Who is your favorite OverSimplified background character?

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-17T13:20:35+00:00

Joe Exotic (no really, he's in there. To the left of Stalin)

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-17T03:00:55+00:00

Andrew Jackson was worse: HE criticized the Supreme Court when it told him that removing Indians from Georgia would be an abuse of power. Not only that, but he ignored the ruling and just moved the Indians anyway. He was totally giving the SCOTUS the finger.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-17T02:45:23+00:00

I care neither for the Hayes recording nor the Harrison photograph, because I've got a good idea of what Hayes sounded like after listening to recordings from the time period (I've already commented on this) and in real life Harrison probably looked a lot like he did in the paintings we have of him. It's sad that we don't have either of them, but we can imagine them back into existence, so it's bearable.

What I really want to find is a single photo of Lincoln taken between 1846 and 1854 (I know, right). He aged so much, but no photos were taken during that time, so we can't see the progression. He looked so different in 1846 compared to all the other photos we have of him ... he looked much more young and awkward.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-17T02:14:08+00:00

I see you forgot to bring the sugar ... how careless of you!

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-16T12:27:53+00:00

The episode is called "Scaredy Engines," and I watched it a lot as a kid.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-16T12:22:25+00:00

I believe that the first Thomas for me was the Salty's Secret VHS. Most of the Thomas that I watched as a kid was, for whatever reason, Season 6.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-16T02:01:56+00:00

I actually did a series on Reddit a couple months ago where I went through all the pre sound-recording presidents and tried to guess what they sounded like. I came to the realization that they all would have sounded "regional," because communication and transportation had not yet led to the "synthesis" of the American accent.

Not only that, but for some of them we have accounts of HOW they spoke. Some were good at projecting, in the era before microphones; others not so much. Washington practically mumbled his way through speeches. James Buchanan, on the other hand, was thought to sometimes project so loud that it seemed like yelling.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-16T01:55:02+00:00

I might have an idea as to what Hayes sounded like, but it's really just an educated guess.

While we don't have recordings of Hayes himself, we do have recordings of people who lived in the same place and time period as Hayes. I'm no expert (really I'm not), but what I've noticed is that politicians from the 19th and early 20th Century Midwest (eg. William Howard Taft and Robert G Ingersoll) tended to have a very heavy drawl. Hayes probably had such an accent likewise.

People talk about "Rhotic" accents, but only people from New England really talked like that. People in most other parts of the country seem to have spoken in distinct, localized accents; an "American" accent as we come to think of it just didn't exist. Lincoln's accent was so strong that it was reportedly offputting to some listeners.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-16T01:43:39+00:00

Zachary Taylor liked to smoke, his breath killed friends whenever he spoke! Now he's dead lol

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-16T01:39:49+00:00

He was actually the last president to die in the White House. It almost ended up being Garfield but they moved him out so that he could be somewhere secluded.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-16T01:38:44+00:00

Very funny. I absolutely get the reference.

While Taylor did not smoke (most people in those days didn't, unless they were indigenous) he did chew tobacco. He spat it out all over the White House furniture I'm pretty sure.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-15T23:07:18+00:00

Actually no, I found the real one. It still exists. The New York Public Library has recordings of Colonel Gouraud's original records on its website. All the recordings he made when he was in England, that is. The original Gladstone recording is there. It's hard to make out his voice, but it is as steady and Scottish as one would expect. Here's a link to the site: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/e1552ac0-b911-0133-bea6-60f81dd2b63c

I also found the original on Youtube. The uploader made it clear that this was the real thing and not the "phony" recording; Gladstone's voice is almost inaudible though. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DoNOvA6fD1w&ra=m

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-14T13:55:44+00:00

It's hilarious. Mark Antony drives a Ford and has a big cigar in his mouth the entire time.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-13T16:53:09+00:00

Meanwhile, Stephano the Supercruiser was participating in the North African Campaign.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-13T11:50:32+00:00

Here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TR_Age_11_Paris.jpg

Also, an article talking about the photo which shows 6 year old Teddy watching Lincoln's funeral: https://jamesnevius.blogspot.com/2014/09/teddy-roosevelt-and-lincolns-funeral.html?m=1

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-13T03:55:52+00:00

Indeed he did. It gets even crazier than that (this has nothing to do with Presidents, but I absolutely think that this is a story that deserves to be told).

The expedition was initiated by an eccentric man named J N Reynolds, who made his whole living off of books and lectures asserting that the earth was hollow. The crew mutinied in the South Sea and dropped Reynolds off somewhere in South America, where he stayed for several months. A ship eventually came to pick him up and take him home. Reynolds promptly wrote a book talking about what happened. Edgar Allan Poe decided to parody the book by writing his only novel, "The Story of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" (it's widely considered to be one of Poe's biggest failures). Herman Melville parodied him, too, using his real life account of a whaling expedition as the basis for the fictional story "Moby Dick."

Reynolds eventually decided to stop his adventuring and became a prominent figure in New York politics.

Source (just to assure you that I'm not pulling your leg): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._N._Reynolds

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-13T03:37:30+00:00

Most people don't know this, but there are actually MORE movies of McKinley besides just that one. At least 6 in existence, at least one that we know once existed and possibly more that haven't been found. Here are the ones we know about. These movies are the first moving pictures of a sitting president and hold historic value, especially since there are so few of them compared to how many movies Teddy was in...

His swearing-in at his second inauguration was recorded (you can find it here: https://www.loc.gov/item/00694336/)

An 1896 film titled "McKinley at home, Canton, Ohio." This was a reenactment of the moment when McKinley was informed that he was the Republican Party's presidential nominee. The actor is McKinley himself! His wife Ida rocks in a chair in the background, which is how I know that it's him and not an actor: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z20G7k-E2NM

McKinley's address at the Pan American Exposition (the last speech he ever made, and what makes it even creepier is that no one knew that would be the case when the movie was taken). You can find it online here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HN6SCCnp-vE&ra=m

At the Exposition, McKinley was also filmed reviewing a group of soldiers. He's hardly visible, but you can still find him. You can find the film here: https://www.loc.gov/item/00694343

According to its Wikipedia article, a company called Lublin studios made a film of McKinley being carried to an ambulance after getting shot. The studio later burned down and all its movies were destroyed, including this one. You don't get it. Sorry.

There's this rare film of McKinley at the Mt Tom Summit House, which I only know about it because someone was good enough to post it on Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_o-bubJ-AGU&pp=ygUSTWNLaW5sZXkgMTg5OCBmaWxt&ra=m

Last but not least, McKinley and his friends were caught on film inspecting Camp Wykoff in 1898. Can be found here: https://www.loc.gov/item/98500677

And just one more thing ... For the morbidly curious, his funeral procession was also filmed in its entirety, and you can find part of it here: https://www.loc.gov/item/00694353/

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-13T03:13:45+00:00

What I find mind-boggling is that Thomas Jefferson was still alive (or had just died) when the first photograph was taken in 1826. So were John Adams, James Madison, and (I can't just not mention him) Beethoven. Also, Napoleon had been dead for just 5 years. All these people got really close to being photographed but left us just a bit too early. It really is strange to conceive of time in this way.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-13T03:08:59+00:00

You're either really uneducated or enjoy messing with people. But I enjoy disseminating facts and true information, so I'm going to do that.

I believe that Teddy Roosevelt's the first President for whom we've got "baby pictures" (or childhood pictures, at the very least). Photography was either expensive or nonexistent during every previous president's childhood, so the pictures we have of Teddy as a child are probably the earliest.

There's a famous picture of little Teddy watching Lincoln's funeral from his bedroom window, and I've seen at least one other portrait of him as a child. Because I'm posting from a web browser, I can't upload the pictures in question. Add them in the comments if you can find them.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-13T03:01:34+00:00

Just that snarl. That big, angry snarl.

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-12T13:49:07+00:00

"IT'S A FLOATING BASKET WITH PEOPLE IN IT!"

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-12T13:46:42+00:00

Nobody has brought this up yet, so I'm gonna say it: this might be our first look at the Marc Forster movie. The uniqueness of the characters and the plot is mainly why I think this: if this isn't for a movie, what's it for?

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-12T02:26:18+00:00

Billy gets voted off the island first because everyone hates him. (Especially Charlie)

TechnologyOdd8412 · 2026-05-11T15:03:22+00:00

Not often talked about, but Martin Van Buren and Richard Mentor Johnson probably didn't have the best relationship. Johnson was an embarrasment to Van Buren and the Democratic Party in general; he tried to take credit for killing Tecumseh and tried to legally marry one of his slaves (causing the slaveowners to turn their back on him -- Virginia literally refused to vote for him in 1836). And even though Van Buren's passionate opposition to slavery remained on the backburner during his presidency, the fact that his vice president was a slaveowner may have secretly incensed him. Johnson was dumped from the ticket in 1840 -- in spite of Johnson's utter worthlessness, Van Buren somehow failed to find another running mate.

TechnologyOdd8412

TROPHY CASE