The funny thing about this whole product, though, is the realization that the specific reason for its absurdity is largely due to placement of the hot dogs. In and of itself, “hot dog pizza” isn’t that goofy. In fact, I’m quite sure that many people probably enjoy making hot dog pizzas at home, with chunks of hot dog thrown on as a topping and baked in a conventional way. Sounds like something little kids would love in particular. If Pizza Hut had chosen to do things that way, I wouldn’t be sitting here and typing right now.

And yet they didn’t just choose to make a pizza with some hot dog bites on it, did they? Instead, like the marketing geniuses they are, they got creative with how they could incorporate the world’s lowest quality mass-produced meat (the hot dog) into a pie. And they found a way that was appropriately nightmarish to attract curious buyers who can’t help but view it as their duty to sample something that so offends the sensibilities of all who are good and decent. As reinforced so many times in the past, the key toward capturing attention in this market is to push things so far over the boundaries of good taste that the members of our ultra-hedonistic society indulge for multiple reasons at the same time: Both sincerely and satirically.