Flyers Fan Asks Jon Stewart If a Hot Dog Is a Sandwich

Last night, FOX News legal correspondent (and former New Jersey Superior Court Judge) Andrew Napolitano showed up on The Daily Show for what is likely to be his final appearance. (He’s a decent guest. Jon has had him on a lot.)

Halfway through the interview (at the 4:35 mark of the video above), Stewart interrupts Napolitano to ask him if he was wondering whether a hot dog is a sandwich. As you know, we here at Philadelphia magazine — okay, okay, just me — are very in tune with the “is a hot dog a sandwich” question, having previously written about Tom Wolf’s declaration of a hot dog as a “sandwich … and a good one” (a bold position to take, first term).

Napolitano at first dodges the question, saying he’s a vegetarian. Stewart says he brought it up because, before the show, he was taking questions. A person in the audience asked if a hot dog was a sandwich.

The video cuts to the person who asked the question and (yes!) the guy is in a Philadelphia Flyers T-shirt. This was especially exciting to Philly sports Twitter and Philly hockey Twitter, which have in the past obsessed over the stupid hot dog question. It’s currently on the front page of Broad Street Hockey! (Okay, it is the offseason.)

Napolitano really enjoys the question, calling the person who asked it “the smartest kid in the room.” He then finally answers, saying a hot dog is something “completely different” than a sandwich. That’s actually a wrong answer to the query. A hot dog may or may not be a sandwich — I remain unconvinced by either side’s partisans — but one has to concede it’s not completely different. It’s similar.

Stewart weighs in as well, saying a hot dog is a sandwich. I asked my girlfriend if a hot dog was a sandwich, who texted back: “No. It’s better.” That may be a smart way to win this debate — you immediately move on to a different question, which is: Is a hot dog better than a sandwich? To which the answer is: Yes, I think so. One of the greatest meals I ever had was a hot dog from a cart at Frankford and Girard at 1 a.m.

Anyway, then Napolitano ends it by saying Stewart should run for U.S. Senate in New Jersey. It would be pretty entertaining to have an East Coast Al Franken, especially one who once made fun of early 90s metal band Nelson on MTV. And we already know his position on the important hot dog/sandwich question.

Incidentally, the hero citizen journalist who got Stewart to answer the question is Luke Hoban, a Penn student who’s also co-captain of Philly’s power wheelchair floor hockey team.