the-nature-of-weenies
Explanation
The Joke
A man named Hank is hosting a hot dog roast and makes an uncomfortable confession: the idea for the cookout came to him while he was visualizing the human sex act. He then reassures his guests using philosophical language, arguing that neither the manner in which the hot dog roast came about nor the mental concepts he held while cooking the weenies are "in any way intrinsic to the hot dogs themselves." He urges everyone to eat freely, declaring that the notion that an object's history is contained within itself is "the hobgoblin of a myth-addled mind."
One of the guests responds flatly: "Hank, you got weird after that ontology class." Hank then cheerfully offers tossed salad, continuing the pattern of accidentally (or deliberately) choosing foods with sexual double meanings.
The Humor
The comedy works on multiple levels. First, there is the inherent awkwardness of a host confessing sexual thoughts while grilling phallic-shaped food, which is already uncomfortable enough. But the real joke is that Hank is using legitimate philosophical arguments about ontology -- specifically the idea that an object's essential nature is independent of its history or the mental states of those who interact with it -- to justify why his guests should not be grossed out. The philosophical reasoning is technically sound (objects are not contaminated by the thoughts of people near them), but applying it to this situation only makes things worse. The final offer of "tossed salad" -- another term with a sexual connotation -- confirms that Hank is either oblivious or deliberately trolling his guests.
References
The comic references ontology, the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of being and existence. The specific argument Hank makes relates to debates about essentialism versus extrinsicism: whether an object's identity is defined by its intrinsic properties alone or also by its history and relational context. The phrase "hobgoblin of a myth-addled mind" is a playful echo of Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."