Al Jazeera Frames

Hot Dog

An animated rat tells us the humble history of the hot dog.

Filmmakers: Diego Maccione and Adam Gill

The term ”hot dog” is credited to Tad Dorgan, a sports cartoonist who was covering a Yankee’s baseball game in New York. Vendors were selling hot dachshund sausages in rolls at the stadium, yelling “Get your dachshund sausages while they’re red hot”. He drew an image of a Frankfurter as a dog, to depict the scene, but he was not sure how to spell dachshund, so he called it a hot dog – and the name stuck.

An animated rat tells us the humble history of the hot dog and streetfood in New York.