You Will Not Believe That CNN Fell For This Hot Dog Hoax

You Will Not Believe That CNN Fell For This Hot Dog Hoax
A video by Johnny Plankton

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03/04/2010 12:06 PM 3972 views

I like hot dogs as much as the next guy, but apparently not as much as:
A) The competitive hot dog eaters below (the enormously fat guy actually lost), or
B) The guy who decides what gets on the "news" at CNN.

Fat guy swallows third place finisher after losing to skinny Asian (on left)

If CNN's execs are wondering why their ratings continue to sink lower than "The Burqa-Clad Housewives of Baghdad," they should look no further than this story they chose to run instead of, say, actual news.

In a wildly successful attempt to drum up publicity for a new museum celebrating the history of Coney Island, officials at the Coney Island History Project concocted a story about a hot dog that had been unearthed at the site of Feltman's Kitchen, where the first hot dogs (as well as heartburn) had been invented.

Encased in ice, the frozen frank supposedly survived for 140 years beneath the restaurant and was on display, with the type of classy presentation usually reserved for the Shroud of Turin or a two-headed duck at the county fair:

Historic hot dog, or frozen garbage? You be the judge!

A close-up (below) reveals that the hot dog looks like something out of a 1970's documentary on syphilis, with the diseased wiener wrapped in medicated gauze and garnished with barbed wire:

Could be a hot dog, could be Ron Jeremy after porn shoot

With only world calamity and major political upheavals to report, one can only imagine the editor in chief at CNN yelling at his underlings, "I don't care what it takes, get me that frozen hot dog story!" Alas, they did what he said, until they were forced to shamefully pull it down after running with the headline: "STRANGE BUT TRUE: 140-Year-Old Fossilized Hot Dog Found on Coney Island!"

At least they posted a correction.

Though it should have read more like this.

Perhaps the story could use a little perspective. Here's a photo of the editor-in-chief at CNN on his way to a Black Tie event: