Kramer’s Hot Dogger ’84 guitar started as a joke but it’s now very real

Kramer has unveiled the Hot Dogger ’84 – a single-pickup electric guitar with a limited-edition finish that pays tribute to the fast food favorite.

As you will no doubt be aware, National Hot Dog Day takes place on the third Wednesday of July each year. In 2022, amid the widespread celebrations of all things hot dog, Kramer took to social media to share pics of a limited edition ’84-style build, the Baretta Hot Diggity custom, featuring a mustard finish and hot dog artwork from guitar artist Ronz World.

It turns out that following a (mostly) positive reception, the Gibson-owned firm has followed it up in time for 2023 with a limited-edition production model, available exclusively from Sweetwater.

The Hot Dogger ’84 is based on the single-pickup electric guitar design developed by Kramer with Eddie Van Halen in the early ’80s that became his staple on recordings like Panama and Hot For Teacher.

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It uses a Pacer-like alder body, hard rock maple neck (here in a K-Speed SlimTaper "C" profile with 12” radius fingerboard) and comes loaded with a Seymour Duncan JB bridge humbucker. Controls are limited to a single volume knob, but there’s a little tonal sauce available via a push/pull coil-tap switch in the volume pot.

On the hardware side, you’ll find a Floyd Rose vibrato, die-cast tuners and an easy-access truss rod. It’s all topped off with a ketchup-like logo, which adorns the Kramer ‘banana-style’ headstock – adding a layer of food metaphor we could do without, frankly.

It’s been limited to just 75 models – priced at $999 – and we suspect that (unlike the other Kramer’s hot dog) they won’t hang around. 

For more information on the Hot Dogger ’84, head to Sweetwater. 

Speaking of fast food guitar gear, we wonder what it would sound like with the pizza pedal?