In a story whose punchline I take personally, it’s with sad news we learn the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is out of commission.
Well, that is one of the six such sausage-shaped vehicles that patrol the highways and byways of our nation. On a treacherous highway outside Harrisburg, Pa., the vehicle in a bun skidded and crashed into a pole, breaking the windshield and causing massive front-end damage. There is no report as to when the four-wheeled hot dog will again hit the streets.
Kraft posted the sad news on its Facebook page which has led to—as you can imagine—a number of double entendres akin to the comments related to Anthony Weiner’s infamous shenanigans.
Twitter came alive with an array of jokes and puns.
An accident no one relishes: Wienermobile vs. pole http://t.co/HQLXiLILoF
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) February 16, 2015
No indication driver was hot dogging –An accident no one relishes: Wienermobile vs. pole: http://t.co/zbjZBSdQSy via @STLtoday
— Amanda St. Amand (@mandystlpd) February 16, 2015
https://twitter.com/kmattio/status/567055467193458688
Oh, I'd love to be an Oscar Mayer Weiner…just not today! The Wienermobile was in an accident in Enola. No injuries. pic.twitter.com/Qc4kmGwZux
— abc27 News (@abc27News) February 15, 2015
It was a little more than a year ago when Kraft Foods realized it had underutilized its iconic Wienermobile, and began to increase its presence on social media. Kraft staged a Wienermobile Road Rally which used Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to promote and track the race in which fans could follow their favorite team as it criss-crossed the nation.
In case you cared, the Wienermobile was first introduced in 1936 by Oscar Mayer’s nephew. The drivers of these vehicles are called hotdoggers, with thousands of college seniors applying each year for the highly relished position. According to the Wienermobile Wikipedia entry, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) once drove the Wienermobile when he worked for the summer as a Kraft sales rep.
A check of my byline will reveal I have been the target of a lifetime of Wienermobile jokes, growing up in an era when my surname was more about hot dogs than it was the male anatomy. My daughter, on the other hand, made every attempt to keep her last name under wraps.
Screengrab via Gear Patrol/YouTube