My most pressing question wasn't 'how exactly does 3D technology work?', nor was it 'how does Johnny Depp manage to pull THAT look off?', or even 'what was it that Lewis Carroll was smoking when he wrote the original?' Instead I found myself turning to my boyfriend to ask 'how did popcorn become the must-have film accompaniment?'
It raised a bit of a mystery actually, the only answer offered being 'because it doesn't make noise like crisps do...?' After looking into it, it seems the answer goes back to the Great Depression.
Here comes the science (history) bit...
In the late 1800s street vendors were selling popcorn outside theatres, making a tidy profit. Theatre owners hated popcorn and thought it a nuisance as it made a mess of their auditoriums. They also felt it distracted from the film experience, with people getting up half way through a show to purchase popcorn from the street vendor.
Fast forward a few years to 1925 and Charles Manley had perfected the first electric popcorn machine. He marketed the machine to film theatre owners, and 'ta da' one of the most successful combinations in culinary history was born. [Insert jazz hands] You could say Manley was the 'kernel' of popcorn...
During the Great Depression popcorn became an affordable treat, popular with the masses. In fact in the 1950s popcorn made more profit for the theatre owners than the films themselves. In the 1970s and '80s, the VCR was introduced alongside the microwave, seeing the trend of film plus popcorn reach new heights.
With theatre owners today able to keep 100% profit of popcorn sales, (unlike that of ticket sales), it seems popcorn and film culture's inseparable partnership is here to stay. Amen to that.
Stay tuned for more instalments of 'mysteries solved'.
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