Hey Tony Hawk, Is A Hot Dog A Sandwich?

Where were you the moment Tony Hawk landed a 900? That moment—during X Games X in 1999—occurred before the advent of YouTube, so my little brother and I could only gush about it to each other while playing Pro Skater and attempting our own pathetic skateboard and bike tricks in the driveway. Did you see it? Remember?

We've grown up a bit since then, and so has Tony Hawk, who is now 50 and a father of five. But some things don't change, like Hawk's apparent affection for Bagel Bites. Almost two decades after his first Bagel Bites commercial, Hawk is back promoting the snacks with a Father's Day-linked contest called #RadDadSquad, which you can read about here.

Of course, we didn't want to talk to Tony Hawk about that promotion, or skateboarding, or parenting, or the psychology of growing older as a professional athlete. No, we wanted to talk to him about hot dogs.

The Takeout: Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Tony Hawk: I don't think so. No. I think a hot dog is a very unique item with a very unique shape and proprietary buns. You're not going to buy hot dog buns and put other sandwich things in them.

In my version of a sandwich, you add say, avocado, or—I don't think you'd add typical sandwich ingredients to a hot dog. It has very defined condiments that you add to it. A hot dog is a hot dog. That's just my perspective. But I'm of the generation where my mom actually sliced hot dogs in half and put them on white bread for lunch.

TO: I had an aunt who did that.

TH: That was not a hot dog, but my hot dog was used as a sandwich filling.