Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 19:24:37 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: Hot Dogs (WRONG AGAIN!!); Big Banana HOT DOGS No, I couldn't escape the summer without this. No way. There it was today on AOL. An Associated Press story from Donna de la Cruz, "America's Hot Dogs Immortalized." Two New Jersey filmmakers are doing a documentary called FOOTLONG. No one, of course, contacted me. The AP--and you know they check their facts and double check 'em--story continues in part: (...) The dog itself was first introduced to America at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, though it went by a different name. That changed in 1906, so the story goes, when cartoonist Tad Dorgan saw vendors at a baseball game selling the slim sausages and calling out "Get your red hot dachsund sandwiches!" Dorgan, sketching a wiener with mustard, couldn't spell dachsund. Hot dog it became. (...) Yes, it truly has been summer now. WHERE'S MY REMAINING HALF GALLON OF "DEATH BY CHOCOLATE"? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- BIG BANANA I'm in the process of trying to give my "Big Apple" papers away and put them on a web site, to be linked to the NY Convention & Visitors Bureau, Museum of New York, New York Public Library, et al. This donation process has taken a mere five years, and the web pages are still just as bad as the above. A small part of the "Big Apple" web page would feature "the Big Banana," so I might as well update the first Random House HDAS, which has: BIG BANANA 1. the top prize or recognition; the focus of interest or attention. (1980 citation--ed.) 2. BIG SHOT. (1984 citation--ed.) In 1875, a comic musical sketch called THE BIG BANANA was written and composed by Alfred B. Sedgwick. It begins: HANS: Vell. Dot is so goot as noding. Ya! I been in Ney Yorik dis nine six days--and I gets no vorks! nor nodings! and everyvere I goss, I sees brinted up in big red leddirs, "Big Banana." Ter deyful mit der big banana. (...) DUET HANS: I'm off to the Big Banana! I'm bound for the Big Banana! I'll sail for the Big Banana! Right straight upon this line. I'll work like any nigger And when my pile gets bigger I'll cut another figure And make ein Schurne schein. _Refrain._ Oh! Then I'll be so happy So happy! So happy! Oh! then I'll be so happy When that big fortune's mine. (...) ANNA: Now, really, sir, I canna'--- In no sort--shape--or manner Don't talk about Havana I'm free--and so decline. The Big Banana was Havana. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- VIDEORAZZI, again A few blocks away from where I live is the British consulate. There are about as many news trucks there as there are people.