My question is pretty much what the title states: Why is it that popcorn is the snack of choice when watch movies (at least traditionally)? Why not crisps or chips or nuts or something else?
I would imagine it has been found that popcorn significantly outsells the other options, and that it’s because of its aroma. An enticing smell is a great appetizer.
Popcorn would have, I think three great advantages over other snacks:[ol][]Low storage space. Assuming you are actually getting freshly-popped popcorn, the volume of the raw material is very small compared to the volume of the finished product.[]Low cost. Popcorn is damn cheap, providing a tremendous profit margin.That aroma thing Garymentioned. Hard to beat a product that gets people hungry while they’re still standing in line.[/ol]
Popcorn’s popularity as a confection in the U.S. dates back to World War II, when sugar was rationed. I recall a report on movie-going habits in various countries on NPR’s “All Things Considered” some years ago in which it was said that foreigners are astounded by how much popcorn Americans can eat at a single sitting. Part of the appeal of popcorn at a movie, I think, is that you can eat it for a good long time while watching, where other treats don’t last nearly as long.
It was also said that when the film breaks in a Russian theater viewers traditionally heckle the projectionist by saying something which translates roughly as: “go back to your old job making shoes”. Some things just don’t translate…
Popcorn’s also a lot quieter than potato chips. I doubt this is a big reason, but it’s something I’ve always realized.
Salt, salt and more salt.
Makes you buy the outrageously over priced sodas.
Popcorn became the de facto standard movie snack because of street vendors. Popcorn was, back in Ye Olde Days, an easy snack to sell on the street, for a variety of reasons: it’s inexpensive, it’s hard to screw up, and (thanks to the fact that its volume increases dramatically when popped) you can sell gallons of the stuff without having the same storage problems you’d have with, say, hot dogs (not to mention the refrigeration problems you’d have in the late 1800s / early 1900s) or even pretzels.
Anyway, popcorn vendors used to chase after crowds wherever they could be found, and movie theaters were excellent selling spots. At first, theater owners were pissed at the street vendors, because the popcorn people brought in created a big mess. Somewhere along the line, theater owners figured, “well, we can’t keep the popcorn out, so we might as well make the profits ourselves.” They started installing popcorn machines, and the rest is history. The trend never stopped because there wouldn’t be a good reason to ditch a working industrial-type popcorn popper, and as long as all the other theaters in town had popcorn poppers, newly-built theaters had to have them too.
Besides, popcorn is darn tasty.