Welcome to Oscars Weekend and the 96th annual Academy Awards airing Sunday night.
When teaching my Introduction to Mass Media courses at Valparaiso University and Purdue University Northwest during the past 28 years, students were always amazed when our textbook movie industry chapter explained that cinemas and movie theaters do not profit from the cost of the box office ticket sales.
While ticket prices at movie theaters might seem exorbitant ($25 or more if in downtown Chicago or a local giant IMAX screen), the ticket prices are usually just enough to cover the cost of paying movie studios the distribution cost for showing their latest films.
My college students always expressed surprise when learning that the concession sales of candy, soda and popcorn provide the true kernel of profit margin. Popcorn ranks at the top of the list for pure profit income. Since theaters buy popcorn in bulk, according to a report in The Atlantic Monthly, the average mark-up price on popcorn is 1,275%! (Yep, that’s not an extra fourth digit added in by mistake!)
But what’s a movie experience without the warm, buttery, crunchy snack companion of a bag or bucket of popcorn sprinkled with salt?
Growing up as a kid in the early 1970s, before our own Valparaiso-connected Orville Redenbacher was a household name brand, my older siblings and I loved the Saturday night treat of a steaming foil pouch of Jiffy Pop Popcorn with our Saturday night television movies.
Cleverly packaged in a foil pan with a small connected wire handle, the popcorn kernels and popping oil were already contained within a carefully designed layered sealed foil. Long before the advent of microwaves, our mom heated the foil pan over the stove burner flame with a few wrist jerks during the process, and suddenly, the popcorn erupted and expanded the foil to create a plentiful dome easily peeled open to enjoy.
Best of all, the Jiffy Pop brand of popcorn, like the Redenbacher brand, also shares a local Northwest Indiana connection. Reader and friend Jim Mohamed is the guy who first alerted me to Michigan City, Indiana’s popcorn claim-to-fame.
“Developed by Chemist Frederick C. Mennen from nearby LaPorte in 1958, Jiffy Pop was fun popping on the stovetop or a campfire, but beware of burning your fingers, or the popcorn, or both,” Jim recalls.
Mennen originally hailed from LaPorte and had a successful career as a chemist before his later in life acclaim as an inventor and industrialist with his popping corn pan design and national launch of Jiffy Pop in 1959. He teamed with American Home Products and pharmacologist Alvin Golub who further assisted fine-tuning the product and design.
At the time of the product’s national unveiling, a similar popcorn foil pan product was also being released by Benjamin Coleman. Just over the state line, based in Berkley, Michigan, E-Z Pop was manufactured and marketed by Taylor-Reed Corporation. Mennen Food Products was sued in 1963 for patent infringement. Even though the district court originally ruled in favor of Taylor-Reed, describing both popcorn brands as manufacturing “equivalent products,” the case was later overturned.
While the E-Z Pop Popcorn brand faded from memory, Jiffy Pop continued to expand, including a national television commercial campaign started in 1967 with a live-action genie granting children’s wishes for Jiffy Pop Popcorn by sharing the magic spell slogan: “Jiffy Pop! Jiffy Pop! The magic treat! As much fun to make as it is to eat!”
A decade later, magician Harry Blackstone Jr. stepped in for a similar TV commercial campaign in 1976, following the death of his magician father Harry Blackstone Sr., who had been the TV commercial cereal spokesman for Post Toasties and Post Sugar Crisp.
Today, the Jiffy Pop brand is still sold and manufactured under the Conagra manufacturing brand, which also owns the Orville Redenbacher brand.
A stately reminder local structure remains reminding of the popping innovative success of chemist Frederick C. Mennen, “who died in March 1991 at the age of 62 at his home in Long Beach, Ind.” according to his New York Times obituary published March 22, 1991. The obit continues with, “in 1977 he received a patent for his invention of an instrument for detecting gonorrhea and his survivors include his wife, Rosemary, three daughters and a sister.”
An imposing rock and stone Swiss chalet family home just north of Michigan City in Long Beach, where Mennen died, still stands at Stop 27.
Neighbors in the area over the years have attached a fascinating “added history” to the home such as follows: “This house was one of the ‘Century of Progress’ homes in Chicago, and like the several homes in Beverly Shores that were also ‘Century of Progress’ homes, it was bought after the World’s Fair and then shipped across the lake on a Barge/Raft to its present location.”
Another version of the house’s origin is relayed as: “This chalet was purchased in Europe, dismantled and brought here and rebuilt, with claims that neighbors knew relatives or contractors ‘who worked on it.’ “
Despite the fun and fascinating lore, family member Deborah Mennen, who now owns the house, clarifies: “It’s my house and we’ve gone through all of these stories, and I have been told it was built on-site. We have the original blueprints. I don’t doubt that parts of the house were imported. But I can’t see dismantling the bricks and cement walls and sending them over from Europe.”
A 1968 Jiffy Pop Popcorn recipe card kept among the files from my late Auntie Lilly with many recipes in our farm pantry provides the simple ingredients and directions for a “sweet golden popcorn star” perfect for serving up and sharing at Oscar viewing parties.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa @comhs.org or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Jiffy Pop Popcorn Sweet Golden Star
Makes 7 servings
1 package Jiffy Pop Popcorn
2/3 cup light corn syrup
2 drops yellow food coloring
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
Red or black licorice whips for decorating
Directions:
1. Pop popcorn according to package directions.
2. Put into greased large kettle.
3. Mix corn syrup, food coloring and sugar together and heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves.
4. Add butter and continue to heat and stir until butter has melted. Add vanilla.
5. Pour liquid over popcorn and mix well. Heat gently for 3 to 5 minutes until popcorn mixture clings together when stirred. Shape as star or as desired.
6. Decorate or outline star with licorice whips if desired.
