Disneyland in California has Sleeping Beauty Castle. The Magic Kingdom in Florida has Cinderella Castle. Yester California Adventure has a castle too—Corn Dog Castle.

You can’t miss the “castle” when you arrive at the Route 66 section of the park. A huge billboard towers over a little trailer with a red and yellow awning.

Get ready for a big, all-beef hot dog—a traditional frankfurter or spicy sausage—dipped into a golden cornmeal batter, deep fried to a crunchy brown, and served hot. If you prefer cheese, order a generous bar of cheddar prepared the same way.

This is not an ordinary hot dog on a stick. This is the royalty of corn dogs. Sure, it isn’t a low-fat meal, but now and then it’s worth it to stray a bit. If you want to feel slightly more virtuous, ask for apple slices instead of chips as your side dish.

Squirt some ketchup and mustard on your corn dog. Or make neat red and yellow stripes on it, just like awning. Head to a nearby bench or to tables a little further away. Bite through the golden batter into the juicy meat.

Yum!

Corn Dog Castle opened along with the rest of Disney’s California Adventure in February 2001.

It turned out that Disney’s California Adventure had too many eateries when it opened, but Corn Dog Castle was a success anyway. Guests enjoyed the generously-sized, good-quality corn dogs.

Whether Corn Dog castle was also an aesthetic success is open for debate. Officially, Corn Dog Castle was “a tribute to California roadside billboards of the 1950s,” but the artwork looked like something from an earlier decade than the 1950s. The tacky appearance was intentional. But did that make it a charming, evocative tribute to the past? Or did that just make it an uncharacteristically tacky eyesore that didn’t belong in Disney theme park?

The menu at Corn Dog Castle stayed remarkably consistent over the years. The Royal Cheesecake Brownies disappeared from the menu. Sliced apples joined the “bag o’ chips” as a side dish option.

Around the beginning of June 2009, Corn Dog Castle closed. A construction wall for The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure went up in front of it. When it’s all done, the rides, restaurants, and shops that surround Paradise Bay will have the charm, quality, and continuity of theme that guests expect from Disney. Although numerous websites reported that Corn Dog Castle would reopen in June 2011, it seems highly unlikely that anything resembling the trailer-below-a-billboard will ever reappear as part of the re-Imagineered Disney’s California Adventure.

Corn dog fans need not dispair. The park’s Bountiful Valley Farmer’s Market now sells corn dogs.

There’s a genuine connection between corn dogs and Route 66—but it involves Illinois, not California. A vintage-style poster appeared at bus stops in Chicago in 2007.

Here’s how a May 1, 2007, press release from the Illinois Bureau of Tourism describes the poster:

Springfield’s Cozy Dog Drive-In, the famous Route 66 landmark and the birthplace of the corn dog on a stick. Inventor Ed Waldmire Jr. created the tasty treat when he coated his hot dog with batter and pierced it with a cocktail fork. He called his new creation a “crusty cur,” but fortunately his wife had a more appetizing idea, dubbing them “cozy dogs.” The Cozy Dog was “born” during World War II, an era reflected in the poster’s art, which feature a nurse feeding an infant corn dog with a bottle of mustard.

Other states also claim to be the birthplace of the batter-dipped, deep-fried hot dog. Brothers Carl and Neil Fletcher began selling “Corny Dogs” in 1942 at the State Fair of Texas. Jack Karnis of Oregon sold “Pronto Pups” at the Minnesota State Fair in the 1940s. There are claims that the corn dog was first served in the 1930s at the Louisiana State Fair. Other claims go back even further.

A real corn dog is on a stick, right? Ed Waldmire Jr. of Illinois gets credit for that innovation. Thus any claims that the corn dog was invented in another state can be dismissed.

The next time you’re in Springfield, Illinois, stop at the Cozy Dog Drive-In. It’s not the original building (which is now the site a Walgreens next door), but Cozy Dog Drive-In takes its historic roots seriously. The counter service restaurant is full of Route 66 memorabilia and displays about its own history. They use small Oscar Mayer franks, so don’t expect the same taste (or the same price) as Corn Dog Castle.

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© 2009 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks

Updated September 9, 2009.

Photo of Corn Dog Castle, large image: 2002 by Werner Weiss.
Photo of Corn Dog Castle billboard detail: 2003 by Allen Huffman.
Photo of Corn Dog Castle side view: 2007 by Allen Huffman.
Photo of Corn Dog Castle pickup window: 2007 by Werner Weiss.
Photo of Corn Dog Castle front view: 2007 by Werner Weiss.
Photo of Corn Dog Castle menu board in 2004: 2004 by Allen Huffman.
Photo of Corn Dog Castle menu board in 2007: 2007 by Werner Weiss.
Photo of Corn Dog Castle behind construction wall: 2009 by Werner Weiss.
Photo of wall art about corn dogs at Farmers Market: 2009 by Werner Weiss.
“Visit the Birthplace of the Corn Dog” poster image: 2007, Illinois Bureau of Tourism.
Photo of Cozy Dog Drive-in Sign, Springfield, Illinois: 2009 by Werner Weiss.
Photo of Cozy Dog Drive-in logo on sign, Springfield, Illinois: 2009 by Werner Weiss.