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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
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Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 25, 2008 / 20 Nissan 5768

Popcorn Zombie

By Greg Crosby


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I thought Orville Redenbacher was dead. Not that I really knew for a certainty, but somewhere in the back of my mind I seemed to remember that the guy died. One indicator of his demise is the fact that he hasn't been putting in too many appearances on TV lately. In fact, I think it's been years since he's been in those obnoxious commercials. Of course, maybe he's just been under the weather or something. Or maybe he was bought out by some big food conglomerate and he simply retired to Las Vegas. Nah. Couldn't be. I was pretty sure Orville was dead.


Well, I was wrong. Orville Redenbacher lives! Commercials are currently running which feature good old Orville looking not a whit older than he did over thirty some odd years ago - bowtie and everything. And if you think that the TV spots are the old things he did years ago, they're not. First, there are no disclaimers or dates attached to them. Secondly, Orville isn't selling the old merchandise; the spots feature all the newest products, products that weren't around thirty years ago - or even five years ago. It's all the current Redenbacher line. So the guy is still alive, still selling popcorn.


But why hasn't he aged? I wanted to find out more so I went on the internet and did a bit of investigating. I really wanted to find out Orville's secret formula - not the secret formula for lighter, fluffier popcorn, mind you - the secret formula for never getting any older. Was it vitamins? Botox? Somehow he's found the Fountain of Youth. How does he do it?


According to the official Orville Redenbacher website, he was born on a farm in Brazil, Indiana in 1907 and began growing his own popcorn at twelve years old -evidently becoming totally obsessed with popcorn. Why? Who knows?


Wikipedia adds that Orville graduated from Brazil High School in 1924 and was in the top 5% of his class. He attended Purdue University and graduated with a degree in agronomy, which is the science of soil management and crop production. He spent most of his life in the agriculture industry and made a small fortune in fertilizer, which no doubt helped him later in life as a marketing man.


In 1951 he partnered with another man and got into developing hybrid strains of popcorn. He was off and running in the popcorn business. Orville first appeared on national TV in 1972 on various game and talk shows pushing his product. This before he even began making his own commercials where his famous line became, "Lighter and fluffier than ordinary popping corn!"


He sold his company to Hunt-Wesson Foods in 1976, and from then on the Orville Redenbacher popcorn company seemed to get even lighter and fluffier than their own popcorn, bouncing back and forth between large food companies. In 1983 a company called Esmark purchased Norton Simon, Inc. which owned Hunt-Wesson. A year after that Beatrice Foods acquired Esmark. Beatrice was later taken over by Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts who began selling off their various businesses. The popcorn business was then sold in 1990 to ConAgra, an enormous agribusiness concern. Whew! Got all that?


And now Orville is still in commercials hawking his wares at the age of 100 years old and looking not a day over 65 or so, right? Wrong! The truth is that Orville Redenbacher is indeed very dead, for more than seven years, no less. On September 19th, 1995 he was found dead in the jacuzzi of his condo. He had had a heart attack and drowned. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered over his popcorn - no, I made that last part up. His ashes were scattered at sea. He was 88 years old.


But who then appears in these new commercials? Well, they've made digital re-creations of Redenbacher. Through the magic of computers they have taken his real image and voice and have brough him back from the dead! It's Orville FRANKENBACHER! As my nephew Adam might say, "Man, that really creeps me out!"


So the next time you see him in one of his folksy, down-home commercials, just know what you're really watching, kids - the eternial walking, talking popcorn zombie who refuses to die! And if that doesn't bring chills down your spine and give you nightmares, then his name isn't Orville Redenbacher! Lighter, fluffier, and creepier than ordinary poping corn spokesmen.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. A freelance writer in Southern California, you may contact him by clicking here.

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© 2006, Greg Crosby

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