Show and sell

When I was growing up, anything “modern” was good. Whatever the fab fad was, if it came wrapped in the “modern” packaging, we convinced ourselves that it was for the better.

We even convinced ourselves this was true about “modern food.”

Astronaut ice cream. [anyone remember that?]
Tang [another astronaut drink]
Cheez-Whiz.

But my favorite “modern” food was Jiffy Pop.

If you're too young to remember Jiffy Pop, it is just popcorn packed into a flat aluminum “frying pan” and sealed with a light, thin foil covering. The frying pan was put over a hot burner and as the popcorn inside heated up and hot air was generated, the thin foil-covering puffed up into a big, shiny balloon. To eat the popcorn, you punctured the balloon and peeled the tin foil back, revealing the steamy popcorn.

If you can demonstrate/animate this with a hot plate and Jiffy Pop, all the better. Then you’ll also have the smell of popcorn throughout the sanctuary while you preach and refer to Jiffy Pop.] Once microwave popcorn hit store shelves, Jiffy Pop lost its popularity. Hunters and hikers still find it a fun campfire food. But it was Jiffy Pop that came to mind recently when the “Balloon Boy” hoax took over our television sets for the greater part of daytime news. The experimental silver Mylar “balloon” that was feared to hold the six year old boy Falcon looked a whole lot like a giant container of Jiffy Pop.

Like Jiffy Pop, the report of a missing boy was full of nothing but hot air. Like Jiffy Pop, which you eat at a show, the whole drama was show food. When the “balloon boy” scare was popped and the Mylar peeled back, what was finally revealed? Nothing but hot air. Nothing but a huge hoax. It was the local sheriff who summed up the fiasco. When asked to explain the wasted money and man-hours spent looking for the boy, when the parents had set up the whole thing because they were looking for the publicity to get them a reality tv show, the sheriff sighed: “They put on a good show for us, and we bought it.”

But it was the little boy himself who outed his parents, and let the truth slip out. On live tv, Falcon Heene was asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer why he hid from everyone when they were searching for him. The little boy swallowed hard, looked into the camera and said, “We did it for the show.”

It took a little child to tell the truth. Or to bring the sheriff’s words and the child’s words together, the whole episode was an example of . . . Show and Sell…