CNN Duped by 140-Year-Old Hot Dog

Relic stunt was in tradition of 'Coney Island ballyhoo,' historians say
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 26, 2010 9:08 AM CST
CNN Duped by 140-Year-Old Hot Dog
In this Sept. 3, 2007 file photo, Astroland enjoys a busy Labor Day weekend in Coney Island in New York.   (AP Photo)

CNN happily ran a story recently on a 140-year-old hot dog and bun discovered intact, encased in ice, during demolition of the restaurant where the first hot dog was supposedly made. But the news network apparently forgetting that not everything is as it seems on Coney Island. The “1st Hot Dog” was a hoax, and the yucksters behind the stunt are unapologetic, seeing as it was a good deed to publicize an exhibition of artifacts from the actual history of Feltman’s Kitchen.

“The recent discovery by an amateur archaeologist,” a spokesman for the project tells the New York Post, “was a publicity stunt in the grand tradition of Coney Island ballyhoo.” She dedicated the act of subterfuge to legendary Coney PR man Milton Berger, who once “got a man to sue a barber claiming he had ruined his toupee.” (More Coney Island stories.)

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