Did you know every Oscar Mayer wiener is made in Columbia, Missouri?
Mary Clare “Chili Cheese MC” Kammer and Sam “Hammy Sammy” Dlott sure do. It’s one of dozens of Oscar Mayer facts — and countless hot dog puns — the pair rattle off with ease.
The “hotdoggers” — as the drivers of the iconic Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles are known — “relished” the chance to tell shoppers outside a Northland Hy-Vee everything about their “six seat, 12 bun” automobile on Thursday.
Kammer and Dlott pilot one of six sausage-shaped vehicles currently crisscrossing the country. They typically cover the southern U.S. and don’t usually swing through Missouri, although Kammer — a St. Louis native and University of Missouri graduate — calls it home.
But all 12 hotdoggers recently had a “meat up” in Madison, Wisconsin, and Missouri was on the way back to the duo’s regular route. It’s the seventh state they’ve visited since rolling out in June.
“We just went to St. Louis two weeks ago and I got to pull it into my own driveway, which was wonderful,” Kammer said. “It was so crazy.”
From their parking spot in front of the Hy-Vee on Saint Clair Avenue, Dlott and Kammer let curious shoppers step up to the Wienermobile’s door to peer inside, snapped pictures of posing families and handed out stickers and postcards.
Kammer and Dlott keep plastic “weenie whistles” in their hot dog-embroidered half-aprons to give away — including, on this visit, to two kids Kammer promptly nicknamed “Grill ‘Em Up Grant” and “Sizzlin’ Scott.”
Around Kansas City, Kammer and Dlott are dragging the Wienermobile through the garden: They’ll head to the Lee’s Summit Hy-Vee on Ward Road on Friday, the Atkins Johnson Farm and Museum Country Fair in Gladstone on Saturday, and the Colonial Gardens Fall Festival in Blue Springs on Sunday.
“Driving it was a little intimidating at first, but it's kind of like a parade every day,” said Kammer. “People are constantly waving and taking pictures, and it's a magical feeling."
Kammer — who studied marketing, English, speech communications and business — said driving the Wienermobile was a dream years in the making.
“I was taking a consumer behavior class at Mizzou and they came into my classroom with a flyer that said, ‘Looking for Wienermobile drivers,’” Kammer recalls. “And I was like, no way, that is a real job, you know? And I kind of jumped to it. I did a lot of research. I was like, you know what? This is something that I really wanna do.”
After her yearlong hotdogging stint, Kammer is hoping to get a job with Kraft Heinz, Oscar Mayer’s parent company. But she said the skills she’s picked up driving the Wienermobile would apply to a lot of different jobs.
“It’s a big part of marketing, a lot of PR, which I found out I love — this job is a great learning experience for everyone who wants to get into that,” she said. “We book our own hotels, we're constantly posting on social media.”
Accommodations can be, frankly, challenging: Kammer said they have to call to make sure the hotel has not just parking, but large enough parking spaces to accommodate a 27-foot Wienermobile.
“It’s kind of surreal driving an American icon,” she said.
