>>11035124>>11035117The sausage element didn’t reach minifigure hands until 2002 with, oddly enough, a trio of little Coca-Cola sets. (Ya, I didn’t realize there were official Coca-Cola LEGO sets, either—it was part of a set of promotional polybags in the soccer Sports theme.) It next appeared in Belville sets in 2008. Then the sausage appeared in its first Modular in 2009 (fittingly the 10197 Fire Brigade) and has been a consistent presence in LEGO sets ever since.
Up to this point, you could have your sausage any way you want it—as long as it’s red (with a short-lived excursion into Nougat-colored sausages). But soon enough, things got a little more interesting…
In 2011, we saw our first recolor of the LEGO sausage in black with 7984 Deep Sea Raider from the Atlantis theme. The recolor was the first in 12 years and LEGO designers finally saw potential for this curved bar more than minifigure munching. They used the curved bar with mechanical arms (53989) on each end for part of the vehicle's front canopy.
Despite that first instance of hot dog NPU, the sausage continued to be used mostly as food in red, with 169 sets using the red sausage to date—with some very random inclusions perhaps for humor. In 2013, it worked its way into a Star Wars set (75014 Battle of Hoth), randomly snuck into a container in the snow (is this some kind of mid-battle power bar in the LEGO Star Wars universe?).
But LEGO designers still manage to get creative with it, including its next short-lived 2016 recolor in sand blue for the arms of BMO in the Dimensions 71246 Adventure Time Team Pack.
This seemed to unlock the recolored hot dogs, as so many more started to appear in 2017 and 2018 with a couple of CMFs using it in dark red, although not as creatively (back to plain hot dogs).
