My parents had one also, any dogs cooked with it tasted metalic YUK. The cooker I'd like to have is the old ferris wheel style. there are some new ones out but they don't last like the old ones.
Yeah - I remember the ends of the hot do getting super dry and tough and ... well... electrocuted. As kids my sister and I always wanted to use it, but just because of the 'cool' factor. The taste was "blech" and my mom hated to use it because some of the hot dogs would break before you could bend them to jam them on the electrodes.