Friday Night Video – Jack McBrayer & Triumph Visit The Wieners Circle
June 22, 2012 Leave a comment
If you saw Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, then you saw Conan tease 30 Rock star Jack McBrayer to the point where the audience, if not the participants, got really really uncomfortable. Still fascinated with McBrayer’s niceness, Conan sent him to Chicago’s The Wieners Circle, which sells hot dogs while engaging in insults with the patrons. (If I were in a more scholarly mood, I might parse the intersections of race and class in this piece.) The workers are pretty proficient at performing for the cameras, and central to the ride is Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.
MCBRAYER: I’m letting you know, I would just like a hot dog….I’m coming back with a friend and you will be very sorry.
Bonus Friday Night Video! This American Life already noticed and investigated the race and class angle. So now, if I were in a more scholarly mood, I might look to see if some enterprising Ph.D. student at Northwestern wrote a dissertation on The Wieners Circle. Someone has to have, right?
Warning: watching this full video may cause Friday Night Depression, as it’s a case study of how uncurbed capitalism makes money off of racism.
ROBERTA JACKSON: You have to do what you have to do.
