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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi brain Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vocabam and today's episode is a brain Stuff

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Speaker 1: classic presented by our earthWhile host Christian Sagar the question

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Speaker 1: of the day, why do movie theaters sell popcorn? Hey,

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff? It's Christian Sagar. When you see a movie

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Speaker 1: in the theaters, you expect certain things like a heck

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Speaker 1: of a good time, some amazing sound, and a story

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Speaker 1: played out on a gigantic screen. You also probably think

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Speaker 1: about popcorn. But that's weird, right, How of all the

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Speaker 1: snacks on Earth did popcorn become the mainstay of movie theaters. Well,

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Speaker 1: it starts with a bit of history. See, popcorn had

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Speaker 1: been around for ages, and it was a popular snack

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Speaker 1: at nineteenth century fairs and carnivals, especially after the invention

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Speaker 1: of the first steam powered popcorn pop or back in

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Speaker 1: eighty five. People love the crunchy, salty, inexpensive snack, and

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Speaker 1: movie theaters hated it. During the era of silent film,

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Speaker 1: these companies followed many of the same rules as traditional theaters,

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Speaker 1: and they did not want to be associated with a

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Speaker 1: loud food that could distract from the show. Additionally, there

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Speaker 1: was a little bit of a class consideration here, Since

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Speaker 1: audiences had to read the dialogue on the screen, they

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Speaker 1: had to be literate a k a. A better sort

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Speaker 1: of people with superior education. Allowing popcorn inside was, in

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Speaker 1: the opinion of these theater owners, kind of like throwing

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Speaker 1: sawdust on the floor and just saying, sure, just spit

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Speaker 1: wherever you want. Talkies or films with spoken dialogue emerged

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Speaker 1: in ninete and this brought movie theaters to the common folk.

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Speaker 1: Suddenly anyone could cough up some change, grab a seat,

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Speaker 1: and understand what was going on. This was also the

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Speaker 1: time of the Great Depression, when Americans from coast coast

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Speaker 1: pined for cheap, escapist entertainment. So the average Americans finally

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Speaker 1: found the cinema, and they brought their snack culture along,

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Speaker 1: and the depression affected theaters as well. Theaters with the

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Speaker 1: best chances of surviving were the ones that gave customers

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Speaker 1: what they wanted. If they wanted to eat popcorn while

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Speaker 1: watching a film, well so be it. At first, independent

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Speaker 1: vendors sold popcorn outside the theater, profiting from the casual

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Speaker 1: passers by as well as future movie patrons. Since corn

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Speaker 1: kernels were dirt, cheap, popcorn became even more popular, and

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Speaker 1: things escalated. Movie theaters allowed vendors to sell popcorn in

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Speaker 1: the lobby for a small fee. Eventually they cut out

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Speaker 1: the vendors entirely acquiring their own poppers. During World War Two,

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Speaker 1: popcorn sales saw another bump. Sugar was rationed, which made

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Speaker 1: many conventional sweet snacks and drinks more expensive, at least

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Speaker 1: that is when they were available at all. Popcorn, of course,

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Speaker 1: only required salt and popcorn kernels, neither of which were

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Speaker 1: hard to come by. But by then the association between

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Speaker 1: movies and popcorn was firmly established in the mind of

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Speaker 1: the American public. This association continues today. But there's another

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Speaker 1: wrinkle to the story. And you might be saying Christian, Okay,

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Speaker 1: popcorn was cheap in the depression or whatever, But what

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Speaker 1: happened when did it become so expensive? Good question. The

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Speaker 1: price hike really kicked in on all concessions back in

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Speaker 1: the nineties seventies. See contrary to popular belief, your local

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Speaker 1: movie theater doesn't actually make that much bank off the

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Speaker 1: films it screens. Instead, theaters use concessions to stay in business.

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Speaker 1: According to the Stanford Business School, concessions comprise only about

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Speaker 1: of a theater's gross revenue, but of its profits. This

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Speaker 1: makes sense when we consider how theaters must split ticket

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Speaker 1: revenue with distributors, but can pocket of whatever they managed

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Speaker 1: to sell at the snack counter. The bulk cost of

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Speaker 1: the ingredients is laughably small, and the profit margin is huge,

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Speaker 1: and don't forget, the stuff is still addictively delicious. Today's

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Speaker 1: episode was written by Ben Bolan and produced by Tyler Clang.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoy our show and want to support us

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Speaker 1: directly check out our online store at public dot com

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Speaker 1: slash brainstuff, and of course, for more on this and

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Speaker 1: lots of other popping topics, visit our home planet, how

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