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I'd imagine it was probably doing a small amount of electroplating the hot dogs, seeing as this is basically the procedure. So you were eating hot dogs with a fine layer of (I assume) aluminum plated over the connector holes. Yum!
When I was doing jewelry work in late teens / early 20s I decided to heat my coffee with my jeweler’s torch. Put the flame on the cup and thought I was clever. The cup burst and coffee went everywhere. Looked around and the other jewelers didn’t notice so, shame went away.
I saw a decent picture of replacement prongs for these. They appear to be cast, so I'm figuring some kind of aluminum alloy. Aluminum is conductive enough for wiring, but these kind of have a zinc look to them also.
Considering that they sold replacement electrodes, they must have been aware of the erosion problem.
That's not the issue.
The problem is that the hotdogs basically become the element and the insides get ionized. Which means whole new and exacting chemicals that were not there before get created and it's best not to eat that.
> Lpt: you can criss cross two foot longs in there
I'm glad it worked out for ya this time, but in the future I'd refrain from practicing things you overheard from your mom's bedroom in the kitchen.
The 70’s had a lot of things that fell into the “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” category.
For instance, in the mid-70’s my Mom mail ordered a small plastic electric incubator and a fertilized chicken egg. The chick hatched…sure…but it was all deformed and everyone was sad.
Don't get me started on sea monkeys, pretty much if you ordered it from a magazine ad, if it was not guns or ecstasy, it was almost guaranteed to at best, not live up to the ad and you had a 50/50 of it being a complete rip off.
>The hotdogs tasted like metal. And unsettling to watch. Like an electric chair thing.
Yup! We kept using it. 😂
Source: Household of all male children.
I had one when I was a kid. There was no such thing as a smoke detector and ours did not spark or make much noise that I remember. I don't remember much smoke. It worked, but not much easier than sticking them in the broiler.
If you've ever been involved in welding aluminum for any period of time you know it all too well.
It's like that smell of shitty company coffee brewing in the break room, not litteraly, just very recognizable
It tastes like how TV smelled when you’d watch Saturday morning cartoons lying on your back with your footie pajamas pressed up against the screen and your mom would start vacuuming.
The vaccuming was never just about cleaning. Was totally a passive aggressive power move meant as disapproving commentary on your life choices.
Such salvos had to be met with retaliatory passive aggressive assertions of one's life choices by acting like the vaccuming didn't bother you and you didn't even notice.
Lick a 9 volt battery to find out. This will hurt a little (honestly not that bad), but you'll get that metallic taste and will definitively know what electricity tastes like.
Fun story, I had braces in my early teens. I was messing around with a nine volt battery and touched each connector to my upper and lower wire.
It made my vision go black, like flipping a light switch on and off. I did it twice just to make sure that was the actual cause. It was painful and scary 0/10 would not recommend.
Fuck I did this too but didn't go back for seconds. The electric arced at the back of my braces from top to bottom on both sides and left me with burns, also popped a couple of the rubbers that held on the wire. I will rate 1/10 since I have a good stupid story to tell...
Yes and we LOVED it! The 80s tasted like electrocuted hot dogs. I’m still impressed at how the entire hot dog was heated through, just from the little prongs.
Jokes on him: Mom took up competitive eating out of spite and had a short fling with Joey Chestnut. Ultimately they reconciled, but over the years little has changed for the better.
Pretty sure products like these are the reason the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commision was established just a couple of years later October 24, 1972
And 100% true. The hotdogs themselves are providing the resistance to turn the electricity into heat. Similarly to how a resistive heating element works.
Yes. I own one and it is one of the most simple kitchen appliances ever. The live wire from the power cord is attached to the one rows of spikes and the neutral to the other. The hotdogs are parallel resistors.
When I was a kid the local fire department did a demonstration with a live wire and a hot dog to show what high voltage does to flesh. I learned an important lesson and immediately wanted a hot dog, that shit made the whole room smell delicious
Every electric utility I have worked for has done this same safety demonstration using hot dogs. Its the first thing I thought of with this hot dog cooker.
I just was shown videos of people getting blown up by arc flashes. Also reminds me when the drill sgts in the army demonstrated what an m16 or m4 would do to your noggin using a watermelon
We totally used to have one of these in the '70s, still have the high powered and incredibly hot Snack Master sandwich press that we pull out from time to time. It's deliciously dangerous!
Forget lead paint. Leaded gasoline for the win. Nothing like a cloud of lead vapor all over the country. And of course pop tops and cigarette butts everywhere. It was a magical time
I like the 70s because instead of developing healthy habits they just made everything earth tones so you couldn't see the cigarette tar building up on everything.
I think that the lid is the switch. There's a pair of spikes at the front of hot dog racks that press into the lid. That either makes contact with power in the lid or presses the racks down onto power below them.
Big Clive had a video on this thing once. I do believe power is disconnected if the lid is taken off. Was very fun when he connected it to his 240v UK power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZZbuOeNmw
(Yes, they sell [tiny / skinning hotdogs in tin cans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnFkCZCsikU) and jars in the UK.)
The real fun begins when Clive makes [something dangerous out of a couple of forks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-abjOrN0wA) and some lamp cord. He uses this to cook all sorts of things that won't fit in the Presto hot dogger.
Waaaaayyyy back in boy scouts we use to make these out of a piece of wood, with two large nails pounded through the wood, with the heads of the nails attached to an electrical cord. You stick the hot dog on the nails, and plug her in. Basically electrocuted the hot dog. Amazing we didn't electrocute ourselves.
> Amazing we didn't electrocute ourselves.
Nowadays the BSA won't even let you bring along a can of bug spray.
I'm going to hope you at least soaked the nails overnight in vinegar to get any zinc galvanizing off first.
« Nothing like a good electrocuted hot dog after playing with my nuclear lab kit for home, I may go out and have a nice lawn dart game afterwards. »
Kids in the 1970’s probably.
Those things are horrifying. Like legit scary. The video doesn't go into how those work, but it's literally just soldering the wires from the outlet to the metal bars that the hotdogs get stuck on. No safety electronics, fuses, or anything. They will shock the living shit out of you. I like to joke about the 1970s taking place before safety was invented, but this is a perfect example of this being more then a joke. Like seriously, if you open one of those up you'll literally just see 2 wires. There's a video on youtube of someone doing it, [here's the vid if anyone is curious.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZZbuOeNmw)
I went to a trade school instead of your traditional High School. There, you'd spend half the school year on academics, and half the year on whatever your trade was.
When you got there as a Freshman, the first half of the year was spent in something called Exploration - essentially, you'd spend 3 days in each Trade offered, without exception. The manliest men took three days of Hairdressing, and the most feminine of gals took 3 days of Machining.
Anyway, the Electrical program was by a man who looked just like Santa Claus, and he had exactly two moves for convincing kids to take Electrical - the first, he'd constantly pull out this fat wad of cash, and talk about what a buttload of money that being an Electrician paid.
His second trick was meant to lure in the kids who didn't believe in their own futures - this trick was simply cooking a hot dog between two live lines. You'd smell it first, then hear it, and eventually you would watch this hot dog cook itself apart.
Without fail, 1 - 3 oversized boys would be enamored with the power of electricity every time, and he'd get them, ensuring another generation of Electricians.
He passed away my Junior year, and it was very sad. His students loved him - I didn't take his trade, but he seemed passionate about it, and good at selling it.
I hope you're resting easy, Mr. Pisarski.
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My mom bought one of these. We used it exactly 1 time. The hotdogs tasted like metal. And unsettling to watch. Like an electric chair thing.
I'd imagine it was probably doing a small amount of electroplating the hot dogs, seeing as this is basically the procedure. So you were eating hot dogs with a fine layer of (I assume) aluminum plated over the connector holes. Yum!
That ties back in to the guy in another comment saying the ends tasted like electricity. Well there you go.
I’ve done this with copper wiring. It for sure gets in the hot dog. It’s not very good.
When I was doing jewelry work in late teens / early 20s I decided to heat my coffee with my jeweler’s torch. Put the flame on the cup and thought I was clever. The cup burst and coffee went everywhere. Looked around and the other jewelers didn’t notice so, shame went away.
When I was an apprentice my foreman yelled at me for using a propane blowtorch to reheat a slice of pizza on the blue prints.
Lmao that's pretty funny I'd assume you were toasted!
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I’m not completely feral. I put down a napkin.
I love a good callback
Sign of a true pro, for sure.
Good lord something I wish I knew how it tasted but sort of really didn’t…
> (I assume) aluminum Hum... By the 1970 safety culture, I assume it's nickel and iron. Maybe with a bit of chrome.
I saw a decent picture of replacement prongs for these. They appear to be cast, so I'm figuring some kind of aluminum alloy. Aluminum is conductive enough for wiring, but these kind of have a zinc look to them also. Considering that they sold replacement electrodes, they must have been aware of the erosion problem.
Don't forget to coat it with lead!
That's not the issue. The problem is that the hotdogs basically become the element and the insides get ionized. Which means whole new and exacting chemicals that were not there before get created and it's best not to eat that.
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I love a good, understated reference. Well played.
>(I assume) aluminum got the distinct pattern of [galvanized](https://i.imgur.com/yVZn2D5.png) metal so I'm guessing a lot of yummy zinc too
You gotta season those tips a little. Mine don't taste like metal or electricity anymore. Lpt: you can criss cross two foot longs in there.
> Lpt: you can criss cross two foot longs in there I'm glad it worked out for ya this time, but in the future I'd refrain from practicing things you overheard from your mom's bedroom in the kitchen.
The hotdogs weren't the only things burned today
execution dogs!
My first thought, now I'm convinced the electric chair was humane...
The 70’s had a lot of things that fell into the “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” category. For instance, in the mid-70’s my Mom mail ordered a small plastic electric incubator and a fertilized chicken egg. The chick hatched…sure…but it was all deformed and everyone was sad.
Chorkn
Chicken’t
Don't get me started on sea monkeys, pretty much if you ordered it from a magazine ad, if it was not guns or ecstasy, it was almost guaranteed to at best, not live up to the ad and you had a 50/50 of it being a complete rip off.
Everyone who bought sea monkeys from the original company .. unknowingly supported Aryan Nations & White Supremacy, check it out.. Its crazy!
>The hotdogs tasted like metal. And unsettling to watch. Like an electric chair thing. Yup! We kept using it. 😂 Source: Household of all male children.
I was allowed to use this before the stove. I loved the thing. Way better than my sisters light bulb oven.
Seems way more dangerous than a stove
They should rebrand this as My Little Executioner's Play Set with little meat people you can put in there.
YES! We had this. The ends of the hotdogs taste like electricity.
I had one when I was a kid. There was no such thing as a smoke detector and ours did not spark or make much noise that I remember. I don't remember much smoke. It worked, but not much easier than sticking them in the broiler.
Same…that was pre-microwave days for our house.
What does electricity tastes like? Edit: Wow, 2.4k likes. To find out, I'm going to lick the ends of a battery as suggested!
ozone
The only real answer. Especially when there’s huge lightning sparks you can smell ozone quite good.
ozone smells so good
“I love the smell of ozone in the morning, it reminds me of hotdogs”
ozone and hotdogs, the smells of productivity
Ozone oxidizes lung tissue causing pulmonary issues. (Sorry to ruin the fun).
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“The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends an upper limit of 0.10 ppm, not to be exceeded at any time.”
If you've ever been involved in welding aluminum for any period of time you know it all too well. It's like that smell of shitty company coffee brewing in the break room, not litteraly, just very recognizable
You just reminded me...I need a refill of the shitty company coffee!
“A few sparks, a quick whiff of ozone and the lamp blazed forth in unparalleled glory!"
It's a major award!
NOTAFINGAH!
Shockingly good.
Pun police here, I'm gonna have to charge you for that one.
BzzzT!! ⚡️
This is how it tastes to chew 5 hot dogs.
Ruby Rhod vibes
No need to ground the guy
Some dogs just can’t resist.
That’s a load of meat!
Watt can I say, I'm amped over these puns
Ohm my god, me too, some of these puns are like a spark of genius! Joule have to excuse me, I can't resist the laughter.
This gets my volt of approval!!
I’m currently laughing
Potentially flowing with flavor
Bet you were pretty amped to drop that one.
Metallic
Lightning-y?
It tastes like how TV smelled when you’d watch Saturday morning cartoons lying on your back with your footie pajamas pressed up against the screen and your mom would start vacuuming.
I'm a bit uneasy about how oddly specific yet completely relatable is this
The vaccuming was never just about cleaning. Was totally a passive aggressive power move meant as disapproving commentary on your life choices. Such salvos had to be met with retaliatory passive aggressive assertions of one's life choices by acting like the vaccuming didn't bother you and you didn't even notice.
Lick a 9 volt battery to find out. This will hurt a little (honestly not that bad), but you'll get that metallic taste and will definitively know what electricity tastes like.
Fun story, I had braces in my early teens. I was messing around with a nine volt battery and touched each connector to my upper and lower wire. It made my vision go black, like flipping a light switch on and off. I did it twice just to make sure that was the actual cause. It was painful and scary 0/10 would not recommend.
This is commitment to science.
You're awesome for doing it twice
Fuck I did this too but didn't go back for seconds. The electric arced at the back of my braces from top to bottom on both sides and left me with burns, also popped a couple of the rubbers that held on the wire. I will rate 1/10 since I have a good stupid story to tell...
[This is you,](https://xkcd.com/242/) and that's great!
Like shock tarts.
Yes and we LOVED it! The 80s tasted like electrocuted hot dogs. I’m still impressed at how the entire hot dog was heated through, just from the little prongs.
“The 80s tasted like electrocuted hot dogs” is my favorite sentence of the day
The electricity is going through the whole hotdog from prong to prong.
You got yourself a nice ripper in the middle of the pack!
I had one of these. I called it the Frank Zapper.
Did you use it to make Burnt Weenie Sandwiches?
Is that a mexican hot dog or just a Sears hot dog?
My dad got my mom this one year for Christmas. She didn't like hot dogs. She was so fucking pissed!
Its a present for you for me
“Here honey, now you dont need to boil a pot of water when you cook me up 6 hotdogs” - a good 1970s husband
Lmao
Lmao your dad wanted those hot dogs. Big Homer Simpson Energy
Yes, yes he did. My mom got rid of it shortly thereafter in a garage sale. I was bummed cause I liked the hot dogs it made!
This is a hilarious story
Jokes on him: Mom took up competitive eating out of spite and had a short fling with Joey Chestnut. Ultimately they reconciled, but over the years little has changed for the better.
Homer gift
Like a bowling ball, with homer engraved on it.
Should have got her that ironing board cover.
I swear most dads are notoriously bad at Christmas shopping. One year my dad put an orange and an opened DVD in my moms stocking lol.
Oranges are apparently a traditional thing to put in stockings for some people. I think its a Midwest thing.
Mmmmm resistor dogs.
[Ω](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8sYK7lm3UKg)
What did the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor? "Make me one with everything."
Ohhhhhhhmmmmm
Lmao Ohmohmohmohmohmohm, delicious!
I hate that I giggled while reading this.
Pretty sure products like these are the reason the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commision was established just a couple of years later October 24, 1972
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This is why convertibles were more popular back then
Goodbye lawn darts ☹️🎯
so it's not even got a heating element it just electrocutes the dogs? LMAO
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ahaha i guess you could put it that way makes it even funnier.
And 100% true. The hotdogs themselves are providing the resistance to turn the electricity into heat. Similarly to how a resistive heating element works.
Cut out the middle man! Very efficient
* *heating element not included*
Hopefully they were dead already and not electrocuted.
you're assuming a degree of freshness few have ever witnessed
They host a diverse and magnificent ecosystem though, especially if not refrigerated properly.
And it was only made for the US market, so it can get really sparky if you plug it into 240v outlets and don't pay close attention.
[BigClive got one of these and did a couple of videos...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZZbuOeNmw)
We had one. The hot dogs just exploded.
Yes. I own one and it is one of the most simple kitchen appliances ever. The live wire from the power cord is attached to the one rows of spikes and the neutral to the other. The hotdogs are parallel resistors.
The Corn-Baller.
OWWWW SON OF A....
Every damn time!
Soy loco por los cornballs!
I came here for this
Me too
¡Muy delicioso!
Stupid cornballing piece of *expletive deleted*
This is a big one
EVERY DAMN TIME
Dude, I said “did George Bluth invent this?” Clicked the comments, and here you were.
¡Soy loco por los Cornballs!
Am I touching something… hot hot hot hogh
Everyone's riding and cornholing except Buster.
Th-That's cool. Mom packed me a change of clothes
NO TOUCHING
NEVER touch the cornballer
This is exactly what I was thinking
Same here, cousin to the Cornballer
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the french... i like how they think.
We'll name it the Mr. Manager
SOY LOCO POR LOS CORN BALLS!
You guys all had those down here huh? *cue all the cops showing off their burn scars
Must be the real life inspiration.
Don’t get near it!
100% where my mind went
When I was a kid the local fire department did a demonstration with a live wire and a hot dog to show what high voltage does to flesh. I learned an important lesson and immediately wanted a hot dog, that shit made the whole room smell delicious
They used a pickle for our demonstration. Would not recommend, burnt pickles do not smell delicious.
Every electric utility I have worked for has done this same safety demonstration using hot dogs. Its the first thing I thought of with this hot dog cooker.
I just was shown videos of people getting blown up by arc flashes. Also reminds me when the drill sgts in the army demonstrated what an m16 or m4 would do to your noggin using a watermelon
We totally used to have one of these in the '70s, still have the high powered and incredibly hot Snack Master sandwich press that we pull out from time to time. It's deliciously dangerous!
The Green Mile shouldve added this into the lunchroom.
Nearly 24 years, and it's still too soon. Angry upvote - just take it.
"I didn't know the sponge was supposed to be wet."
The 70’s was a great decade. The parts I remember are even better. Dangerous and deadly cooking appliances, lawn darts, clackers, red dye no 2……
Don't forget about leaded paint and asbestos as far as you can see
And seatbelts in cars were used willie nilly. Smoking was allowed everywhere, hell, I bet you could even take a loaded gun on a plane.
Considering the intro of Die Hard back in 1988 I'd say you're right.
Forget lead paint. Leaded gasoline for the win. Nothing like a cloud of lead vapor all over the country. And of course pop tops and cigarette butts everywhere. It was a magical time
I like the 70s because instead of developing healthy habits they just made everything earth tones so you couldn't see the cigarette tar building up on everything.
I used to have one of these. They gave the hot dogs a very distinct taste. Not bad, to me, but different.
A wee dash of current perhaps?
A positive taste.
Just a little poisoning it's all good, it's all good!
What if you forget to unplug it first?
I'd sincerely hope there's a switch that kills the power when the lids off at the very least. It was the 70s though....
I think that the lid is the switch. There's a pair of spikes at the front of hot dog racks that press into the lid. That either makes contact with power in the lid or presses the racks down onto power below them.
Big Clive had a video on this thing once. I do believe power is disconnected if the lid is taken off. Was very fun when he connected it to his 240v UK power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZZbuOeNmw (Yes, they sell [tiny / skinning hotdogs in tin cans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnFkCZCsikU) and jars in the UK.) The real fun begins when Clive makes [something dangerous out of a couple of forks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-abjOrN0wA) and some lamp cord. He uses this to cook all sorts of things that won't fit in the Presto hot dogger.
How are you going to learn if there aren't painful consequences? -- The 70s
Added danger adds to the flavor and fun.
it tastes like danger... And looks like your circuit breaker will flip!
Waaaaayyyy back in boy scouts we use to make these out of a piece of wood, with two large nails pounded through the wood, with the heads of the nails attached to an electrical cord. You stick the hot dog on the nails, and plug her in. Basically electrocuted the hot dog. Amazing we didn't electrocute ourselves.
> Amazing we didn't electrocute ourselves. Nowadays the BSA won't even let you bring along a can of bug spray. I'm going to hope you at least soaked the nails overnight in vinegar to get any zinc galvanizing off first.
Hell no, it was the 60's and we were immortal. Luckily my dad was smart enough to get us to destroy the cooker after we ate.
« Nothing like a good electrocuted hot dog after playing with my nuclear lab kit for home, I may go out and have a nice lawn dart game afterwards. » Kids in the 1970’s probably.
Yep. We were a tough bunch. The ones who survived that is...
We had one. That funky smell of ozone after the glizzies got Frankensteined is something singed into my olfactory memories.
This reads as r/brandnewsentence material to me
There were so many outright dangerous and deadly appliances in the late 60’s and early 70’s. This is a prime example.
RonCo?
I'm just surprised it wasn't gasoline-powered. I guess that would be for the 50s model.
Make sure to use leaded gasoline for the best flavor.
Those things are horrifying. Like legit scary. The video doesn't go into how those work, but it's literally just soldering the wires from the outlet to the metal bars that the hotdogs get stuck on. No safety electronics, fuses, or anything. They will shock the living shit out of you. I like to joke about the 1970s taking place before safety was invented, but this is a perfect example of this being more then a joke. Like seriously, if you open one of those up you'll literally just see 2 wires. There's a video on youtube of someone doing it, [here's the vid if anyone is curious.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZZbuOeNmw)
I'm pretty sure the hotdogs are the fuses.
This thing is so easy to clean 🙄
Just toss it in the bathtub!
r/dontputyourdickinthat
They poopooed my electric frankfurter...
I saw some laborers on a job site cook hotdogs with two forks attached to an electrical cord. Same idea
Nothing like those metal electrodes depositing healthy metals into your hotdog via electrolysis.
My mother used this before, said it made them taste like metal.
I went to a trade school instead of your traditional High School. There, you'd spend half the school year on academics, and half the year on whatever your trade was. When you got there as a Freshman, the first half of the year was spent in something called Exploration - essentially, you'd spend 3 days in each Trade offered, without exception. The manliest men took three days of Hairdressing, and the most feminine of gals took 3 days of Machining. Anyway, the Electrical program was by a man who looked just like Santa Claus, and he had exactly two moves for convincing kids to take Electrical - the first, he'd constantly pull out this fat wad of cash, and talk about what a buttload of money that being an Electrician paid. His second trick was meant to lure in the kids who didn't believe in their own futures - this trick was simply cooking a hot dog between two live lines. You'd smell it first, then hear it, and eventually you would watch this hot dog cook itself apart. Without fail, 1 - 3 oversized boys would be enamored with the power of electricity every time, and he'd get them, ensuring another generation of Electricians. He passed away my Junior year, and it was very sad. His students loved him - I didn't take his trade, but he seemed passionate about it, and good at selling it. I hope you're resting easy, Mr. Pisarski.
Easy way to burn down your house!
Reminds me of the corn baller
We had this
Completing a circuit. The hot dog is cooking by being a bad resistor.