1: this raccoon and I don't want you know if you
11:51
Speaker 1: dislike the Coolidge and administration, just understand this was a
11:55
Speaker 1: very different time. Originally, Rebecca did not have a name
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Speaker 1: because she was traveling to the White House to be
12:02
Speaker 1: part of the Thanksgiving menu. I'm sorry. They were going
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Speaker 1: to cook the raccoon and eat her come again, but
12:09
Speaker 1: they fell in love with her, and so they said, oh,
12:12
Speaker 1: we were going to eat you, but now we're gonna
12:15
Speaker 1: name you Becky Thanksgiving miracle. Is that sort of like
12:18
Speaker 1: giving clemency to the turkey? This feels a little bit
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Speaker 1: more organic. Yeah, it feels like she just charmed her
12:26
Speaker 1: way into their heart. And uh. And the weirdest thing
12:30
Speaker 1: about it is that they kind of spoiled her. They
12:33
Speaker 1: had this little gold plated inscribed collar with Rebecca on it,
12:38
Speaker 1: and they had a little cage for outside, and she
12:41
Speaker 1: just hung out until it went rabid and they had
12:44
Speaker 1: to put her down. I made that up. Oh my gosh,
12:47
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you made that. I know, is that
12:48
Speaker 1: last one with the bears was a bummer. We need
12:50
Speaker 1: a little we need. We don't know what happened to
12:53
Speaker 1: Rebecca the raccoon ultimately, but it does seem as though
12:57
Speaker 1: she brought a lot of joy into the lives of
13:00
Speaker 1: of of all that she encountered, um in the in
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Speaker 1: the White House, and thankfully she was not uh consumed
13:06
Speaker 1: at the holiday table. She looks really happy in the pictures. Yeah,
13:10
Speaker 1: yeah she does. And um, Grace Coolidge the dour looking,
13:16
Speaker 1: but she really seems to to enjoy the company of
13:20
Speaker 1: this raccoon. Um. Next we have we're sort of stepping
13:24
Speaker 1: up the chain of Varmont's. I guess you could call
13:27
Speaker 1: him right a badger. There we go a bag of badgers,
13:31
Speaker 1: A bag of badgers. That's a deep cut for fans
13:34
Speaker 1: of the show, just the one this time. And this
13:36
Speaker 1: was one of Theodore Roosevelt's pets, And we gotta go
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Speaker 1: deep with Teddy Roosevelt, President number twenty six from nineteen
13:47
Speaker 1: o nine. So many pets. This man had a menagerie
13:52
Speaker 1: of animals that he brought with him to the White House.
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Speaker 1: And uh one of the famous ones was Josiah the badger,
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Speaker 1: who was off been toted around the White House grounds
14:02
Speaker 1: by young Archie Son. But listen, I'm gonna laundry list
14:08
Speaker 1: these because they're just too charming there. They give me
14:13
Speaker 1: such joy. Josiah never bit faces, really, only he would
14:17
Speaker 1: bite legs sometimes, So I'm just gonna laundry list these.
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Speaker 1: This comes from uh the National Park Service website, and
14:27
Speaker 1: this is a list of the Roosevelt's family pets. They
14:32
Speaker 1: included a small bear named Jonathan Edwards, a lizard named Bill,
14:37
Speaker 1: guinea pigs named Admiral Dewey, Dr Johnson, Bishop Done, Fighting,
14:42
Speaker 1: Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady, Maud the Pig, Posiah the Badger,
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Speaker 1: Eli Yale the blue Macaw, Baron Spreckel the Hen, a
14:50
Speaker 1: one legged rooster, a hyena, a barn owl, Peter the Rabbit,
14:54
Speaker 1: and of course, who could forget Algonquin the pony, oh
14:59
Speaker 1: gon Quinn. What fond memories we have a lot of
15:01
Speaker 1: times frolic at on the law and you and fighting
15:05
Speaker 1: Bob Evans? Is that it fighting Bob Evans? Bob Evans,
15:09
Speaker 1: and uh oh, I really like Baron Spreckel the Hen.
15:15
Speaker 1: These names are fantastic. Yeah, And just speaking of fantastic names,
15:19
Speaker 1: the President's son Archie was so fond of Algonquin that
15:25
Speaker 1: his brothers Kermit and Quentin would bring the pony to
15:29
Speaker 1: his room through the elevator in the in the White House.
15:33
Speaker 1: But Algonquin, apparently according to the National Park Services, was
15:37
Speaker 1: so captivated hypnotized even by his own reflection in the
15:41
Speaker 1: elevator mirror, that it was really hard for him to
15:43
Speaker 1: get out. Algonquin is very into himself, wasn't Teddy Roosevelt
15:55
Speaker 1: kind of like yeah, like a like a naturalist and
15:58
Speaker 1: environmental outdoors, you know, which really holds true. There's even
16:02
Speaker 1: a story, uh from the National Parks that was again
16:04
Speaker 1: where his son Quentin burst into an important meeting the
16:08
Speaker 1: President was holding in the Oval Office to show him
16:11
Speaker 1: four snakes that he had just gotten from a pet store. Uh.
16:15
Speaker 1: And of course immediately all of the dignitaries in the
16:18
Speaker 1: room just registered annoyance with this precocious young lad. But
16:22
Speaker 1: when he plopped the snakes down to the table, they all, um,
16:26
Speaker 1: you know, like getting up on your chair and squealing
16:30
Speaker 1: when you see a mouse or something, that they definitely retreated.
16:33
Speaker 1: One thing we should mention though about Roosevelt is much
16:36
Speaker 1: more than just a casual environmentalist. He used his authority
16:40
Speaker 1: constantly protect wildlife he created the United States Forest Service,
16:44
Speaker 1: which established a hundred and fifty national forest, bird reserves,
16:48
Speaker 1: game reserves, national parks, national monuments, and so on. Is
16:52
Speaker 1: he the one that carried the big stick as a
16:54
Speaker 1: rough rider? Yes, yeah, yeah he he rolled with DMX's crew. Yes,
17:00
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's true. It's uh, you know you And
17:03
Speaker 1: I like to include a couple of absolutely true, incredibly
17:07
Speaker 1: not researched facts, and one of them is that H. D.
17:10
Speaker 1: M X and Uh Teddy Roosevelt communicated across time and space.
17:14
Speaker 1: They came up together. They came up together, but they
17:17
Speaker 1: were no uh, there were no Woodrow Wilson because in
17:20
Speaker 1: a way he had a huge collection of pets, but
17:23
Speaker 1: they were all the same. Yeah. Woodrow Wilson was seemingly
17:27
Speaker 1: a pretty generous president. He sacrificed some of the comforts,
17:32
Speaker 1: maybe even of other presidents to kind of give back
17:34
Speaker 1: to the war effort. He had more of an ascetic
17:37
Speaker 1: life than some president exactly. And and part of this was,
17:41
Speaker 1: I guess, partially to save on costs. Um. He had
17:46
Speaker 1: a flock of sheep that he kept on the White
17:49
Speaker 1: House lawn forty eight to be exact, um, and that
17:53
Speaker 1: their main purpose was to cut the grass, and they
17:57
Speaker 1: were sheared regularly and raised fifty two thousand dollars for
18:03
Speaker 1: the Red Cross during an auction of that wool. And
18:07
Speaker 1: it was really important to Woodrow Wilson and his wife
18:11
Speaker 1: to set a good example, you know, for American families
18:14
Speaker 1: in the show that you had to chip in to
18:17
Speaker 1: help out with the war effort. And I think that's
18:19
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. I think that's also commendable. It reminds me of,
18:23
Speaker 1: you know, some of the other efforts we've seen by
18:25
Speaker 1: administrations of the family members to encourage better nutrition, right
18:30
Speaker 1: or to give to charities and in wartime. One interesting
18:34
Speaker 1: fact about the United Kingdom in wartime, the Queen when
18:39
Speaker 1: she got married had to use the same like ration
18:43
Speaker 1: stamps to to buy the materials for address as everybody else. Uh.
18:48
Speaker 1: And I think it's I think it speaks very highly
18:51
Speaker 1: to the character. And also I was not familiar with
18:54
Speaker 1: the idea of using livestock to mow the lawn, but
18:58
Speaker 1: it makes sense. And you told me about talking about
19:01
Speaker 1: that with Scott right with my buddy Scott Benjamin. It's
19:04
Speaker 1: a true story. Here in Atlanta, you can't actually rent
19:08
Speaker 1: goats for the purpose of lawn maintenance. And I'd like
19:12
Speaker 1: to know if you have an experience renting goats for
19:15
Speaker 1: lawn maintenance or other reasons in your neck of the
19:19
Speaker 1: global woods. Uh. And you know, do you have goats?
19:23
Speaker 1: Do you want to rent us one? We'll just hang
19:25
Speaker 1: out with it in the office or sheep, but not
19:27
Speaker 1: forty eight. We don't have room. Forty eight. Goats are
19:29
Speaker 1: apparently pretty cantankerous. Yeah, yeah, they're definitely um dynamic personalities.
19:36
Speaker 1: Sheep might be a little more sedate. But horses, ponies, right,
19:40
Speaker 1: stallions of all shapes and sizes. We often forget in
19:45
Speaker 1: seventeen that there was a time when the primary transport
19:50
Speaker 1: of the United States was going to be on foot
19:52
Speaker 1: or by horse, right on foot or on hoof, or
19:56
Speaker 1: wheels pulled by hoofs. The White House, once upon a
20:00
Speaker 1: time had a stable large enough for twenty five horses
20:03
Speaker 1: and a living area for the staff the stable staff, right, yeah,
20:08
Speaker 1: and and speaking of pitching in apparently the stables caught
20:11
Speaker 1: on fire at four and Abraham Lincoln himself hoped too
20:16
Speaker 1: and tried to help put out the blaze. Um And
20:19
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, in the early nineteen hundreds, the stables
20:22
Speaker 1: were dismantled, and Zachary Taylor actually um, which I believe
20:27
Speaker 1: he had one of the shortest presidential terms. Um it
20:30
Speaker 1: was sixteen months. I believe he died unexpectedly as the
20:34
Speaker 1: twelfth president. But he he uh, he had himself a
20:38
Speaker 1: war horse ben by the name of Old Whitey. That's
20:42
Speaker 1: appropriate name for presidential horse. I wonder if it started
20:46
Speaker 1: out with a different name or you know, you gotta
20:49
Speaker 1: wonder how the horse felt when it was juvenile to
20:52
Speaker 1: behaved old white Old Whitey, Yeah, Old Whitey. Yeah, Zachary
20:56
Speaker 1: Taylor had Old Whitey. Old Whitey was, as Null said
21:00
Speaker 1: in a war horse, which means a horse specifically trained
21:04
Speaker 1: to function in battle and uh be combat ready, not
21:08
Speaker 1: be distracted or as easily shook by loud noises like
21:12
Speaker 1: cannon fire and such. Old Whitey and the phantom allegators.
21:17
Speaker 1: That's the that's the bad children's book. But it's got
21:21
Speaker 1: so much potential, a lot of legs. Um. But by
21:24
Speaker 1: far to me, the cutest presidential pony belonged to John F.
21:29
Speaker 1: Kennedy's daughter Caroline, and it was named Macaroni. You know,
21:38
Speaker 1: like Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a bony.
21:44
Speaker 1: Do you know the etymology of that? This kind of
21:46
Speaker 1: side note, So, macarroni, at least in mid eighteenth century
21:52
Speaker 1: England was a description of a fashionable dude, like almost
21:58
Speaker 1: a hipster type who uh dressed a little bit foppishly
22:04
Speaker 1: and uh had outlandishly flamboyant speech and affectations like a
22:11
Speaker 1: Liberati type. You know, I feel like that's active. He
22:15
Speaker 1: had those like lace frilly lace things on his wrists
22:19
Speaker 1: and his collars and um, sort of like a French duke. Yeah,
22:24
Speaker 1: and there we go. And it came about because young
22:27
Speaker 1: men of means, of course traveled to Italy and they
22:31
Speaker 1: developed a taste for macaroni the pasta, and it wasn't
22:35
Speaker 1: very famous in England then, so then when they came
22:37
Speaker 1: back they were said to belong to the macaroni club.
22:42
Speaker 1: Here's an example I'm showing you of with the big
22:44
Speaker 1: way total French duke. Yeah, and so of it. Uh.
22:48
Speaker 1: And so when they stick a feather in their cap
22:50
Speaker 1: and call it macaroni, it's like, oh, look, I have
22:52
Speaker 1: a feather in my cap. Now I'm one of these
22:54
Speaker 1: hip people. Which is so weird because for the longest
22:57
Speaker 1: time that song made no sense to me. I I
23:00
Speaker 1: just thought it was like absurdist kind of you know.
23:02
Speaker 1: And yeah, I have derailed us, so not at all.
23:06
Speaker 1: We learned about all kinds of silly stuff on this show,
23:08
Speaker 1: and I love it. I object to the next pet
23:18
Speaker 1: on this list. I'm just gonna say it categorically. I'm
23:21
Speaker 1: not a fan of these animals. Possums not my favorite now.
23:25
Speaker 1: I don't like their beady little pink eyes and the
23:29
Speaker 1: way they glow in the dark, and they have so
23:31
Speaker 1: many teeth, and they have a rat tail and that
23:34
Speaker 1: irritating silent oh at the beginning of their names. What's
23:37
Speaker 1: that about. Some people pronounce it, some people don't pronounce it.
23:40
Speaker 1: It's just bedlam. There's no rhyme or reason to pronouncing
23:44
Speaker 1: the name of this rodent. So yes, possums a divisive
23:49
Speaker 1: more supial if ever there was such, yes, and and
23:52
Speaker 1: and thank you for correcting that Bennet is a marsupial,
23:54
Speaker 1: not a rodent. I still think it has a rat
23:58
Speaker 1: tail anyway. Benjamin Harrison, uh go, Ben's in general. People
24:03
Speaker 1: named Ben twenty three president from eighteen eighty nine to
24:07
Speaker 1: eight three loved animals. This guy and while he was
24:12
Speaker 1: in office, he had not one, but two pet possums.
24:16
Speaker 1: One was named Mr Protection and the other was Mr Reciprocity,
24:20
Speaker 1: which sounds like he's got this whole thing going on. Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: it's it's weird. He doesn't sound like the most fun guy.
24:30
Speaker 1: He doesn't. Uh So. The thing is interesting is that
24:34
Speaker 1: the Harrison family loved Mr Protection, Mr Reciprocity, and apparently
24:39
Speaker 1: they were good uh what we would call optics nowadays
24:42
Speaker 1: for the American public, Like, he can't be all that bad.
24:45
Speaker 1: Look at his possums, look at his trash rats. Yes, sorry,
24:53
Speaker 1: any possum fans out there, but they give me the
24:55
Speaker 1: ski v geevs. They're quite common where we live, they
24:59
Speaker 1: really are. You'll see him scampering across the top of
25:01
Speaker 1: a fence in the night, going to Applebee's, stinking up
25:07
Speaker 1: the joint. But yes, out of out of all the
25:11
Speaker 1: strange presidential pets, those are the only ones that I'm
25:13
Speaker 1: kind of on the fence about. And this opened up
25:17
Speaker 1: a a strange culture that I was unaware of. I
25:20
Speaker 1: don't know if you knew a possum hole, if you will,
25:22
Speaker 1: a possum hole, if you will. Yes, let's let's assume
25:26
Speaker 1: that we do, and let's hope you do as well.
25:29
Speaker 1: It turns out that lots of world leaders have had
25:31
Speaker 1: lots of weird pets. Benito Mussolini had a lion bank,
25:38
Speaker 1: and we talked about Pablo Escar and his hippos right
25:41
Speaker 1: the drafts and other assorted exotic, large, unwieldy beasts. I
25:48
Speaker 1: believe it was North Korean dictator Kim Jong Ill, not
25:56
Speaker 1: his son Kim John. Yeah, it was Kim Jong Il
25:58
Speaker 1: had this huge love of dogs, and later on his
26:04
Speaker 1: son opened a dog zoo pavilion. So it's a zoo,
26:08
Speaker 1: but just dogs, you know, would be a good rap name.
26:10
Speaker 1: What's that Kim Jong Ill with two else? Two else?
26:15
Speaker 1: How is that not a thing? Yet? That's a great idea. Probably,
26:18
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. Uh. Fidel Castro had a cow
26:22
Speaker 1: named ubre Blanca and Idio, I mean did have crocodiles
26:26
Speaker 1: for real, but he fed them corpses of his enemies.
26:31
Speaker 1: That's that's this's a functional pet right there. Yeah, it's
26:34
Speaker 1: like those giant pigs in that silence of the Lamb's
26:37
Speaker 1: movie Annibal or whatever the neath the bodies, yeah, or
26:40
Speaker 1: in Deadwood too. Woo Woo and his pigs, you know,
26:44
Speaker 1: I mean that that animal had a job that was
26:47
Speaker 1: They're just like it wasn't just a charming thing like
26:50
Speaker 1: Rebecca the raccoon exactly. But what about the what about
26:54
Speaker 1: the other non exotic pet Snell? Yeah, it seems as
26:56
Speaker 1: the time progressed, presidential pets have got progressively more vanilla.
27:03
Speaker 1: The most popular and recognizable presidential buddy is is the
27:09
Speaker 1: the dog, the loyal friend of man and woman, the nine. Yeah,
27:15
Speaker 1: I mean dogs and people we go, we go way back,
27:18
Speaker 1: and there's pretty compelling evidence, uh, that humans have impacted
27:24
Speaker 1: the evolution of dogs. Yeah. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was
27:28
Speaker 1: the thirty second president from nineteen thirty three to nineteen
27:32
Speaker 1: had a pretty famous um companion by the name of Fala,
27:37
Speaker 1: was a Scottish terrier and that famously attended his funeral.
27:42
Speaker 1: Um is now remembered at the FDR Museum in Washington.
27:50
Speaker 1: Oh Man, that's sad. Yeah, you know what it makes
27:53
Speaker 1: me think of a Pixar movie, Well, a Disney property
27:57
Speaker 1: for sure, though. Um. You know, Carrie Fisher to Sleep
28:01
Speaker 1: played Princess Leiah and and did a great job in
28:04
Speaker 1: her last role in the Last Jedi, which I really
28:07
Speaker 1: enjoyed quite a lot. Um. She had a loving dog
28:12
Speaker 1: that she took with her everywhere. Whenever she's on the
28:14
Speaker 1: press circuit, she always had this little dog. And apparently, uh,
28:18
Speaker 1: the dog attended a premiere or whenever it sees her
28:22
Speaker 1: on TV, it kind of gets gets bummed out. And
28:25
Speaker 1: I think the dog actually had a cameo in the
28:28
Speaker 1: last Jedi. Really, well, that's that's amazing. That's a that's
28:32
Speaker 1: a more heartwarming note there, I think so too. Moving
28:35
Speaker 1: on back to presidents, we have Warren G. Harding, President
28:38
Speaker 1: number twenty nine nine. UM. His dog's name was Laddie Boy,
28:45
Speaker 1: and he gifted Laddie Boy a hand carved chair to
28:49
Speaker 1: sit alongside him during meetings. It's good to be king,
28:53
Speaker 1: you know. And when it comes to the type of
28:55
Speaker 1: animals that are present in the White House, by far
28:58
Speaker 1: As Lill said, they're going to be dogs. But I'm
29:01
Speaker 1: I'm amazed with these names, you know, like this goat
29:05
Speaker 1: named Old Whiskers. Taft had a cow named Pauline, last
29:09
Speaker 1: cow to live at the White House so far. And
29:11
Speaker 1: it seems that almost well, it seems that the vast
29:14
Speaker 1: majority of presidents at least had a dog, doesn't it.
29:18
Speaker 1: It does seem that way. And there's a great quote
29:20
Speaker 1: that kind of sums all this up from Evan Piffer
29:22
Speaker 1: from the White House Historical Association. UM, that sort of
29:26
Speaker 1: gets to the heart of this with why this is
29:29
Speaker 1: such a thing except for with our current president. UM,
29:33
Speaker 1: pets humanize the White House and the presidency. Just like
29:37
Speaker 1: so many Americans have pets, so do the presidents. It's
29:41
Speaker 1: a link between the life of a president and the
29:43
Speaker 1: life of millions of Americans. And I think that is
29:47
Speaker 1: spot on and that is a good time for us
29:51
Speaker 1: to end today because this is making me miss my
29:54
Speaker 1: pets a little bit, you know, I want to go
29:56
Speaker 1: take them out and hang out with him in going
29:59
Speaker 1: walks and adventures. It reminds me. Also, folks, we'd like
30:03
Speaker 1: to hear about what kind of exotic animal you would
30:07
Speaker 1: keep as a pet no holds barred, you know, if
30:10
Speaker 1: this is a wishes or horses type situation where the
30:13
Speaker 1: animal would have all the you know, all the freedom
30:16
Speaker 1: to move around that it wanted to and it wouldn't
30:19
Speaker 1: be stuck in any position or cruelty. But if you
30:22
Speaker 1: could like be friends with any any exotic animal, what
30:28
Speaker 1: would it be why I would want a baby hippopotamus
30:31
Speaker 1: that just stayed a baby forever. See, I would want
30:34
Speaker 1: a tiger or a bear that that could talk to me,
30:39
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we would hang out and we
30:41
Speaker 1: would go I don't know, we would go adventuring skiing. Maybe, yeah,
30:47
Speaker 1: we get some tiger trail walking bear skis. We probably
30:50
Speaker 1: start with just trail walking. Yeah, we'll have to ease
30:52
Speaker 1: into like laser tag and stuff. You go. That sounds
30:55
Speaker 1: like a friendship for the ages, Ben. Thanks Van, and
30:58
Speaker 1: we want to hear your thoughts. So as you can tell,
31:01
Speaker 1: we're very much fans of presidential trivia. And I think
31:05
Speaker 1: the quote by Evan there nailed it the motivation for
31:09
Speaker 1: these strange and unusual pets. Uh. We very much hope
31:13
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode and we hope that you will
31:16
Speaker 1: check us out, send us a review wherever you get
31:19
Speaker 1: your podcasts. And you can also find Nolan I on Instagram, Facebook,
31:24
Speaker 1: and that's the one's popular. It doesn't know how to
31:30
Speaker 1: make money, apparently that's true. And and most importantly, hope
31:35
Speaker 1: you're having a happy new Year. I feel like we
31:37
Speaker 1: missed the boat on saying that happy New Year everyone. Yeah,
31:41
Speaker 1: and I just want to mention to um. This show
31:43
Speaker 1: is produced and edited by Casey Pegram and our theme
31:47
Speaker 1: music is composed by the lovely Alex williams Um and
31:52
Speaker 1: we record here in our studios at pomp City Market
31:56
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, Georgia. And we also want to thank our
31:59
Speaker 1: fellow researcher John Donovan, who wrote the article on the
32:04
Speaker 1: history of strange Animals in the White House for house
32:07
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. And most importantly, we want to thank you
32:10
Speaker 1: for listening and hope that you'll join us next time
32:12
Speaker 1: for another episode of Ridiculous History. For more podcasts for
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Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.