Stupid is as Stupid Eats

The arrest of a former hot-dog eating champion in New York City over the recent holiday weekend has cultural experts raising serious questions of rampant national stupidity.

At Coney Island, a young man who had won six previous frankfurter-gorging contests stormed the stage after another award-winning glutton consumed 54 red hots.

Takeru Kobayashi, who was not in the annual face-stuffing competition because he had not signed a contract with Major League Eating (uh-huh), was carted away by New York’s finest, charged with trespassing and “obstruction of governmental administration.” Really.

He was released after 24 hours and presumably went in search of antacid tablets. And a life.

“Seems like we’re heading toward rock bottom and it doesn’t look good on us,” said Dr. Whoopi Cushion, an authority on stupidity at the U.S. Commerce Department.

“We live in a time when millions of people believe that watching people lose weight on TV is entertaining. They spend hours watching suburban women stumbling around in cocktail dresses, spilling their Pinot Grigio. The weenie gorging contest is a bigger 4th of July story than, well, the 4th of July.”

Dr. Cushion points out that not that long ago our parents were entertained by Ed Sullivan and Nat King Cole.

“Jeez, people used to watch “Cheers” and “Hill Street Blues,” she said. “They used to talk about ‘Jeopardy,’ not about some gasbag cook throwing food in his students’ faces.”

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the Lindsey Lohan trial continues…