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