Why Is Popcorn Associated With Movies? It's More 'Depressing' Than You Think

Whenever we go to the movie theater to check out the latest blockbuster and feel peckish, there's one go-to snack everyone tends to gravitate toward. Popcorn and movies go together like cake and birthdays, and with film-themed marketing stunts like the oddly shaped "Dune 2" popcorn bucket and the frankly disgusting "Deadpool and Wolverine" bucket reveal ahead of the movie's release, popcorn is arguably a hotter movie delicacy than it's ever been. However, the celebrated snack's road to the moviegoers' hearts has been surprisingly dark, and quite literally depressing.

Popcorn made its way to the movies during the Great Depression, and its properties proved perfect for the era's theaters and consumers alike ... so perfect, in fact, that the snack continues to hold supreme sway. Let's take a closer look at how popcorn became so closely associated with movies. 

The Great Depression of 1929-1939 was a time that had no shortage of stock market crashes, abject poverty, and gangsters. Still, people did seek fun where they could afford it, and actually spent more money than usual on inexpensive luxuries ... such as the delicacy known as popcorn. Tasty and cheap as sin to manufacture, popcorn became truly popular in the U.S. during the late 19th century thanks to mobile vendors. During the Great Depression, popcorn sales actually increased because movie theaters — a fellow relatively cheap luxury — started teaming up with vendors, and eventually got their own popcorn machines. 

What followed was the theater business equivalent of natural selection. The movie theaters with popcorn machines thrived, while ones that were wary of the mess it made and chose against serving the popular snack went under. The moviegoing public had decided whether popcorn and movies belonged together, and the answer was the same it still is today: a resounding yes. 

Bringing the popcorn experience together with movie theaters was an innovation, and the combination was further hammered home with some seriously pushy advertising. While the modern movie experience often begins with a barrage of trailers, the theaters of yesteryear took the opportunity to subject the viewers to "snipe" ads that featured the theater's snack selection. The most famous of these commercials is the 1957 clip "Let's All Go to the Lobby" by Filmack Studios. The alluring clip, where animated snacks perform a catchy song that invites the audiences to fill their bellies with the lobby's snack selection, prominently features popcorn, and it became such an ubiquitous presence in movie theaters that it has been in the United States National Film Registry since 2000. 

The quickly made, cheap intermission snipe has been attributed to to famous animator Dave Fleischer ("Popeye," "Betty Boop") but was probably the work of some unknown hired hand. Its catchy song is a version of the classic "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," with lyrics that were somewhat cynically crafted to send the viewers to buy popcorn and candy in large groups. "I said, 'We need something for getting the people out to the lobby,'" composer Jack Tillar described the creative process (via the Library of Congress). "And my first thought was, everybody loves to be part of a gang, so, let's all seemed appropriate. People don't like to be the first one, they don't like to get up on stage. But if everybody else is having a good time, going back to the stage, or going back to the lobby. It was just natural."

As the "Let's All Go to the Lobby" clip and every movie theater concession stand you've ever visited proudly declare, popcorn isn't the only traditional element of the moviegoing experience. Early movie theaters were simple affairs where viewers could essentially bring their own snacks or buy them from wandering vendors, baseball game-style. In the decade before the Great Depression hit, the establishments became far more luxurious, and their owners scoffed at the idea of letting customers smear grease and chocolate all over their expensive furniture. 

Ultimately, candy snuck its way into the movie theaters at the same time popcorn started making waves as a cinema-themed snack, being an organic choice for dispenser machines — and later concessions, once theaters realized their potential for profit. The initial movie candy selection was extremely limited, but the theater concession boom that propelled popcorn to notoriety nevertheless helped candy to become a movie staple. The introduction of classics like Milk Duds made clear that movie candy was here to stay, and the selection has expanded and evolved ever since.

Remember how in 2022 and early 2023 people kept thanking Tom Cruise for saving the theater industry? There was a reason for that. The COVID-19 pandemic took a lot out of many industries that deal in communal experiences. The movie theater business was no exception, until 2022's "Top Gun: Maverick" turned the tide. 

Of course, the industry wasn't just sitting on its hands and waiting for Cruise to save it. One of the many pre-"Maverick" things the theaters tried to stay afloat was cinema food delivery — something some theater chains had already experimented with before the pandemic hit. Banking on theater snacks tasting good enough to enjoy them in the comfort of your home while watching Netflix instead of relying on store-bought stuff, theaters started offering home delivery versions of movie popcorn and other concession stand delicacies. Several cinema chains continue to offer this via Uber Eats or other means of delivery.