Orville Redenbacher: Everything You Didn't Know About The Popcorn King
By June 17, 2021
The unassuming bow-tied face you see all across the snack aisle of your local grocery store was the undisputed popcorn king of the 20th century. Since 1970, Orville Redenbacher parlayed his 4-H experience and charming, down-home persona into a movie night empire that still endures today.
Becoming Orville Redenbacher
Orville Redenbacher was born on July 16, 1907 in the small Hoosier town of Brazil, Indiana. His parents, William and Julia Dierdorff Redenbacher, along with most of their neighbors, were corn farmers, and as a typical Midwestern farm kid, Redenbacher participated in his local 4-H club and the county fair. When he was 12 years old, he started earning extra money by selling popcorn to folks around town.
After graduating in the top 5% of his class at Brazil High School in 1924, Redenbacher enrolled in Purdue University to major in agronomy. His college days were quite busy: He was a member of a fraternity for agriculture students called Alpha Gamma Rho, the university's all-American marching band, and the track team. He also wrote for the school newspaper, the Purdue Exponent. After he graduated in 1928, he took a job as the farm bureau extension agent for Vigo County, but through it all, Redenbacher kept his hands in the dirt.
The Orville Redenbacher Popcorn Company
Following his stint with the county, Redenbacher managed a successful fertilizer company that earned him a tidy profit and used his spare time to grow popping corn. It was his favorite treat, and he was determined to cross-breed the perfect popcorn. He devoted almost four decades of his life to crossbreeding, by his estimate, some 30,000 different hybrids.
Finally, armed with what he believed was the perfect popcorn, Redenbacher and his partner, Charlie Bowman, opened shop. In the early days, the pair smushed their names together to call the company Red Bow Popcorn, but an advertising agency urged them to take advantage of Redenbacher's more unique and memorable name as well his affable, "wacky grandpa" image. From then on, they were known as the Orville Redenbacher Popcorn Company, and the man himself was its face. From 1972 until his death in 1995, Redenbacher starred in dozens of TV commercials wearing a bow tie as a nod to the company's original name.
