I’d never heard of Flavacol until I read this post.
I use REAL butter on my homemade popcorn. Yeccch. And topping oil??? Ewwww.
Can’t argue for or against coconut oil.
We had a plug-in popcorn popper when I was growing up. IIRC it made perfectly decent popcorn. My air popper also does a good job, at the expense of shooting popcorn all over the kitchen.
Adding real butter, and finely ground salt, are what makes it nummy.
Do you add the butter to the popper before popping the corn, or do you drizzle it on after its popped? Or do you mean you use the butter to cook the popcorn itself instead of oil?
I’ve heard its better to use Ghee than to use butter due to the water content
Back in the 70’s, my father was a theater manager for a chain of movie theaters in the area. He and my brother actually popped the popcorn upstairs at one building, bagged it in big plastic bags, and delivered it to all the other theaters where it was stored in cupboards in the snack area. To be dumped into the glass case and sold in cups or boxes. (and this was when we also melted and used real butter in the warmer! I was there when that ended and butter flavored oil was the new thing…also the days when canisters of films were sent from town to town on the Greyhound buses. Dad would pick them up at the station and bring them home to be delivered on the correct day.
I use an air popper also. Air poppers are supposed to allow you to eat popcorn without the added calories of oil. Which is fine, but I pour a half a stick of melted butter over mine! 
Does anyone remember the unpopped popcorn packets the Boy Scouts used to sell? There was a packet of popcorn kernels on one side and then a packet of a yellow butter looking substance on the other side. You’d put the butter-ish stuff in a pot, melted it and then poured in the popcorn. I think there was salt in with the kernels. Those packets made the best popcorn ever!
Here you go: Amazon.com : premeasured popcorn and oil packets
I long loved popcorn. As a kid, we used a frying pan on the stove. In college, with an oldstyle electric oil popper it was one of my 2 or 3 main food groups (with ramen and beer). I’ve used and loved every possible maker from airpoppers (fine with enough melted butter) through microwave and Whirlypop, and loved bagged popcorn from cheesey Ok-E-Doke to Cape Cod white cheddar.
Alas, too much expensive dental work has caused me to RARELY if ever indulge these days. 
But I want to take issue with this sentiment:
Despite my unalloyed love for popcorn in all of its forms, I always thought movie popcorn pretty much at the bottom in terms of quality and flavor. Sure, as an addict I would gorge myself on endless refills with tons of buttery whatever drizzled over it. But it could not compare with the taste of fresh popped corn using just about any home method. (Yeah, microwave is likely at the very bottom - but not TOO far below theater.)
Now let’s debate - white vs yellow! Big yellow fan myself. And who chews on the partially popped old maids? (See my prior reference to dental work…)
Yellow only. White is an abomination. But if it’s hot & free I’ll eat it. 
I have one of these. It’s great, but there’s a part inside that you have to replace each time you use the bowl, and I’m currently out of them.
Sometimes I just walk into the theater and ask for a large popcorn to take home.
We find the Salbree popcorn bowl works great in a microwave. 1/3 cup of popcorn, a small pat of butter, some kosher salt (yes, you read that right). Set timer for 3 1/2 minutes but stop it when the popping tapers off.
I initially added the salt after popping but found that putting it in before really makes a difference. I think the salt distributes the heat better for more uniform popping.
Since it’s an air popper, I don’t add butter until the popcorn is done. Typically I’ll nuke the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds or so to melt it, while the popper is doing its thing.
If I were using a popper that required oil (stovetop, or standalone, or some microwave), yes, ghee would likely be a better choice. Plus the one time I made ghee at home, it had such a lovely caramel-y flavor. Now you’ve inspired me…
Store bought microwave popcorn was hugely popular back in the late 1980s in offices - to the point where one pointy-headed administrator at one employer BANNED it (he didn’t think the aroma was “professional”). I bought it a few times at home and it was okay, though the last time I did that, I had accidentally bought the “butter” flavored variety. I opened the first package and the smell gagged me; I couldn’t even try to cook it. The whole box went into the trash.
It tasted ok - better than no popcorn at all, for sure. But between the cost, and the packaging waste, I literally have not bought the stuff in 35 years.
That microwave popper that someone linked, that requires a disposable item with each use, seems like an improvement over that in terms of waste, but still loses out to my air popper.
Yellow vs white? White is prettier. Otherwise, I can’t tell the difference.
I will gnaw on partially popped “old maids”. I will also run the completely-unpopped kernels back through the air popper a second time - one downside to the air popper is it spits out a lot of those along with the popped ones.
That’s what I use now too. Mine’s a different brand but looks identical beyond the name. Even the same color.
Works well, although I seem to have a lot of unpopped kernels left over compared to other methods. Including other microwave-specific popping bowls. If I keep it cooking until a greater percentage have popped, the already-popped stuff is scorching.
Hmm. IANA expert on theaters, but the last few I poked my head into, you needed a ticket to get past the ticket-takers & their barriers before you could get to the concessions. Yours must be arranged the other way around with concessions on the outside.
Me too. It has to be much more awful than microwave or even some premade popcorn before I’ll turn it down altogether. If I’m going to the trouble of making I will want something better. Popcorn made in a pot with a little oil is ok, and fresh, but I’d rather have some air popped.
I was nodding my head in complete agreement until I got to
IMO air-popped = dry and flavorless. Oil-popped = flavorful & yummy. And salt sticks to oil-popped but simply bounces off air-popped and fill the bottom of the bowl, not the corn. Said another way, air-popped cannot be made salty enough either.
Color me mystified how anyone could conclude air-popped is better as a tasty snack. It was invented as away to make “diet” popcorn during one of the periodic “OMG fat is bad for you” health scares / fads of the 1980(?)s. So I can see someone favoring it as a matter of nutritional features. But for flavor, mouthfeel, and overall snack-ifaction? I’m baffled.
YMMV of course. I’m trying to learn, not just scoff (much).
These days I could probably buy popcorn at the concession stand and then go sit in a theater without even seeing an employee. But even when it was fully staffed, we have big double doors on either side of the ticket people that you can just walk through.
Now that you mention it, though, I’m thinking of multiplexes. You’re right that at our small town theaters you can’t get to concessions without a ticket.
Well, if you’re going to add butter, it doesn’t make much difference.
From what I recall of the airpopper we used to have in the 80s, where it stood out was if you wanted to make a lot of popcorn at home. You could keep adding kernels as they popped, and get an almost-continuous stream of popped corn output. You can’t do that with any of the methods using some kind of pot.
I am pretty satisfied with my current system – huge gas cooktop, wok with a vented glass lid, canola oil to coat the bottom and three kernals until they pop, then 1/2 cup of the cheapest yellow popcorn from the grocery. Shake it until the popping stops, topping to taste. Which around here typically melted butter and salt and for me cheese powder. Quick, easy, not much clean up.
Should we be surprised that somebody named @2nd_Law has a very large high output stove and uses an oversized pan? We want our heat and we want it NOW!
Of the two theatres closest to us: one has the ticket-takers before the concessions. The other has it AFTER the concessions (in fact, if you need to buy a ticket from a human, you now have to wait in line with people buying popcorn to buy your ticket).
That wouldn’t work with ours. You dump the kernels in, and it starts heating them (and blowing them out a chute). Any additional kernels added mid-pop would land on the already popped corn and get blown out.
I suppose if it was mostly empty, you could just add more kernels - then they wouldn’t have much popped stuff to land on. But I definitely think of it as a batch versus continuous device. At least you don’t have to add more oil or whatever.
Add butter if you like. Fresh and air popped is full of corn flavor which will be masked by anything but a tiny sprinkling of salt. If you’re going to add a lot of other flavor, making kettle corn of cheesy corn then it doesn’t matter much to me. I’m content with air popped.
Yeah, timing was a factor, but the production curve is much less jagged than an oil popper, as you say.