The hot dog is an All-American food. Which is pretty amazing for a piece of sausage from Germany. And today, National Hot Dog Day, is when we pay homage to the fabulous frankfurter.

But let others sing the praises of the hot dog itself. Here at Food Dive we wish to point out the collateral greatness of the wiener. Because sure, the hot dog is great. But like anything else that's truly great, the frankfurter spreads its greatness around.

Here are our picks for five truly wonderful, fabulous things in America that exist only because of the hot dog. Check them out. Revel in their greatness. And remember that you owe them all to the hot dog.

5. The Wienermobile 

If you have ever had the sheer joy of driving down an American highway with kids, and then witnessed the Wienermobile cruising along like some sort of highway vision of marketing beauty, then you've experienced the greatest event of the American road trip.

Thousands have beheld the yellow vehicle thingy with the giant hot dog on top. Thousands have heard the kids screaming in wonder from the back seat. Thousands have wondered what it would be like to drive that thing.

Multiple versions of the Wienermobile have graced the highways since 1936. And each one of them has made taking the kids on vacation a better experience than it otherwise would have been.

4. Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest

Each year, some of the greatest athletes on earth gather on Coney Island in Brooklyn to engage in the ultimate sporting event. Heroes such as Joey Chestnut, Takeru Kobayashi, and Sonya Thomas have shown us what greatness really means.

And it means eating a hell of a lot of hot dogs in front a crowd of screaming Brooklynites on the Fourth of July. What could be greater and more American than that?

3. Hot dog vendors

Perhaps it doesn't require the same level of athleticism demanded from competitive eating, but baseball is pretty cool.

More importantly, they sell hot dogs at baseball games. And by "they," we mean hot dog vendors. 

There's probably not a job in the whole country cooler than walking around a baseball stadium carrying a big metal box of hot dogs. Sure, there are guys who sell soda and guys who sell Cracker Jack, but the best thing about a baseball game is the guy with the red hots.

4. Corn dogs

Ever been to a county fair in the Midwest? You know the ones ... those massive collections of rides, country music, guys with mullets and the women who put up with them, displays from the 4-H club and a whole lot of American flags. Ever been to one of those?

Then you're a true, blue American. And true, blue Americans eat only one thing at a county fair. They eat corn dogs.

Just think a bit about the corn dog and you'll recognize its greatness. It is, simply, a hot dog. But instead of a bun, it has corn meal. Plus it's fried. And there's a stick in it.

The only thing better than eating a corn dog at the fair is eating a corn dog at the fair and seeing a Wienermobile there.

5. The greatest joke ever told

Those of us of a certain age remember with fondness a gifted comedian named David Brenner. Brenner, who passed away earlier this year, was ubiquitous on the talk shows of the '70s and '80s.

If you saw those performances on The Tonight Show or The Mike Douglas show, you saw one of the founding fathers of what is known as "observational comedy." Today, that style of comedy is so commonplace that it's synonymous with stand-up comedy. But it wasn't always true.

And before Brenner became a frequent guest on television, he worked the stand-up circuit doing the sort of funny-because-it's-true stuff that later made him a comedy legend.

His best-known joke, different versions of which he performed on stage at least as early as 1978, went like this:

Have you ever noticed how hotdogs come in packages of 10 and hotdog rolls come in packages of 8? Why? What are we supposed to do with the other two dogs?

Odds are you've heard that joke hundreds of times. You've probably even told it yourself. If you're too young to remember Brenner at his peak, you likely assume the joke has been around since hot dogs were invented. 

And have you ever noticed that today, nearly every joke you hear a comedian say starts with the phrase "have you ever noticed"?

That's because Brenner's joke changed the very nature of stand-up comedy.

It's the greatest joke ever told. And we owe it to David Brenner...and to hot dogs.