Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the short Stuff, Josh, Chuck, Jerry Dave.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 2: I could not, for the life of me find out
Speaker 2: where we have talked about Uncle Sam before, and it
Speaker 2: had to be one of our videos. But I couldn't
Speaker 2: find it. I checked a million times over and it
Speaker 2: was not a short stuff. I couldn't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2: But I know for sure. The only reason I know
Speaker 2: this is because we've talked about it.
Speaker 1: It had to be our Fourth of July special that
Speaker 1: we did with the Onion and The Daily Show.
Speaker 2: That keeps coming back to hanas. Huh. Yeah, because we
Speaker 2: had another one the other day that was I think
Speaker 2: in there. Yeah, I bet you it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it had to be right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but who cares. Let's tell the real story Josh
Speaker 2: and Chuck style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to talk about Uncle Sam. If you
Speaker 1: don't know who Uncle Sam is, then by god, you're
Speaker 1: not much of an American.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, how would you describe Uncle Sam? A cartoon,
Speaker 2: a drawing of a man become synonymous and a symbol
Speaker 2: of the United States of America A logo almost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you've ever seen somebody wearing a red, white
Speaker 1: and blue stove top hat, or a top hat with
Speaker 1: stars on it, that's an Uncle Sam hat.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You ever see somebody wearing an American flag suit, they're
Speaker 1: basically doing their best Uncle Sam. You ever see anybody
Speaker 1: with a beard, they're pretending their Uncle Sam.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you've ever seen a picture of all those
Speaker 2: things put together and a guy pointing at you on
Speaker 2: a poster saying I want you to do whatever, join
Speaker 2: the army or give money for war bonds, that's Uncle Sam.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So our conception of Uncle Sam, the one you
Speaker 1: just described, is thanks to a great illustrator who was
Speaker 1: working around the time America entered the First World War.
Speaker 1: Same one of the great names of all time, James
Speaker 1: Montgomery Flag with Jeez love that guy's name. But he
Speaker 1: was an amazing illustrator and painter, and he painted that
Speaker 1: iconic image of Uncle Sam looking out from the poster,
Speaker 1: pointing at you the viewer, that I want you. I
Speaker 1: remember the Simpsons where it was like the immigration episode,
Speaker 1: Homer put up a poster. He asked that Pooh if
Speaker 1: he could put up a poster in his convenience store,
Speaker 1: and it was Uncle Sam saying I want you out.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that on h No, that's funny though.
Speaker 1: And Pooh took the took the occasion to talk about
Speaker 1: how much he loved America, and Homer goes, wow, you
Speaker 1: know what a poo I'm really gonna miss you.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's that's great. You should say it as a
Speaker 2: poo though.
Speaker 1: Right, Nold.
Speaker 2: Not the funny thing about this poster that came around
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventeen, and we'll get this is not the
Speaker 2: first incarnation of Uncle Sam, but it's the most amous
Speaker 2: that we know now. But James Montgomery flag supposedly was
Speaker 2: inspired by a British Minister of War, Lord Kitchener, but
Speaker 2: he used his own handsome face as the actual model.
Speaker 2: And if you look up a picture of James Montgomery flag,
Speaker 2: you're in you know, he put wrinkles, he was younger
Speaker 2: in a gray beard. But if you picture that guy
Speaker 2: with that gray beard and hair, it's Uncle.
Speaker 1: Sam, yeah for sure. And Neat Yeah, it was like
Speaker 1: there was a Lord Kitchener poster was essentially the exact
Speaker 1: same thing of drawing of Lord Kitchener looking out from
Speaker 1: the poster pointing at you, saying he wants you to
Speaker 1: sign up to help. And both of these posters were
Speaker 1: propaganda posters. From World War One, that the one that
Speaker 1: flag designed of Uncle Sam had been printed four million times,
Speaker 1: four million copies of a poster that fair of Fawcet
Speaker 1: poster hadn't even been printed four million times. That's how
Speaker 1: that's how successful this poster was, right, And this was
Speaker 1: all just before the war was over, So in about
Speaker 1: years it was printed four million times. The thing is,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's people out there that like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the origin of Uncle Sam, and friend, you'd be wrong.
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam had been around for at least about one
Speaker 1: hundred years by the time James Montgomery Flagg made his
Speaker 1: iconic poster, and I say, we take a break, we
Speaker 1: come back and we talk about that very issue. If
Speaker 1: you want to know, then you're in luck. Just listen
Speaker 1: to Suffus stuffus.
Speaker 2: No, all right, So the origins of Uncle Sam. There
Speaker 2: was a story that many people believe for a long
Speaker 2: time that it came about during the War of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 2: and that it was named such. The characters name such
Speaker 2: because of Uncle Sam Wilson, who was a meatpacker from
Speaker 2: New York who supplied beef, these big barrels of beef
Speaker 2: to the army for the War of eighteen twelve, they
Speaker 2: had us stamped on them, and they called those barrels
Speaker 2: of beef Uncle Sam's. That was published and republished many,
Speaker 2: many times, starting in the New York Gazette in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 2: leading to a congressional resolution in nineteen sixty one recognizing
Speaker 2: Sam Wilson. But that is not the origins of Uncle Sam, right.
Speaker 1: No, I mean a lot of people think Sam Wilson
Speaker 1: was the guy who started it all. I mean that
Speaker 1: story everything comes together so close, like he really was
Speaker 1: a real person, he really was working in the War
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve. The barrels of meat really were stamped us.
Speaker 1: But some really dedicated historians won by the name of
Speaker 1: Don Hickey from Wayne State College, another one named Christopher Philippo.
Speaker 1: They both got to the bottom of this and found
Speaker 1: that very very shortly before the Uncle Sam Wilson's story
Speaker 1: could have happened, people were already using Uncle Sam as
Speaker 1: a way of depicting or talking about the United States
Speaker 1: of America.
Speaker 2: As a whole exactly. They found some actual proof proof
Speaker 2: and from an eighteen ten diary from a sixteen year
Speaker 2: old sailor on the USS Wasp where he read he
Speaker 2: was seasick and not feeling so good, and he wrote,
Speaker 2: I swear that Uncle Sam as they call him, would
Speaker 2: certainly forever have lost the services of at least one sailor.
Speaker 2: And that was in eighteen ten, So it was if
Speaker 2: he was using it in a diary entry in eighteen ten,
Speaker 2: that means it was what I would consider probably fairly
Speaker 2: common usage at that point. Right.
Speaker 1: That guy almost certainly didn't make that up in that
Speaker 1: diary entry. Yeah, So Yeah. The thing is is, even
Speaker 1: though Sam Wilson wasn't the actual direct inspiration for Uncle Sam,
Speaker 1: he certainly helped kind of popularize it. I think he
Speaker 1: probably his association with it in the story that came
Speaker 1: from that probably took it from what may have just
Speaker 1: been relegated to navy lingo that would have become archaic
Speaker 1: to now it has a story and it's spread from there.
Speaker 1: So even though he didn't inspire it, it's still like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam Wilson definitely had a huge role in the
Speaker 1: creation of the idea of Uncle Sam.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. In fact, there was a minister I believe
Speaker 2: it Sam the real Sam Wilson's funeral that there was.
Speaker 2: He wrote a letter that said that he had often
Speaker 2: talked with Wilson quote about the circumstances which led to
Speaker 2: the singular transfer of his popular name to the United States.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like what that's saying is that Sam
Speaker 2: Wilson even knew that, yes.
Speaker 1: For sure, and went along with it, right. He's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, and he'd look furtively around. So there was
Speaker 1: another character that I hadn't heard of, a guy named
Speaker 1: Brother Jonathan.
Speaker 2: Did you heard of him? I had not. I didn't think.
Speaker 2: But then I also think that we may have brought
Speaker 2: this up because those pictures looked very familiar.
Speaker 1: Okay, they did not to me. But there was a
Speaker 1: character named Brother Jonathan who was who predated Uncle Sam
Speaker 1: by a couple of decades. Brother Jonathan was the original
Speaker 1: personification of America around the time of the Revolution. He
Speaker 1: dressed like a revolutionary cat, with a tri cornered hat
Speaker 1: and those tails and the coat with tails and everything.
Speaker 1: But he was much more rambunctious, much younger. I saw
Speaker 1: editorial cartoon of him forcibly pouring a bunch of French
Speaker 1: brandy down the throat of John Bull, the character who
Speaker 1: personified Great Britain and still does, And he was around
Speaker 1: for decades, and eventually he kind of handed the baton
Speaker 1: off to Uncle Sam, which is really interesting because it
Speaker 1: happened as a time when America was starting to mature.
Speaker 1: The character personifying America went from a younger, rambunctious, brandy
Speaker 1: forcing character to a much more like older stern, kind
Speaker 1: of down to earth pointer guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think brother Jonathan went away by the eighteen
Speaker 2: six like there was some overlap there, went away in
Speaker 2: the eighteen sixties, and then Thomas Nass And that's a
Speaker 2: pretty big name in cartooning back then, right.
Speaker 1: For sure, he kind of gave us the conception of
Speaker 1: Santa Claus, the pre Coca Cola Sam.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, I knew, I knew that name
Speaker 2: from somewhere. But Nas is the one who sort of
Speaker 2: came up with the more modern image. And then Flag
Speaker 2: of course made the iconic one that we still use
Speaker 2: that same exact sort of character.
Speaker 1: Right, And so let's see what else, Chuck, Well.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the ways, you know, if you've
Speaker 2: still never seen much Uncle Sam besides recruitment posters and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, or the old propaganda posters that Flag
Speaker 2: was tasked with drawing, is in political cartoons you'll still
Speaker 2: see to this day, like a political cartoon that will
Speaker 2: use Uncle Sam in a variety of ways, whether it's
Speaker 2: a beleaguered Uncle Sam in a food line or a
Speaker 2: or a war mongering Uncle Sam. Like, you know, anyway
Speaker 2: they can. It's not just like kind of one use.
Speaker 2: Whenever he's in a political cartoon, they can. He can
Speaker 2: adapt and change to suit whatever message you're trying to deliver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever comment you're making on America, you just make
Speaker 1: Uncle Sam do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's also a nineteen ninety six slasher film called Uncle Sam,
Speaker 1: and I was about it, and it's that The horror
Speaker 1: fan blog was like, it's not a must sy, but
Speaker 1: you could see it right essentially is what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Some movie exist, But Robert Forrester's in it. He plays
Speaker 1: like a corrupt congressman who dies. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2: Year?
Speaker 1: Was it ninety six?
Speaker 2: Okay, so that was pre Jackie Brown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're around that time.
Speaker 2: I would think it wouldn't be post Jackie Brown.
Speaker 1: No, did he blow up after Jackie Brown?
Speaker 2: Not blue up, but was definitely relevant enough to probably
Speaker 2: not be in the Uncle Sam slasher movie.
Speaker 1: He landed a role on Breaking Bad season five.
Speaker 2: At least, right, Oh was he in that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the guy. Sorry for spoilers everybody, if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen Breaking Bad yet, but he was the
Speaker 1: guy who brought Oh I can't remember the main character's name,
Speaker 1: but Malcolm in the Middle's dad supplies when he was
Speaker 1: Walter White, Yes, when he was hiding out in New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: Vermont or whatever. He was the guy. He was just
Speaker 1: basically waiting for him to die so he could take
Speaker 1: his money.
Speaker 2: Here's your things that I'm gonna deliver to your house,
Speaker 2: and now if you could just give me your money.
Speaker 2: That's my best impression of him.
Speaker 1: That was great. I thought it was Robert Forster speaking
Speaker 1: just now.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Jackie Brown was in ninety seven,
Speaker 2: so kind of right around that time. Yeah, for my money,
Speaker 2: the most underrated Tarantino film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe Tarantino saw him in Slasher and was like,
Speaker 1: that's my guy.
Speaker 2: You never know.
Speaker 1: That was a good movie. I don't know if his
Speaker 1: most underrated, Yeah, maybe maybe I could see that. Sure,
Speaker 1: it was a good one.
Speaker 2: He's got a lot of overrated movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a few under his belt for sure.
Speaker 1: But he's also got some of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 2: Agreed, He's all over the map.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm really sad to hear that he's planning
Speaker 1: on making his last movie, although apparently he scuttled the
Speaker 1: project that was his last movie because people had like
Speaker 1: spies had infiltrated it, and he got pretty far into it,
Speaker 1: was like, no, I'm making something else for my last movie.
Speaker 2: Then, huh you know that goes Soderberg was supposed to
Speaker 2: retire to then he did like forty more things.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well that's good, that's hopeful. So obviously
Speaker 1: we started talking about Quentin Tarantino and the Uncle Sam
Speaker 1: Short Stuff, which means short Stuff is out.
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