At a conference I attended earlier this week, they served corn dogs at a snack break. An attendee from Australia was momentarily confused, and said he didn’t know what a corn dog was. But when he saw them, his eyes lit up and he revealed that Australians call a hot dog with a cornmeal batter a “Dagwood Dog.” And yes, it’s a reference to Blondie’s husband.
While researching this tidbit at Wikipedia, I discovered that Australians also call corn dogs “Pluto Pups,” and that our Canadian friends call them Pogos. Is there a tradition we don’t know about in the U.S. that these things should have names that pay tribute to great cartoon characters?
(When I was a kid in Portland, by the way, we called corn dogs Pronto Pups–Wikipedia says that that’s the brand name of a prominent make of corn dog.)