Hot Dog! 23 Hot Dog-related Facts

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

1. Americans consume 16 billion hot dogs annually.

2. Americans eat 150,000,000 hot dogs on the 4th of July alone (two billion in the month of July)!

3. Dick Stuart, first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, led the league in errors a record seven years in a row. Dick was once given a standing ovation when he fielded a hot dog wrapper that was blowing across the field.

4. Elvis Presley recorded the song “Hot Dog" for the 1957 movie Loving You.

5. Elvis liked his hot dogs boiled in a pot filled with sauerkraut. Elvis enjoyed munching on plain hot dog buns too- no hot dog, just the buns!

6. Charlie Kazan, age 89, has had hot dogs for dinner every night since he was 11 months old. (He eats his hot dogs on rye bread with the crust torn off.)

7. The “Oscar Meyer Wiener Song" has been recorded by the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, a teen folk band, a string ensemble and a Nashville country-western group.

8. The Vienna Symphony Orchestra once performed the “Oscar Meyer Wiener Song" for a commercial.

9. The average hot dog is consumed in 6.1 bites.

10. Woody Allen was a regular on the TV series Hot Dog during the 1970-71 season.

11. Marlene Dietrich's favorite meal was hot dogs and champagne.

12. Jayne Mansfield was “Miss Hot Dog Ambassador" in 1950.

13. An aide once served Frank Sinatra a hot dog with a bottle of ketchup. Sinatra hated ketchup and threw the bottle at the aide.

14. Franklin Roosevelt once served hot dogs to King George VI of England during his White House visit in 1939.

15. Queen Elizabeth II served hot dogs at a royal banquet for the American Bar Association.

16. Bruce Willis proposed to Demi Moore in front of a hot dog stand.

17. Cary Grant's favorite food was Nathan's Coney Island hot dogs.

18. Marlon Brando would pull up to Pink's Hot Dogs in L.A., order six hot dogs and down them.

(Image credit: Minnaert)

19. Orson Welles holds the all-time hot dog eating record for Pinks Hot Dogs. he once downed 18 hot dogs at one sitting.

20. John Lennon loved Pink's Hot Dogs too and enjoyed going there when he lived in L.A. in the mid-seventies. (John would actually stand in line with the other patrons.)

21. Jerry Lewis loves Pink's chili dogs, but sometimes just asks for a bowl of the chili and eats that.

22. NASA approved hot dogs as a regular food item on Apollo moon flights, Skylab missions and space shuttle flights.

23. Top hot dog consuming cities in America: #1 New York, #2 Los Angeles, and #3 Baltimore-Washington D.C.