Pass the Popcorn

Edd: I hope he doesn't wake Jimmy... this is not good...
Eddy: This is rich, Double D! [seats show up outta nowhere, Edd and Eddy sitting down] Have a seat, front-row center to the greatest show on Earth! [takes out popcorn, gobbling it up]
[Beat]
Edd: Are you gonna share those?

— Ed, Edd n Eddy, "A Glass of Warm Ed"

When a character is treating a certain scene as pure entertainment, they will often be shown eating popcorn or other stereotypical movie-theater food. Where they get it is a mystery. Usually, the scene will be something like a fight or a private conversation between lovers, that generally isn't intended for anyone's amusement (at least not in-universe). Almost inevitably, the character will be too fixated on the entertainment to actually look at what they’re eating.

This is always used for humor; it often indicates that the character in question, rather than offering to help, is callous enough that they are deriving amusement from someone's anguish or anger. It may also indicate that the character in question has no stake in the outcome. Alternatively, perhaps they do have a stake in the outcome and are confident that somebody they don't like is about to receive a well-deserved comeuppance, or that their side is winning in the case of a fight, or that their Evil Plan is about to come to fruition if it's a villain doing it. Sometimes the character becomes an Audience Surrogate, giving an in-universe voice to the audience's feelings towards the scene.

This is ubiquitous enough that "*eats popcorn*"◊ and similar remarks are a common response to Internet flame wars.

Compare and contrast Long Speech Tea Time (where the audience has a tea or something because they're bored) and The Snack Is More Interesting (where someone is involved, but acts strangely unconcerned). Come to Gawk and Bile Fascination are often contributing elements. For more catastrophic occurrences, there is While Rome Burns. If the situation is in really bad taste, the spectator is probably a Nightmare Fetishist. A variation on the trope is "Pass the Joint", in which a situation is so strange that the only way to cope is Sure, Let's Go with That and pass around a joint to mellow out.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In an ad for Progressive Insurance, the two guys from the competition break into the Progressive Store "Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop style to steal the Progressive Price Gun. Flo and her sidekick are watching all this on security cameras while eating snacks. The sidekick wonders if they should call the police while Flo says "Nah, this is just getting good."
• The National Football League released a Super Bowl Special spot celebrating 100 years of the League's existence. It featured a dignified celebration interrupted by a football cake topper coming loose and a mad Pavlovian reaction from the current and retired players at the sight. Cue a crazed and messy pickup game among all the players...except the table with the surviving 1972 Dolphins (the only undefeated team of the Super bowl era). The old men just sip their champagne and laugh at all the craziness.

Animation

• In Season 2 episode 7 of BoBoiBoy, Adu Du treats watching BoBoiBoy and his friends suffer from his Y Emotive Blaster like watching a movie, asking Computer to put it on his big screen and sharing popcorn with Probe.
• Happy Heroes: In Season 3 episode 12, Kalo and Arcas are about to fight, and Big M. and Little M. bring along some popcorn to eat as they watch the battle.
• In the Lamput episode "Animal X", the docs struggle to keep a captured gorilla calm so they can get it into their creature-merging machine. Lamput watches from a distance, enjoying the chaos and eating some popcorn with a winged cat the docs created earlier.
• In Scissor Seven, this is a Running Gag when it comes to the dramatic love story between Mad Bark and Meow Kitty.
  • When Mad Bark starts talking about his past and his breakup with Meow Kitty, as they could not have children together, Seven is munching on popcorn, even tossing some at Mad Bark's dog comrades.
  • It makes a comeback as Meow Kai confesses his love to Meow Kitty and tells his story. Once again, Seven is munching on popcorn in the back, eventually joined by Dai Bo and Xiao Fei. He even makes comments!
    Seven (talking with his mouth full of popcorn): Oh yeah, this is my shit!

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan: While no snacks are involved, it does fit the spirit of this trope. In Ch. 44, a flashback to 104th's recruit days reveals that Annie and Mikasa, both known for being rather fierce, had a "disagreement" during hand-to-hand training which escalated into an impromptu match. Like high school students during a hallway brawl, the rest of the Trainees stopped what they were doing to watch, and some even started placing bets (Jean bet his entire dinner on Mikasa).
• Blood Blockade Battlefront: During one crisis where Femt is discussing existential philosophy with King Void while an airship crashes into various skyscrapers, Aligura is munching on a tub of popcorn. Considering Femt and Aligura are Blockade's equivalent of The Joker and Harley Quinn, this seems appropriate.
• Dragon Ball Super: Whenever Beerus and Whis show up to observe and comment on one of Goku's fights, they will invariably be snacking while doing so. Their commentary also reflects this: they have next to no emotional investment in the fight and are talking about it like they're watching an interesting TV show.
• Referenced in the Glitter Force episode "Chloe Quits!"; during Chloe's announcement, Emily quips that she wishes she had some popcorn.
• In Hoshin Engi, during the battle against a mutated King Chu in the Battle of Bokuya, The Hero Taikobo doesn't act directly, instead spending time enjoying a bath, a bag of potato chips or, in one case, by watching a TV show. When Tenka calls him out on that, he realizes that the Anti-Magic Taikobo used previously left him completely exhausted, so he's not engaging in this trope for the lulz but because he's genuinely tired and there's nothing he can do.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi has a large-scale version happen during the Battle of Mahora: Evangeline and the Principal spend the entire time sitting on the sidelines and watching while drinking sake. The Principal did attempt to intervene when things got really serious, but Eva stopped him.
• In an episode of Ninja Nonsense, resident tsundere Miyabi is talking to a boy on the way home from school. Meanwhile, Shinobu, Onsokumaru and several ninjas are watching in the bushes eating various snacks.
• Paprika: At one point, Paprika is watching Detective Konakawa's dreams on a movie theater screen, while munching on popcorn. This ties in with Konakawa's short-lived efforts to make a movie before he became a detective.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena:
  • Although it's obvious someone is watching each duel, Nanami's last duel hangs a lampshade on it. While Nanami and Utena duel, Touga (who otherwise had a reason to be part of the duel) slips away and joins Akio on the viewing platform. And they give exposition. Lounging on a bed.
• Ranma ½:
  • This happens when Ryōga is trying to build up the courage to kiss Akari. Ranma proceeds to sit right next to them while munching on potato chips. Ryōga is not pleased.
  • In several episodes Kasumi is worriedly observing Ramna fighting yet another adversary while sipping tea. After all, boys will be boys, and she's the one mopping the dojo afterwards.
• Oscar's usual reaction to the squabbles between nobles in The Rose of Versailles consists to sit on the sidelines and snark about it — at least as long as she's not forcibly involved, as it happened during the pissing match between Marie Antoinette and Countess Du Barry.
• During the climactic battle near the end of the first half of Slayers Revolution, Xellos can be seen on the sidelines eating popcorn.
• In the Tenchi Muyo! episode, "Here Comes Jurai!", Funaho, Lady Musaki, Ryoko, Ayeka, Washu, Sasami, and Ryo-Ohki, while watching the duel between Tenchi and Seiryo, play this trope out, complete with tea.

Comedy

• In one routine Dane Cook describes the joy he gets from watching loveless couples in public fight "about absolutely nothing." While watching a couple fight in the supermarket over jelly, he gets so excited he opens a box of Entenmann's cookies and begins eating them while he eavesdrops.

Comic Books

• A cover of Anthro where the title character is just lying back and eating a drumstick while he watches two prehistoric girls fighting each other over the right to marry him.
• The Avengers: During Operation: Galactic Storm, Iron Man gets into a fight with Ronan the Accuser in full view of all the other Accusers, who just simply sit back and watch, figuring Iron Man has no chance against Ronan. Their distraction allows some of the other Avengers to bust in and free the Avengers they already had captive.
• Captain America: After having revealed a disguised Captain America to an island full of super-villains, Batroc sits back to watch the ensuing mayhem (along with a few other villains) while everyone else tries to dogpile Cap. Naturally, he has popcorn.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe; In Don Rosa comic Sign of the Triple Distlefink, as Donald and Gladstone are racing to be the one to get hit by lightning:
  Scrooge: I wonder what will be more potent? Gladstone's luck, or Donald's eternal tendency towards self-destruction? One thing is certain! This should be a good show! Pass the lemonade!
• In Doomquest (an Iron Man / Doctor Doom crossover) Mephisto forces Iron Man to fight a demonic version of his father. He magically summons some popcorn to enjoy while watching but discards it because he forgot the butter.
• In John Byrne's Fantastic Four's run, a weakened Galactus lands in New York and attempts to eat the Earth's lifeforce. The FF, The Avengers, and Doctor Strange join forces against him. Spider-Man is about to join the fray when Daredevil stops him, saying the two of them would only get in the way. Spider-Man accepts this but says that he wishes he had some popcorn.
• Futurama: In the issue "Who's Dying to be a Billionaire?", Fry goes on the eponymous deadly game show to save Planet Express from bankruptcy. Leela and the Professor are the only two actually concerned for the fact Fry's stupidity is almost certain to get him killed, while everyone else is watching. Amy offers the Professor her popcorn.
• In Gotham Knights #9, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake (Nightwing and Robin, respectively) have this conversation. A later panel shows that they actually followed through on it.
  Tim: Did you see that? We don't even have our costumes here — what're we gonna do?!
  Dick: What are we gonna do? Batman is fighting Hugo Strange on the roof of Wayne Enterprises. We're gonna get popcorn!
• In the JLA vs. the Crime Syndicate of Amerika arc of JLA, the Justice League's evil counterparts from a Mirror Universe (the Crime Syndicate of Amerika) end up in the "good" universe while the Justice League takes on the Void Hound, a mechanical creature easily capable of destroying planets. True to form, instead of helping out, they relax in comfortable chairs provided by the Power Ring (the alternate universe's Green Lantern) and eat popcorn... also provided by the Power Ring. As he says, "It's kind of tasteless, but hey, it's lo-cal."
• Marvel Adventures - Avengers: After meeting superheroes for the first time, Loki turns an ordinary crook into the Wrecker just to see what happens when a different sort of mortal is given powers. He spends the rest of the issue enjoying the show, complete with a tub of popcorn as the Wrecker tussles with Spider-Man.
• The Maze Agency: In "The Two Wrong Rhoades", Jen and Ashley (both dressed in Spy Catsuits) end up grappling each other in a darkened room. Upon hitting the lights, Gabe's reaction is:
  "With a few gallons of mud, and some beer, my evening would be complete!"
• It's easy to miss, but in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW) issue #6 Spike offers Princess Luna some popcorn while Pinkie Pie faces her fears.
• In the Original Sin tie-in for Loki: Agent of Asgard (Thor & Loki: The Tenth Realm) Old Loki can't help themself but meddle to see a fight between Thor and Angela. They even pause the scrying spell to conjure up popcorn for the occasion.
• Siege: Storming Asgard, a lead-up profile special for the Marvel event, mentions a potential battle between Ares (of the Dark Avengers) and Tyr (Asgardian war god). The note from the compiler of the profiles? "Check on our stocks of popcorn in case this happens."
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) Issues #178-179, thanks to some mounting tensions, Sonic and Tails end up trading blows in the middle of a prison cell block. Naturally, the prisoners, who are members of Sonic's Rogues Gallery, watch with sadistic joy, with Mogul and Bean even taking bets on who will win.
• Superman:
  • Superman Family Adventures: In issue #2, Supergirl and the Teen Titans eat popcorn while they watch Superman fighting Bizarro.
  • The Killers of Krypton: As he watches Splyce fighting Supergirl, Harry Hokum states he wishes he had some popcorn.
• Invoked in Young Justice #7: During a meeting of YJ's parents and guardians, Arrowette's mom starts a fight with Wonder Girl's, and Dubbilex asks Max Mercury if they shouldn't be doing something.
  Max: Dubbilex, when you've been around as long as I have, you'll know the only worthwhile things you can bring to a catfight are popcorn and a drink.

Comic Strips

• Dilbert:
  • When Dilbert attempts to clone his boss and mentions that it will cause pain, his coworkers immediately appear to watch, with Wally eating popcorn.
  • Dogbert once becomes a driver's ed instructor and shows a student horrific car crash videos to supposedly scare him into learning to drive safely. The kid watches it while eating popcorn and responds, "Really? This is supposed to shock people?"
    Dogbert: I'll be following your car in a helicopter.
• Garfield: In the strip for September 11, 1994, Garfield can't seem to find anything good on TV, but then he sees Jon running from a runaway lawnmower. Garfield gets the popcorn and soda.
• Zits has a Sunday cartoon that had the family arguing about Jeremy holding up a departure sans dialogue. The last panel showed some neighbors watching and sharing popcorn.
• One Thimble Theater Sunday strip has Popeye get into a Diner Brawl with someone else at Roughhouse's Cafe. Rather than call the cops, Roughhouse begins charging people admission to watch the fight.

Fan Works

• An Impractical Guide to Godhood: During a quarrel between Zeus and Hera, Apollo summons bags of popcorn for everyone. Perseus and quite a few gods actually eat it as they watch the show.
• In Between My Brother and Me: Mors Omnibus: This gets to the point of a Running Gag. In fact, try to figure out how many duels so far don't involve people eating food in some way. It gets to the point that, during the epic tag-team duel between Yvonne and Yusho versus Yuya and Zarc, Yvonne and Yusho start eating a sandwich while Yuya's dragon incinerates Yvonne's El Shaddoll Winda.
• In Black & Black Luna slaps Ginny for having sent Harry anti-gay letters under Ron and Hermione's names, which amuses Harry's husband.
  Draco: Oooh, violence...it's getting good, do we have popcorn love?
• As shown in one A Brief History of Equestria side story, during Hurricane and Clover's courting days, Platinum and retainers would listen in from nearby, taking bets on the outcome, with the princess herself enjoying roasted walnuts while listening.
• Hobbes does this twice in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series, and invokes it in another:
  "Hello? Socrates? Meet me down at the park. And bring popcorn."
• A Captain America: Civil War fan comic has Heimdall come across Thor at the Rainbow Bridge viewing portal eating popcorn and watching the conflict. Heimdall asks if Thor is going to intervene and help his friends, to which Thor says "Pssh, no." Heimdall then reaches for the popcorn as he joins Thor in watching the fight.
• A non-popcorn example in Chaos Theory when little Gil breaks the chocolates out to watch Taiga flail. Gold-wrapped chocolates, this is - his Gate of Babylon gives him access to the first prototype of everything, including snacks.
• Child of the Storm: At one point during Ghosts of the Past, Harry and Carol stumble into an awkward conversation about whether or not she finds him attractive, and Jean-Paul then zooms out and grabs some popcorn to enjoy it. The sheer audacity of this causes all three to break out laughing.
  • A little later on in the same story, Harry and Carol happen to run into the bullies who used to torment Harry when he was living with the Dursleys. When it becomes clear they're about to fight, Carol sits it out to enjoy the show, asking if there's any place nearby where she can get some popcorn.
  • In a much more serious example, Tony states that he'd be perfectly willing to sit back with some popcorn and watch Lily a.k.a. the White Phoenix of the Crown or Thor go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and destroy the Red Room for all the pain they've caused Harry - though he's just as happy to take part himself, he just wants forewarning if one or the other goes all out, so he can get a good view.
• In Classically Trained, Oliver and Sara are both under the mistaken impression that Ted Grant has kidnapped Laurel. They both show up to "rescue" her and fight him, and in the process Laurel learns both of their identities and she and Oliver learn Sara is alive in the first place. The three then have a long overdue talk, while Ted looks on, openly amused at the family drama.
• A Crown of Stars: In chapter 33, while Asuka is sparring verbally with Misato and Hikari, Daniel and Rayana pick up a bowl of popcorn and munch on it as they watch the fun.
  "Ladies, please! Wait!" Daniel interrupted. He reached behind the couch he and Rayana were sitting on and retrieved a large bowl of popcorn. He placed it in his lap and Rayana took a handful. "Alright, continue."
• A Darker Path: As Atropos repeatedly waltzes past all her enemies' defences, an increasing number of PHO posters decide that all they can do is sit back and enjoy the show. UnconcernedFox in particular just keeps asking for popcorn, escalating to, "*reads opening post. Puts in a new order to the popcorn company. Just back the truck up and leave it there*​"
• The Dursley Witch: Late in the story, the students of Hogwarts organize a boycott of Snape's classes. Harry, Roisin (the main OC), and several other students in their class use a spell to watch Snape's reaction to the first empty class, and chow down on popcorn while doing so.
• In Enough is Enough Fred, George and several teachers eat popcorn while watching Harry and Ginny have an argument in the Great Hall.
• Invoked in Escapism: After Snake Eyes is captured by Cobra, the Joes hack the security cameras.
  Storm Shadow: Now, just wait. Unless someone wants to go make some popcorn.
• In the Harry Potter fanfic Fallen Angel one line states: "If Bellatrix ever fell apart, people would just stand there and watch. Katherine would probably bring popcorn."
• Families: Celestia helps herself to popcorn while watching Olive Branch realize that his plans against her are dissolving completely. This is an in-universe invocation of the trope, as Celestia is actually stated to hate the taste of popcorn but feels that it's the best way to get across the message of how badly Olive has screwed up.
• Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness: While most of those watching the fight between Megas and Yuuka are doing so with some sort of trepidation or anxiety, Yuyuko's treating the whole thing like a night at the theater.
• A common reaction to epic duels in Farce of the Three Kingdoms.
• Fate/Long Night: The Stranger's Champion munches on a bucket of popcorn while spying on the protagonists and being entertained by their antics.
• In The Freak, Freakazoid! faces several Death Eaters who came to capture Harry Potter.
  Then, deciding that he shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, the teen wizard began wondering if it might not be worth it to risk a new charge of underage use of magic if he were to conjure himself a chair and bucket of popcorn to better enjoy the abject humiliation of the Death Eaters at the hands of this blue-skinned mad man in red.
• On this blog, two bloggers roleplayed as Glee's Blaine and Cooper and answered questions that people submitted. One person asked what Blaine would do if Sebastian started hitting on Blaine's boyfriend, Kurt. Blaine's answer: "Get out of the firing line. Buy popcorn. Bring seats."
• In the Tin Man fanfic series The Gulchverse, most of the Royal Guards (and Dawkins especially) treat most of the actions involving the princesses, Cain, Gulch, and any other bystanders as the ultimate entertainment. They literally had popcorn and sold tickets to a meeting where the aristocrats were to be informed that one of the princesses that they've been trying to court for political reasons is going to marry a commoner.
• In Harry Potter and the Four Heirs Remus eats popcorn while watching Sirius try to hex Harry for charming the paintings to sing "Who Let the Dogs Out?".
• In Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin Harry wishes he had popcorn while watching a confrontation between his estranged twin brother James Jr. and Draco Malfoy. Later, at the end of Year 3, Snape actually brings a literal bag of popcorn to a Wizengamot session to enjoy while watching James Potter's horrified reaction to learning that Lily was distantly related to an infamous but deceased Death Eater and that as a result, Harry was entitled to a Lordship in the Wizengamot and a huge inheritance. All of this happened immediately after James induced Harry to voluntarily disinherit himself from House Potter in exchange for almost half of James's own fortune.
• Hogyoku ex Machina involves several characters watching parts of Ichigo's life via projections of his memories (which they had permission for) and with hidden security cameras (...which they did not). At one gathering, they comment on how entertaining his life is, some bring popcorn and Coke (Rukia told them it was a tradition), and everyone, even Ishida and Yamamoto, ends up treating it like a movie night.
• In the Horseshoes and Hand Grenades side story Month of Sundays, Damballa is eating through a 'never-ending box' of popcorn while he watches Mari, Miura and Yayoi fight off Haruto Souma, transformed into a large cloth doll with a 5-year-old mentality.
• How Miraculous Should Have Ended:
  • In "Frozer", rather than akumatize any of them, Hawk Moth tells Nathalie to get him some popcorn while watching the teen drama between Marinette, Adrien, Luka, and Kagami.
  • In "Desperada", the titular akuma abandons her original revenge scheme and settles in to watch the drama once she realizes Jagged Stone has revealed himself to be Luka and Juleka's father.
• Happens two-fold in Ichigo, Meet Ichigo. When Ichigo loses a bet and has to have dinner with Zaraki, the captains and lieutenants gather around a large screen television with drinks and popcorn at the ready, while Urahara hijacks their security camera signal so he and the Vizards in the human world can watch as well, also with refreshments.
• In If Wishes Were Ponies, this trope makes multiple appearances.
  • When Twilight is establishing an account at Gringott's and things start to go slightly pear-shaped Pinkie starts handing out bags of popcorn.
  • In chapter 66, Twilight begins telling the story of Tirek's rampage to Dumbledore and the top Professors.
  “And who was this Tirek? You mentioned him once before,” Dumbledore asked gently. He heard a crunching sound and looked over to see that Miss Pie and the other Atlanteans were sitting on lounge chairs, sharing a big bucket of popcorn.
• The Infinite Loops: It is rather common for loopers to indulge in popcorn while another looper utterly curbstomp villains or battle each other.
• Infinity Crisis:
  • When Black Widow puts Sara, Black Siren, Nyssa, and Alex through some sparring, Mick and Rocket are in the stands eating popcorn as they watch.
  • In Powers and Marvels, Rita is munching on some as she watches the Mandarin fighting the Rangers.
• In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail, Zeno showcases numerous scenarios to Goh as part of some "nightmare therapy" as to how Goh's actions affected him and also shows what happened if Goh provided empathy all while eating stuff like potato chips, chocolates, curry, and popcorn.
• At one point in Is Your Great Aunt an AI? Snape indulges in some popcorn while watching footage of GLaDOS experimenting on Pettigrew.
• The Joker does this (utilizing Hammerspace to do so) in Joke's On You as he watches Jaime argue with the scarab in his head about its new-found sense of humor.
• J-WITCH Series:
  • Once the Guardians and J-Team get involved in the battle royale that Valmont's Auction of Evil breaks down into, Jade, Paco, and Blunk help themselves to some popcorn.
  • In "Return", Drago shares a bag of popcorn (cooked with his powers) with Miranda as they watch the fight between the Phobos loyalists and the Ice Crew and Hak Foo over who gets Elyon's powers.
• The Last Archangel: Four Aren't Better Than One has Loki bemoaning the lack of popcorn while Daredevil awkwardly tries to reassure Foggy Nelson about Matt Murdock's health and safety without outing himself as said Matt Murdock, only to fail.
• Invoked in The Last Daughter by an online poster after the newest hero in the city destroys the two most powerful criminal gangs in one night.
  OneEyedPeopleEater (New Member)
  Posted on October 1st, 2009:
  Chews last dregs of popcorn with slow satisfaction then swallows.
  Someone better get me a telephone, because I fucking called it.
• Alador Blight in Little Light anticipates his Social Climber of a wife's freak out when he tells her that Amity has a crush on Luz, the same Luz who is Emperor Belos' previously unknown daughter and heir, even though he knows that she would never approve of the relationship in literally any other scenario. When the time comes, Alador is not disappointed.
  All this time Odalia had been trying to maneuver their daughter into the upper echelons of the isles, and Amity ended up developing a crush on Belos’ daughter. Odalia is going to lose it when she hears of this, but she’s not going to be able to do anything. Her pride will not allow her distaste for such things to shine through.
  And he’s got front row seats for when it happens.
• In Love is a Mystery, the chapter "Masked Skyhold" features a singing competition inspired by The Masked Singer. Since Varric is at home in Kirkwall, he's participating as a panelist via livestream, and at one point complains that he's out of popcorn and asks Cullen to pass him some. They've engineered a clever visual prank that makes it look like Cullen is handing a bowl of popcorn to Varric through the Internet; no one is fooled, of course, but they're all very entertained.
• In Mauling Snarks, a Worm fanfic, Contessa likes appearing with popcorn at places that will have something entertaining happening soon, such as Taylor beating seasoned heroes to set an all-time record in a sword-fighting obstacle course, gang members being taken down with demonic duck speakers, and Slaughterhouse Nine tearing apart the Council of the Teeth.
• In Chapter 6 of Mutual Marriage, Obi-Wan and Siri are mentioned to be eating popcorn while watching Anakin and Padme argue.
• Naruto the REAL Fifth Hokage has a couple of ANBU sharing popcorn while watching Naruto and Hinata argue about how the latter had been stalking the former.
• The New Adventures of Invader Zim does this a couple of times:
  • In Episode 3, MIMI goes into blue-eyed mode during Norlock's fight with Tak and Dib, and starts eating popcorn while watching. The fact that she's got no mouth to eat with doesn't slow her down.
  • In Episode 7, GIR does this while Zim's fighting Tak in the Meekrob ship's control room.
  • In Episode 12, Zim eats popcorn out of GIR's head while watching Norlock attack the fan convention of a cheesy vampire movie franchise. Viera and Steve help themselves to some later on.
  • In Episode 14, Zim's reaction to Tak accidentally creating and losing control of a storm that threatens her and the city is to sit back and watch it play out, as it only benefits him whatever happens, ordering GIR to bring him some popcorn to enjoy it with.
  • In Episode 1 of Season 2, when Zim goes to confront Tak and Tenn, and also Team Save Earth when they show up, everyone is surprised when they realize Nyx tagged along and is watching from the sidelines, eating popcorn offered to her by Ying. She only stops when Zim orders her to make herself useful and join the fight.
• In The New Man: An Adam Smasher SI, we see from a side POV that part of the benefits offered to the dedicated construction crew tasked with rebuilding the sites of the Butcher of Arasaka's battles is the chance to watch camera footage of his murder sprees. With complementary beer.
• In the YuYu Hakusho fanfic Of Snowballs, Cellphones, and Homicide, while much of the main cast is going through an impressive series of Disaster Dominoes, Kurama notices that Shizuru and Kaito are munching on popcorn.
• Just before the Final Battle of the massive Overlord (2012) fanfic God Rising: The Cult of Ainz, Ainz and the Guardians (save for Shalltear, who is one of the field generals) gather in Ainz's chambers to watch via the Mirror of Remote Viewing as Neia leads the combined armies of Ainz's followers and allies against the Theocracy's last remaining forces in Kami Miyako. To mark the occasion, Ainz insists on his minions having popcorn as they watch, which they treat as a "delicacy" of the Supreme Beings.
• The Path Less Traveled:
  Harry: So you’re saying I should go and shout at Shax and get it out of my system?
  Leena: I don’t recall saying that but if that is what you do please let me know. I’ll bring popcorn.
• In Total Pokémon Redux, Krookodile eats some rotten tomatoes while watching a challenge. He also eats some popcorn from an abandoned popcorn cart while he and the other players watch Cacturne and Trevenant fight.
• Queen of All Oni: Right and Hebi help themselves to some popcorn while watching Hak Foo Freak Out over the apparent uselessness of the Mini Khan he's now stuck commanding.
• The Rise of Darth Vulcan: When Eiderdown and her friends agree to serve the titular Villain Protagonist as payment of their debt to him, he quickly tags onto the fact that his Number Two, Artful Dodger, has developed a crush on her... and is woefully, utterly inexperienced with mares. So, Troll that he is, he assigns Eiderdown to work for Dodger, then retreats to his personal chambers with a bowl of nachos to watch things play out on his magical surveillance system.
• In Screwed Harry ends up in the afterlife after being executed by the goblins.
  Although eating and drinking were not necessary in this realm, popcorn, butterbeer, Cokes and other snacks were a nice touch while watching the trial and some of the other goings-on.
• Shadows over Meridian: In Chapter 30, Jade helps herself to a cup of tea while watching the very one-sided duel between Vera and Metalbeak.
• The Ranma ½ story The Silent Horse has Ranma's duel with Kunō interrupted by Ryōga who is showing up late for his own duel. Ryōga and Kunō proceed to argue, then fight, over the right to fight Ranma. Akane asks if they forgot who they were actually there to fight, only to be interrupted by Ranma offering some Pocky and watching the fight.
• Prince Vince and the Fairy Godfather indulge in this during the climax of Sleeping Beetle.
• Slytherin Survival Tactics:
  [Lucius] looked at Dumbledore out of the corner of his eye and allowed himself a small smile. He wished he had taken the bet his 'business associate' offered him on the timeline for Dumbledore's removal from Hogwarts. He also wished for some popcorn. Good entertainment was so hard to come by these days.
• Done a few times in The Somewhat Cracked Mind Of Uchiha Itachi.
  • Notably, Itachi specifically refers to this like this ("I'm in a pass-the-popcorn mood").
  • Chiyo, in chapter 42, does it only because Kankuro mentioned that Temari thought she was going to do it. For that matter, the Sand Siblings basically spent their evenings since their return to Suna watching the council bicker all the time as entertainment.
• In The Sorting Hat's Stand Harry wishes he had popcorn when Amelia Bones and several Aurors come to arrest Gilderoy Lockhart and the house elves immediately supply some.
• Terror Heroes has Red Hood delivering a terrible threat to the guys that abducted his youngest brother: release Robin, or he's going to sit back and eat popcorn while Nightwing deals with them. A pity for the kidnappers that they refused to listen.
• In Thanks Kyubey, Madoka wonders if she should turn into a Puella Magi to help the others out in their battle against Walpurgisnacht. Homura hands her popcorn and a soda and tells her to enjoy the show.
• In A Thing of Vikings, Hiccup and Astrid munch on some nuts and dried fruit whilst watching Ruffnut's parents' reaction to the bride price from her new husband, Magnus. Bear in mind, this is Magnus Fairhair, King of Norway, so said bride price is more than a little mind boggling.
• In This Means War during an Order of the Phoenix meeting where Harry and his friends argue in favor of their inclusion, Sirius conjures some popcorn and shares it with Remus and Snape. Popcorn reappears at various points in this fic. One suspects a certain amount of Author Appeal.
• To Hell and Back (Arrowverse) has Barry eat popcorn when watching an argument between Cisco and the imprisoned Hartley Rathaway.
  Caitlin: Why are you eating popcorn?
  Barry: Don't you eat popcorn while watching good entertainment?
• Jane eats some popcorn that Darcy managed to find in Tony's New Assistant while they watch Tony yell at Loki for introducing Hammer to Victor von Doom.
• Trump Card: When Coil kidnaps Taylor's Body Double, Alexandria hears about it and wants to immediately intervene, but Contessa, knowing what a thorough beat-down Coil's about to get, tells her that "That's not the way," just as her own preparations are complete.
  Alexandria: You hacked into Coil's security feeds. I'm surprised he has outside lines.
  Contessa: He'd be surprised, too. Door to microwave.
  Just as the small opening appeared in the air next to her, Alexandria heard the microwave oven make its ding sound. Contessa reached through; her hand reappeared with a bag of popcorn. She tore it open, the mouthwatering odour filling the room in seconds, and offered Rebecca the bag. "Want some?"
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic, An Unepic Pony War In The Non-Distant Future, Cadance abandons the royal dueling circle and chows down on a bag of popcorn after Rainbow Dash et al. accuse Twilight of being Nightmare Sparkle. Her husband (and Twilight's brother) helps himself to a bit of popcorn as well.
• Eating popcorn is a common thing in A Wild Badfic Appeared! Commentaries, reinforcing the lighthearted, somewhat condescending tone of the commentary towards the bad fanfiction it covers.
• Zim the Warlord: Irken Reversion: Following Dib's fight with Skoodge and Bob, GIR is found eating burnt popcorn while staring at a puddle in one of the resulting craters in the yard (either watching the water dry or his reflection; it's unclear which, and Zim suspects both).

Films — Animation

• BoBoiBoy: The Movie: The morning that BoBoiBoy invites his friends to go squid-fishing with Papa Zola, they're initially still angry at him for forgetting the camping trip the previous day, and the customer at Tok Aba's store says "Whoa! Morning drama!" and sips his drink in excitement.
• Happy Feet: No popcorn, but the Amigos provide color commentary on Mumble's argument with Gloria.
• Although he's not eating, the big wheel kid in The Incredibles parks himself in front of the Parr house when they get back from Syndrome's island, clearly expecting shit to go down. He's not disappointed.
• Leo: Squirtle is scarfing down a bowl of bugs watching a particularly incensed parent-teacher-principal meeting.
• In Mulan II, Mushu sits in a tree eating popcorn after Shang approaches Mulan to confront her about how she got the princesses to follow their hearts.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks: As the Dazzlings' Hate Plague is spreading, making the students bicker between themselves, Derpy is actually seen eating popcorn while watching Lyra and Bon Bon argue with Octavia in the gym.
• In Over the Hedge, at the end when an immensely powerful trap is triggered and proceeds to take out the three villains, some of the characters use the conflagration to heat up their microwave popcorn, which they then eat. They also roast marshmallows.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Plankton eating popcorn in a beach lounge while Krabs is about to get fried during The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
  • In The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water, as SpongeBob and his friends chase Burger Beard down the street, the seagulls watch them go while eating popcorn. While this happens, one seagull yells to Burger Beard, "That's what you get!"
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: While Donkey Kong is beating up Mario, who is attempting to beat him so that he, Peach, and Toad can use the Kongs and their karts to defeat Bowser, Cranky Kong picks up a banana and is smiling. This is in comparison to Peach and Toad, who are horrified by the violence Donkey Kong is inflicting on Mario.

Films — Live-Action

• In 2 Fast 2 Furious Brian O'Conner goes to get his friend Roman, they end up getting into a fight with FBI agent Bilkins sitting on a folding chair and eating popcorn.
• Attack of the Killer Donuts: Near the start of the film, Luther gets into a fight with Cliff at Dandy Donuts over a laptop. While they fight, John and Michelle just sit on the counter with a couple sodas.
• Batman (1989): After Joker enters Vicki Vale's apartment and he and Bruce Wayne begin verbally sparring, Vicki suddenly has a large tub of popcorn she is eating as she watches the two of them.
• In Batman Forever, when Two-Face attacks the circus performance that Bruce Wayne is attending, Edward Nygma excitedly scarfs down popcorn while watching the chaos unfold on TV.
• The early Tom Hanks comedy The 'Burbs has various eccentric or downright crazy people living on the same street, including a deranged Vietnam vet and a slightly deformed family of serial killers. A teenager finds all this amusing, and even brings some of his friends to gawk at all the insanity. Even at the very end of the movie, after the police and an ambulance have shown up, he still doesn't seem to understand what's really going on:
  Kid: God, I love this street!
• Happens in Die Hard with a Vengeance when a group of office workers begins eating popcorn while staring at the giant smoking crater in the middle of Wall Street.
• The opening scene of Dogma has Matt Damon, as a fallen angel, convert a nun to atheism while Ben Affleck's character watches with a bag of popcorn — he actually brought it for the Hallmark Moments that inevitably come at an airport, but one show is as good as another.
• Flash Gordon has a scene where Princess Aura, daughter of Ming the Merciless (Emperor of Mongo), is exposed as a traitor and is captured by Generals Klytus and Kala. They flog her mercilessly to try to make her give up her co-conspirators, but Aura resists, demanding to see her father, and says he will make them pay for torturing her. Klytus reveals that Ming has been there the whole time, observing the torture session while calmly eating what appears to be the alien equivalent of hot wings.
  Klytus: Sire, the traitor is close to confession. Should we stop the torture?
  Ming: [still chomping away] No.
  Aura: Father! Damn you, Father!!
• Ford V Ferrari: Mollie simply pulls up a beach chair while Shelby and Miles tear each other apart.
• In Galaxy Quest, while the crew are flying down to an alien planet, they begin screaming in terror about possibly crashing when they break through the clouds and find the ground to be uncomfortably close... except Fred, who is munching on Cracker Jacks with a giant grin on his face.
• Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) has a version of this. Memphis shares a cup of coffee with his brother Kip as a cop arrests Johnnie B and his gang, who happen to be armed, thanks to Kip hooking up their car to a tow truck and causing it's destruction a few moments earlier.
• Hot Shots! Part Deux has a limousine driver eating popcorn and using 3D glasses during a parody of the "sex in the back of a limousine" scene of No Way Out (1987).
• Jurassic World has Hoskins taking Lowery's drink and sipping on it while he watches the Indominus Rex rampage.
• In Killer Party, Virgil sabotages the backdoor of the sorority house so it won't open. The frat boys then release angry bees into the backyard, driving the naked sorority girls out of the hot tub. Discovering the backdoor won't open, the girls have to run around to the front, where the frat boys are seated with refreshments.
• The King of Kings (1927) includes a woman gleefully eating popcorn while observing the Crucifixion.
• In Knives Out, Ransom has just been cut out of his grandfather's will, and thus knows damn well he's not getting a cent after the old man dies. He still turns up at the reading of the will, purely for the drama of it all. His family doesn't disappoint, and a fistfight breaks out after only five minutes. He spends his time munching on cookies visibly enjoying it all. It gets even better when they all find out what Ransom already knew: no one in the family is getting anything, as his grandfather decided to leave it all to his personal nurse and best friend Marta instead, and the resulting blowup makes the fistfight look tame.
  Ransom: We gotta do this more often.
• Near the end of A Madea Family Funeral, all the tensions building up amongst the family members — especially the knowledge of two different affairs — finally hit a boiling point during the wake. As things start blowing up, Madea's group make it clear they're going to sit back and watch it happen, with Bam stating that she wishes they had some popcorn to enjoy it with.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In The Avengers, when Iron Man and Thor are about to fight each other over Loki's custody, Loki casually settles down on his rock like he's a member of the audience to watch the show.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: After Gamora makes Quill agree to kill her if Thanos captures her, followed by kissing him, they turn around to see Drax watching them with a bag of "zagnuts".
  • In Thor: Love and Thunder after Zeus holds Thor in the arena and flicks his clothes off Jane asks Valkyrie if they should help him. Val says yes... eventually. She then offers Jane a grape.
• Done in several Marx Brothers movies:
  • In Monkey Business, Groucho cheerfully stands between Alky Briggs and his wife Lucille while they have a spat, clearly enjoying the show. He even referees the argument, letting the participants know when it's their turn to speak. When the wife gets a little too angry, Groucho hands Briggs a gun and quips, "Here, big boy, you're going to need this more than I will."
  • In A Night at the Opera, Groucho is seen selling popcorn and other treats to spectators during a dramatic confrontation scene.
• In The Parole Officer, the title character is hiding in a nightclub's storeroom and witnesses a corrupt police officer committing murder. As he watches, he reaches for a bag of crisps and starts eating them as silently as he can. Justified as he is later revealed to be hypoglycemic.
• A more sadistic example in Pitch Black, where Riddick is seen casually drinking some liquor while watching another man get gunned down by a Zeke, who thought the innocent man was Riddick.
• During the final opera scenes in Repo! The Genetic Opera, Luigi Largo can be seen stealing someone's box of popcorn to enjoy the show. Of course, when Rotti announces Shilo is his heir, the popcorn goes flying to great comedic effect.
• When Robin Hood woos Maid Marion in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the merry men set out some benches and gather to watch, and a couple of the villagers are eating popcorn, right off the cob, on a stick.
• When Inara makes a video call to Mal in Serenity, the rest of the crew taps into the call and watches it with popcorn, complete with groaning and tossing it at the screen when the two of them inevitably begin dancing around admitting their feelings for each other.
• Early on in Stage Door, Jean marches into the living room of the Footlights Club (the place where she and other aspiring actresses live), goes straight up to Linda, and demands her stockings back. The two of them get into an argument/shoving match, and the others in the living room enthusiastically gather around to watch, making comments ("Mrs. Orcutt? Linda's doing a striptease!").
• S.W.A.T. (2003): TJ quite literally when Boxer and Street argue about Boxer's sister.
• The chick-fight scene from Undercover Brother. The men sit on sofas and eat popcorn as the women fight.
• Philo does this in UHF when he pirate-broadcasts Fletcher's rant. He's eating it out of a beaker.
• In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, when Augustus gets stuck in the pipe, Wonka is seen eating a handful of candy while watching.
  Wonka: The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last.

Literature

• On at least one occasion in The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Bartimaeus comments, "All I need is some popcorn," as he watches Nathaniel get himself in trouble.
• Black Tide Rising: When Dr. Curry is recruited by Bank of the Americas to act as their "resident Mad Scientist" (read: the person who can make their private supply of vaccine once it's discovered how to), one of the perks he asks for in his private lab space is several hundred packs of microwavable popcorn he can help himself to while watching the 24/7 news coverage and teleconferences by other scientists studying the plague.
• Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I.: McGoo brings a bag of popcorn to the execution of The Dragon, an unbearably bigoted Hate Sink, at the end of the first book.
• In Discworld, the citizens of Ankh-Morpork tend to treat anything interesting happening in the street as a spectator sport, and Mr. Dibbler will inevitably show up with his tray of "sausages" if it lasts long enough.
• In The Divine Comedy, the Author Avatar gets so caught up listening to two damned liars insulting each other that Virgil has to snap him out of it.
• In the Ciaphas Cain novels:
  • Cain mentions he has a couple of enemies that he "would sit back and roast caba nuts" while watching them be burned to death.
  • And also in another novel, where he makes a quiet remark akin to "Did anyone forget the caba nuts?" during a Mission Briefing.
• In Doom Valley Prep School this is a common reaction by the adults when they realize Petra is Fate's Chew Toy or witness her amazingly improbable luck. The teachers are mostly sitting back and laughing while betting on if Petra will survive the insanity. And later, Blood Wing's Succubus mother actually convinces another demon to come to her kingdom where they watch Petra with 'beer and popcorn'.
• Dora Wilk Series plays it for, oddly enough, drama:
  I could either try to act or summon myself a pack of popcorn and watch that beast kill my friend.
• In the seventh Safehold novel, a bigoted Lieutenant tries to bully the only female officer in the Charisian Army, a little girl he towers over by nearly a foot... who happens to be an android that is ten times stronger and faster than anything her size has a right to be and can download an entire martial arts library into her mind in a matter of seconds. Merlin and Cayleb later watch a replay of the beatdown while drinking beer and eating fried potato slices.
• Lampshaded in The Dresden Files novel Turn Coat, where Murphy and Harry are interrogating Binder in the police station, and Harry is beating the crap out of Binder, while grizzled old police officer Rawlins is watching. Binder declares that what Harry is doing is illegal and it'll all be caught on tape, to which Rawlins cuts in over the intercom that they should wait a moment, as he's got popcorn cooking.
• The cover of Michael Moore's book of the transcript and supplemental material for Fahrenheit 9/11 features Michael and then-President George W. Bush sharing a box of popcorn while (presumably) watching the movie in the front row of a theater.
• In the Felicia, Sorceress of Katara novella "The Last Homely House of Honeypot Bruin" there is a scene where Felicia and Benja Bruin are watching an army of ghosts walk past. Benja is scared nearly to death, Felicia makes popcorn.
• In The Girl from the Miracles District, while Nikita and Robin don't have any popcorn, they eat snacks while watching the Bears fight a Curb-Stomp Battle against the villain's mooks.
• Rayford Steele and the surviving remnant of Petra in Glorious Appearing from the Left Behind series was like Praise The Lord And Pass The Popcorn while he was watching the Antichrist's armies getting decimated by Jesus Christ. In the Dramatic Audio presentation, he even mentions that all he needs is the popcorn.
• In Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist (the book on which her biopic is partly based) the author once tried to climb a tree to observe gorillas without scaring them away, hoping to make some good photos, but proved too optimistic about her dexterity.
  I naturally assumed that the combined noises of panting, cursing, and branch-breaking made during the initial climbing attempts must have frightened the group on to the next mountain. I was amazed to look around and find that the entire group had returned and were sitting like front-row spectators at a sideshow. All that was needed to make the image complete were a few gorilla-sized bags of popcorn and some cotton candy!
• Heaven Official’s Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu: Hua Cheng "kidnaps" Xie Lian after his arrest, so Feng Xin and Mu Qing try to rescue him. On their first attempt they end up in a woman's bath, and their second leads them to a swamp full of crocodiles. All the heavenly officials — including Xie Lian — listen through the communication array as they yell insults at each other. Some of the officials even wish they could watch their fight live so they could cheer them on.
• The living dungeon starring in "No Need for a Core?"? eventually develops a war room, where guests will sometimes be allowed to watch delves of particular interest along with higher ranked dungeon inhabitants who are watching to take notes. Refreshments are served of course.
• In Peter David's novel Q-in-Law, a Q-empowered Lwaxana Troi is beating the unholy hell out of Q. (He deserved it.) Also, Lwaxana's manservant enjoying his popcorn while watching her play handball with Q... as the ball. Worf's reaction to the entire incident was a comment that they should be selling tickets. Another Q watches in the background and takes pictures to bring home to show the rest of the continuum.
• There Is No Epic Loot Here, Only Puns: Nu watches the Fairplay representatives fighting Muffet, who is puppeting their own people against them, and wishes he had tea to sip.

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine:
  • In "The 9-8", a huge fight breaks out between the cops of the Nine-Nine and their counterparts from the Nine-Eight, who had to share headquarters. Those Two Guys Hitchcock and Scully sit back and watch the mayhem while eating burritos.
  • In another episode, Holt confronts his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, Wuntch, in the interrogation room. Terry and Gina watch from the other side of the one-way mirror, complete with a bowl of popcorn and gleefully going "OHHHHHH!" at appropriate times.
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush", Anya reacts this way to Giles' mimed overhead-projector lecture about the Gentlemen.
• Castle does this a few times.
  • In one episode, Castle remarks, "a wife and fiancée catfight? Please tell me we can stop for popcorn along the way."
  • In an earlier episode, the beat cops are chasing around a whole mess of crazies run around in the precinct, Castle is munching on popcorn, and Beckett is calmly doing paperwork.
  • In a case centering on the murder of a domme from an S&M club, Beckett indicates early on she's personally familiar. Later she goes in to interrogate one of the male subs from the club.
    Castle: [to Ryan and Esposito] We're gonna need popcorn.
• In Century City, Lee May is researching a marriage contract, which her associate Darwin negotiated 8 years ago. His hair is ridiculous, he's enthusiastic, and he cares about the couple he's negotiating with. Cue the next scene being the entire law firm eating popcorn while watching the video.
• The Chosen: Two children bring a bowl of snacks to hear Jesus speak at Zebedee's house. Matthew at first refuses their offer to share, but reaches over and grabs some when Jesus heals the paralyzed man from the roof.
• The detectives on The Closer (justifiably) consider watching Chief Johnson in the interrogation room to be a spectator sport, often involving snacks (including popcorn) and witty commentary.
• Abed on Community not only does this (with Rasinettes), but even gives cues to the players so they know how to proceed cinematically.
• Corner Gas:
  • In one episode, Oscar and Emma are having another one of their arguments over who owns $90, with Brent and Wanda eating chips on the sidelines.
  • After Lacey confronts Karen about having just borrowed her house to watch a scary movie in, Brent comments on how there should be some scary music playing right then. Emma and Wanda, who already had popcorn because they were watching the movie, watch the standoff and eat some popcorn.
• In the CSI episode where Hodges presents the "Lab Rats" board game, one scenario has him committing an overly elaborate suicide on video. There is a scene with the whole lab and field team watching the video, eating popcorn, and cheering when the bullet hits.
• Jon Stewart occasionally did this during his time on The Daily Show, when the news got really interesting. This is usually followed with Jon hilariously saying "Go oooooooooon!" before cutting to a follow-up clip of whatever the story was about. Sometimes he'll also do a Spit Take.
• An episode of Degrassi Junior High has Dwayne tell Joey that he's going to beat him up after school. Most of the students show up to watch the fight and even sell ice cream.
• Derry Girls: Orla and Granda Joe share popcorn as they watch all of Orla's friends on stage at prom, covered in tomato juice and fighting Academic Alpha Bitch Jenny after a failed attempt to save her from her Carrie-inspired fate, as she had thought they were trying to ruin her prom queen acceptance speech.
• Doctor Who:
  • "The Sound of Drums": The Master and Lucy sit back, smirk and share sweets just as the President is about to make first contact:
    The Master: [turning to Lucy] Jelly baby?
  • "The Unicorn and the Wasp": Donna can't stop munching on grapes and enjoying the hell out of the Doctor and Agatha Christie's explanation of their solving of the murder mystery du jour.
• The Father Ted episode "Night of the Nearly Dead" has Ted, Dougal, and Patsy all frantically trying to beat the horde of middle-aged women off Eoin McLove. Father Jack pulls up a chair and a drink.
• In Friends, Rachel gives Ross permission to hit on Isabella Rossellini when she comes into the coffeehouse:
  Monica: Rach, are you really gonna let him do this?
  Rachel: Honey, he's about to go hit on Isabella Rossellini. I'm just sorry we don't got popcorn.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Season 3 has an example that's played for horror; during the Red Wedding massacre, Lord Walder Frey eagerly watches every moment while quaffing wine, and generally looks thoroughly entertained by what he's seeing. He also pauses the massacre out of curiosity to see whether Robb Stark will make it back to his feet after being shot with crossbows and what he will do next, and empties another cup when Catelyn loses her mind with the trauma and cuts his own wife's throat.
  • In the Season 6 finale, Cersei Lannister calmly sips a drink as she watches the Great Sept of Baelor being destroyed by wildfire, taking out most of her enemies in one fell swoop, from the safety of the Red Keep.
• In one Gilmore Girls episode, Lorelai and Rory show up to their weekly dinner with Lorelai's parents and walk into the middle of an argument.
  Rory: Wow, this is bad.
  Lorelai: I know. I wish we had popcorn.
  Rory: Mom!
• The Good Wife has two NSA guys who originally eavesdropped on Alicia's conversations for work purposes, but quickly became emotionally invested in what they were hearing, discussing various plotlines and overall talking about Alicia like she's the protagonist of their favorite soap opera. When they return later in the series, they're elated to have an excuse to start listening in again, since they genuinely missed her. In the aftershow The Good Fight, they return, this time listening to Diane.
• Hannah Montana:
  • In "People Who Use People", Lilly chows down on popcorn to watch the Belligerent Sexual Tension between Miley and Jake.
  • In "I Will Always Loathe You" Jackson and Lilly both share a bowl of popcorn while watching Mamaw and Aunt Dolly have a brutal catfight.
• In the first season of How I Met Your Mother, Ted gets drunk and everyone tries to find out what the hell he did that night. Marshall gets so excited he has to go make popcorn.
• In the iCarly episode "iStill Psycho", Freddy's mom goes into Mama Bear mode and fights the insane psycho fan Nora and her mother to save her son and his friends. While she's sword fighting them both at once, Sam just makes herself a hamburger and enjoys watching Mrs. Benson clean house.
  Freddy: You made a hamburger?
  Sam: Your mom's got this.
  [Freddy shrugs and nods]
• In The IT Crowd episode "Something Happens", Moss is quite visibly seen eating popcorn while listening to Douglas's stories of how Spaceology works for him. Later, he brings out the popcorn when Roy discusses a problem with a masseuse.
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Taiga Hanaya and Nico Saiba share a tub of popcorn while watching an announcement by current Genm Corp CEO. This comes to bite them in the rear as the information dropped causes Taiga to spit popcorn on the computer and Nico, who jumps up in surprise and spills everything.
• Leverage:
  • Eliot is on a date (as part of a con) with Nate's ex-wife Maggie, and the rest of the team is watching via video surveillance. Sophie even has popcorn. Maggie makes a series of disparaging comments about Nate, then reveals that she knew he was watching all along.
  • Later in the same episode, Nate is munching what looks like popcorn while watching museum security work themselves into a lather over several false leads.
• Lucifer:
  • "Love Handles" opens with Chloe having an Erotic Dream. Waking up, she finds Maze sitting at her bedside, eating popcorn and apparently enjoying the show.
  • In "Orgy Pants to Work", Maze joins Linda at birth class which has them watching a video of a woman giving birth. Linda stares in horror while Maze again munches on popcorn. Presumably even the pain of childbirth doesn't match the torments of Hell! Or maybe one of the torments is to give birth...
• In Mad Men, Lane Pryce wants to settle a business dispute with Pete Campbell in a fistfight. Roger Sterling's reaction as the curtains are being pulled shut to shield the conference room is, "I know cooler heads should prevail, but am I the only one who wants to see this?" Roger, Don, and Bert spend the fight watching with a mixture of confusion and mild curiosity.
• The Mandalorian: Mando and Cara Dune misunderstand each other's intentions and engage in hand-to-hand combat which ends with them pointing their blasters at each other, only to hear a loud slurping sound. They both look over and see the Child calmly watching them while holding a small bowl.
  Mandalorian: [to Cara] You want some soup?
• One episode of Married... with Children has the entire Bundy clan gleefully watching a brawl next door that Al deliberately instigated, complete with binoculars, video camera, and popcorn.
• M*A*S*H: Margaret steals Hawkeye's and B.J.'s clothes while they are showering. The two are forced to walk back to their tent naked, wherein they find the nurses staked out, waiting for them (with popcorn).
• In the U.S sixth season of MasterChef, after Nick pairs up chefs that don't like each other for an elimination challenge, as he heads up to the lobby, he comments "Give me some popcorn and a six-pack; I can't wait to watch this."
• The Monkees episode "The Picture Frame" has three band members robbing a bank after being tricked into thinking they're making a movie. When the police present them with the film from the surveillance cameras as evidence, they treat it as an actual movie, complete with popcorn and being critical about their performance.
• On Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike briefly leaves the theater during the opening of The Wild World of Batwoman and returns with popcorn and other snacks.
• NCIS:
  • The team members, Tony in particular, tend to treat any suspect interrogation as a show that they watch from behind the tinted glass — especially when done by Gibbs. Including one episode where Ziva is tasked to bring the popcorn, although she's late.
  • Abby is also seen sitting before the screen of her face-recognition software and watching it work with popcorn and caffeinated drink.
    Abby: That's the best part.
  • In one season twelve episode, the whole team gathers to watch Gibbs in the interrogation room with his ex-wife and her lawyer, who is also her fiance, who also happens to be the guy Gibbs caught her in bed with when they were married. Palmer brings candy.
• In the last episode of Series 4 of Not Going Out, Lee and Lucy wake up in bed together after getting drunk and believe they may have made a sex tape. When they sit down to watch the tape and find out just what happened, Lee has a bowl of popcorn.
• Power Rangers:
  • Done hilariously in Power Rangers RPM.
    • Ziggy and Dillon are both in prison, being interrogated, and the scene switches between the two. Dillon's is very serious — they think (justifiably) that he's a spy. Ziggy, meanwhile, is telling his life story (with diagrams on a dry-erase board). Each time they switch to Ziggy, there are more guards there listening. By the time he reaches the part where he accidentally went to school without any pants on (not a dream!), at least one guard has spontaneously produced a tub of popcorn.
    • In the blooper reel, Ziggy is having a tough time opening a bag of popcorn while he, Scott and Summer are just sitting in the megazord cockpit.
  • An earlier example is from Power Rangers Time Force. Though in this one, Jen is lecturing three Rangers on some recent fights while said Rangers are secretly passing around a bowl of popcorn before Jen figures out what's going on.
  • Still earlier; in the Power Rangers Turbo episode "Bicycle Built for the Blues" Divatox makes microwave popcorn (apparently using Porto as a microwave; she took it out of his faceplate) before watching the Rangers fight the Monster of the Week. (Unfortunately for her, as is often the case, the plan doesn't work as she intended it to.)
  • Earlier yet: In "Good as Gold", the final episode of Power Rangers Zeo, Rita and Zedd sit on the sidelines enjoying sodas (or possibly cocktails, it's hard to tell because of the colored drinking glasses) as they watch the giant King Mondo and giant Power Rangers duke it out. Unlike the Divatox example, they're actually cheering for the Rangers because they hate King Mondo.
• In one episode of Psych Gus is visited by two old college friends he no longer speaks to, and Shawn spends half the episode trying to find out why. When the three of them finally start yelling at each other over the incident, both Shawn and, surprisingly, Henry, immediately sit down to watch, acting like they're watching a particularly good movie, even providing commentary at points.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Thanks for the Memory", the crew are watching a surveillance recording of the four days erased from their memories. When Rimmer learns what Lister did during those four days, he is aghast:
  Rimmer: How could you do this to me?! It's the most heartbreakingly tragic thing it's ever been my misfortune to witness!
  Cat: Popcorn?
  • Taken further in "Rimmerworld", when due to his own actions Rimmer ends up stranded on an empty planet for a thousand years. The others wonder what they can do in the meantime.
  Cat: There's nothing we can do. I know for a fact there's no champagne on board.
  Lister: To Hell with champagne, we can drink urine recyc.
• The Sandman, "24/7": As the diner descends into chaos from the effect of the magical artifact John brought in, John calmly wanders into the kitchen and raids the freezer for a tub of ice cream, which he eats out of as he watches the chaos unfold.
• Seinfeld:
  • The Junior Mint episode takes this farther than it may have ever gone before in Kramer's reactions to observing surgery. Before he even gets there he's worried about people telling him what happens, he complains to one of the surgeons who's blocking his view, and of course, he brings in a box of Junior Mints and tries to get Jerry to take one, with predictably unfortunate results.
  • Similar occurrence in "The Mango" when George orders a chocolate milkshake and a slice of cake upon discovering that Elaine "faked" with Jerry.
• In the Shining Time Station family special, "Second Chances", the Jukebox Band watch the big baseball game between the Indian Valley Scooters and the Snarleyville Slashers from inside a popcorn machine, and eat the popcorn that's inside.
• Nahum, the janitor in Slings & Arrows, watches the show's production of Macbeth on a backstage monitor with popcorn.
• An episode of The West Wing opens with Sam getting his head handed to him by Blonde Republican Sex Kitten Ainsley Hayes on a live television show. As the show goes to break, Sam mutters "please, oh please, don't let them be watching". Smash Cut to:
  Josh: Toby, come quick! Sam's getting his ass kicked by a girl!
  Toby: Ginger, get the popcorn!
• In an episode of Will & Grace, Grace discovers that she can hear her downstairs neighbors perfectly through the floor vent. She and Will spend the rest of the episode ignoring everything else so they can catch the soap-opera-like show (wife arguing with husband, cheating on him with his brother, etc.).
• On Wings, Brian and Alex's romantic getaway is interrupted by a stranded Joe and Helen. When Brian and Alex begin to argue, the heretofore uncomfortable Joe nudges Helen and tells her, "Pay attention, this is getting good." As things worsen, he then tells her, "We should have brought popcorn."
  • In "There's Always Room For Cello", Roy and his son R.J have a basketball match to determine whether R.J is "allowed" to be gay or not. After a fast forward shot of the two tired and worn out, Joe and Brian are seen watching from the door while eating popcorn.
• On Yellowjackets Misty is spying while actually munching in popcorn on Natalie and Taissa through the camera hidden inside an aroma diffuser she had given to Natalie earlier.
• You Me Her: In "Depressive Muppets Need Love, Too" (Season 3, episode 9), about a soap opera:
  Nina: I hate that I still find this shit show so damn riveting.
  Carmen: Eh, I’ve surrendered to the shame.
• Young Sheldon: In "Vanilla Ice Cream, Gentlemen Callers, and a Dinette Set", Sheldon is eating popcorn while spying on Connie.
• In an episode of Zoey 101, Quinn and Lola get into a wrestling match on the floor. Quinn's boyfriend Mark sits back in his chair with a bowl of popcorn.

Music

• Aesop Rock's "Gun for the Whole Family" makes frequent reference to simply sitting back idly while two sides of a conflict kill each other. Exactly how big those two sides are varies from verse to verse, but frequent references are made to viewing the whole spectacle, rooting for neither side in particular and, yes, doing so while eating popcorn. A small excerpt:
  And I was overly engrossed from a very locked door
  With a couple Milk Duds and buckets of popcorn!
• Alanis Morissette's "Front Row" makes a reference to this in the song's chorus:
  I'm in the front row
  the front row
  with popcorn
  I get to see you see you close up.

Podcasts

• In one episode of The Red Panda Adventures, our heroes are watching from above as their agents beat up some neighborhood thugs.
  Flying Squirrel: So what do we do now?
  Red Panda: I brought popcorn.
  Flying Squirrel: ... You're serious?
  Red Panda: I'm always serious. But today, I also have popcorn.

Pro Wrestling

• A humorous twist during the 2002 Royal Rumble Match: After getting eliminated by Maven of all people, The Undertaker drags Maven out of the ring and deals out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that takes the combatants over the barricades, up into the crowd, and finally all the way up to the concession area surrounding the auditorium, where 'Taker hurls Maven headfirst into a popcorn machine and then offhandedly scoops up some of the spilled popcorn and munches on it. Especially funny because the entire Rumble Match stops dead just so the camera crew can film the popcorn brawl. ^note  Of course, 'Taker and Maven had been the only ones remaining in the ring at the time, so the competitors who have yet to enter just wait backstage until the scene switches back to the arena.
• Austin Aries offered this to the announcers while he was Ring of Honor's World Champion and watched number one contender Tyler Black fight with his former Generation Next Stablemate, Roderick Strong. When Black started to win, Aires threw the popcorn at him.
• Mick Foley's reaction to The Boogeyman in this segment.
• At SummerSlam 2019, Dolph Ziggler kept mocking Goldberg and getting beaten up. Amused, Corey Graves at the announcers' table asked for popcorn.

Puppet Shows

• The Muppet Show: During the Marisa Berenson episode, the titular guest star stands back and gleefully watches as Miss Piggy's attempt to trick Kermit into marrying her descends into chaos. She even tries to catch one of the boomerang fish flying around like she's at a Bouquet Toss.

Tabletop Games

• Many Shadowrun sourcebooks are framed as in-universe on-line documents, usually posted on a "site" called Shadowland, and as such are invariably annotated with discussions about the "main" text by and among various readers/site members. In the second-edition sourcebook Cyberpirates, for instance, one such discussion degenerates into a lengthy argument (and finally a testosterone-induced challenge) between two posters; when site-admin Captain Chaos promptly disconnects them both so others can keep reading in peace, a third poster cries out "Hey, frag off, CC: I'm selling tickets to that show!"

Theatre

• Hamilton: Upon learning that John Adams will be taking over as President, King George III gleefully grabs a chair to watch his administration go down in flames.
  King George III: They'll tear themselves to pieces. Jesus Christ, this will be fun!
• Westeros: An American Musical: Walder Frey's response to several people being killed in front of him is to continue sipping his drink. This includes someone's Pre-Mortem One-Liner getting Derailed for Details.

Video Games

• One of the comments Biff stated in ARMS is when Twintelle and Master Mummy are facing each other off, he would tell the audience to grab some popcorn as if it is a horror movie coming to life.
• In Bioshock Infinite, you'll find a bag of popcorn in one of the viewing rooms in the tower on Monument Island which show films of Elizabeth on what she does in the rooms she is imprisoned in.
• In Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, when Lua and Baileys argue over their wedding plans, Hyde whispers to you that things between them haven't changed and that you should start serving popcorn as they continue bickering.
• Despite being understandably distraught that you've let Dendygar destroy the world in the Bad Ending of Crypt Worlds, Goddess Moronia still asks if you have any popcorn as the meteor approaches. "I want to enjoy this at least!" (The two of you are watching from the moon.)
• Destiny 2 added this as an Emote Command in the Warmind expansion, leaving its applications up to the player. Waiting for a public event? Pass the popcorn. Playing doubles in the Crucible and letting your buddy do all the work? Pass the popcorn. Fireteam about to get wiped with no hope of stopping it? Pass the popcorn.
• In Dragon Age II, if the player is a mage and on friendly terms with Anders, he'll talk about how Hawke's the kind of leader the mages of Kirkwall need during Act 2. Snarky-Hawke's response is "Who said anything about leading? I was going to watch... with snacks."
• Fallout: New Vegas has the Vault 13 canteen that comes with Courier's Stash. Every so often, the player will automatically take a sip from it, even if it's an event such as, for example, Yes Man tossing General Oliver off the Hoover Dam.
• Fortnite has the "Jumbo Popcorn" emote where the player will spawn a giant tub of popcorn and start eating it until they move. A Halloween variant is called "Butter Buddy" where a zombie hand will pop out of the tub and toss popcorn into the player's mouth.
• In Game & Wario, 9-Volt's stage is about him getting in trouble with his mom for playing video games past his bedtime and trying to hide that fact from her. When you reach his pal 18-Volt's stage, however, 18-Volt is across the street from 9-Volt's house looking in and munching on a box of popcorn.
• During the cutscene that leads to the setup missions for the Paleto Score in Grand Theft Auto V, Trevor casually munches on a bowl of 'stew' while Michael, Franklin and Lester go about setting up their plans for the heist. He then promptly projectile vomits it back up while standing against a corner of the room as soon as the cutscene ends.
• Joker's ending in Injustice 2 has him stitch together all of Braniac's captured civilizations into Earth, then literally eat popcorn as he watches the chaos unfold.
• In Kid Icarus: Uprising, as they are watching Pit face Hades in the final battle, Viridi tells Palutena she brought the popcorn.
• Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga: Palpatine's response while waiting for Obi-Wan and Anakin to fall for his Faked Kidnapping scheme? Casually eat a bag of popcorn.
• Mass Effect 2: After completing Miranda's and Jack's loyalty missions, Shepard has to intervene in an argument between them. Over the intercom, Joker comments, "Take pictures!"
• If you view Nina's optional scene in Chapter 9 of Rakenzarn Tales, Axel does this while she recounts her last sleep spell mishap.
• Save the Light: When Peridot and Squaridot get into a petty argument over who's the "cloddier" one, Amethyst laughs and asks Lapis if she's got any popcorn for that. However, Lapis tells her that she's fresh out of it.
• Manticore Research employees in The Secret World have gotten so jaded by their absurdly Dangerous Workplace that they've actually started placing bets on the Death Course. You can even find a whiteboard showing past "winners" just outside the central chamber, with two researchers laughing hysterically over the results, even as another researcher risks a grisly death in the room itself.
• In every operation of The Wonderful 101, Wonder-Green is shown with a snack in his hand whenever he speaks. What the snack is depends on what operation you're playing.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Ragged John, a dwarf with no lack of subtlety to his character, offers to tell you about the time he and his friend fought off incrementally larger hordes of orcs. Naturally, you egg him on with this line:
    The PC: (to Ragged John) Let me grab the popped corn kernels, sire.
  • A toy, Hot Buttered Popcorn, was added in the Battle for Azeroth expansion. When you use it, there's an emote in chat, "[Your character's name] munches on some popcorn", with accompanying visuals.

Visual Novels

• Bernkastel and Lambdadelta are often seen eating popcorn in Umineko: When They Cry, particularly in the core arcs. Subverted a few times by Lambdadelta, as she uses the popcorn to influence certain fights, despite having to stay neutral.

Web Animation

• Everything Is Broken: LG Creepybloom eats popcorn while the corrupted Happy Tree Friends characters chase Flippy in part 7.
• Helluva Boss:
  • In "Seeing Stars", Blitzo sends Loona into a violent rage after telling her she needs to work on her people skills when talking to clients. Moxxie and Millie react by watching from the couch and sharing coffee.
  • In "C.H.E.R.U.B.", Moxxie, Millie and Blitzo watch Lyle prepare to kill himself with popcorn and drinks.
• In Wronchi Animation's Hearthstone video for a match of Jaina Proudmore vs. Gul'dan, Jaina casts Yogg-Saron, who, when summoned, unleashes a storm of totally random spells. She then munches on some popcorn as she sits back to enjoy the show. After some hilarious results (the first thing Yogg does is turn himself into a frog), mostly bad for Jaina, Yogg casts one spell that wins her the match (as is usual in Wronchi's Hearthstone pieces, it all could have happened in an actual game of Hearthstone).

Web Comics

• In the nudist webcomic The Bare Pit, Mungo eats popcorn while watching the drama unfold.
  Mungo: Hey, don't stop! This stuff is heaps better than Days of Our Lives.
• Bittersweet Candy Bowl has this page; this is a double joke as Amaya, the character selling the popcorn (at a slumber party!), ordinarily works at a movie theater concession stand.
• Ctrl+Alt+Del: A non-combatant example. Rather than go out and fight crime, a hero in Champions Online sits back with a bag of popcorn on launch day to watch the "horrible parade of horribleness" that is the stream of new heroes in the starting zone. Luminaries included "Cocktopus", "Darthgokuverine" and "Petrified Turd".
• In this strip from the World of Warcraft-based comic Dark Legacy Comics, we see this trope mentioned verbatim by one of the characters as they watch others fall from a great height due to a teleporter malfunction.
  Keydar: Hey, that one almost got all his gear off.
  Narya: Pass the popcorn.
• Darths & Droids:
  • Pete reacts this way in this scene, where Jim attempts to roleplay girl talk with himself.
  • This is also Pete's reaction when Annie and Jim decide to talk about their relationship instead of gaming. Ben reacts... somewhat differently.
  • At the beginning of the Return of the Jedi part, the GM starts playing with a sock puppet while waiting for everyone to arrive...only to discover that Annie and Jim had been connected online for fifteen minutes.
    Jim: We made popcorn.
• Dumbing of Age - This is Sarah's reaction when Dina asks Joyce (who doesn't believe in evolution) why she's getting a flu shot.
• Pandora from El Goonish Shive eats popcorn while watching Rhoda hiding Catalina in her jacket using magic.
• Ennui GO!: Izzy attends her sister's PTA meetings (complete with popcorn to munch on) solely so she can watch her get into Cat Fights with resident Obnoxious Entitled Housewife Helen.
• Girl Genius:
  • Boris and Gil are having tea and pretzels while sending a Jäger to test out a rogue clank.
    Boris: You see, Herr Baron. Entertaining, but harmless.
  • Snaug eats popcorn while watching Tarvek and Gil about to fight.
  • Later, Zeetha calls "AGATHA! You're missing the show!" when Tarvek and Gil are about to fight... again.
• Girls of the Wild's: Jaegu walks Jimin home and fights off a gang of bullies all on his own. Moonyoung comes across the situation and calls Daldal, who calls Jungu. Any of them could have intervened, but instead, the former two laugh maniacally while munching on popcorn, while the latter quietly sips a drink and Jimin stares at them in disbelief.
• Grrl Power:
  • After Leon gets a copy of the robbery footage, Peggy, Dabbler, Anvil and Harem are eating popcorn while watching.
  • Happens again during Math and Anvil's fight, with The Rant pointing out that "Archon must go through popcorn like civilian cops go through donuts".
  • Decolette is also eating popcorn while watching Dabbler seduce Cooter through one-way glass. She would have done it herself, but she lost the coin toss.
  • It happens often enough that the author eventually lampshades it.
    Almost everything that happens in this comic sponsored by The Popcorn Council
• In Help Desk, when Mark Zuckerberg challenges the Dark Lord of PayPal to a duel for a spot in Cabal of Evil Visionaries that Rule the Computer Industry, Steve says, "I'll just go make some popcorn, shall I?"
• Lackadaisy:
  • Happens after Mitzi turns a photo booth session with Sedgewick into a make-out session. (In the 1920s, those things didn't have curtains.) A horde of gawking onlookers includes a little boy eating popcorn.
  • While the Pig Farmers are angrily sharing the story of how Rocky burned down their home, Asa Sweet impassively eats Nut Zippers, and offers one to Mordecai.
• In Grim Tales from Down Below, Clockwork — the Anthropomorphic Personification of time — breaks out the popcorn here. Little Miss Badass descends on a pillar of light to challenge a Kaiju-level monster with a sword? Definitely worth watching. Then top that off with a jumbo size fountain pop and you got a veritable movie.
• Hiimdaisy's Persona 4 comic has the protagonist, Yosuke, and Teddie do it in when Chie meets her Shadow.
• In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Floyd Fitznewski's first appearance was eating popcorn while Bob and Roofus fought the Pirates of Ipecac. He even shared some with Voluptua, who was confident that Bob wouldn't need her help.
• After Ash from Latchkey Kingdom sends Willa on a Suicide Mission to plant a bag full of dynamite (whose fuses she's already lit) on the Titan, they find a nice ledge to watch from and eats some popcorn as the explosion happens. (Willa turned out fine, though.)
• At the beginning of MeatShield, the dark elves watching the protagonists through a crystal ball are enjoying popcorn and pork rinds.
• Ménage à 3:
  • See strip #17, June 23, 2008 (NSFW).
  • See also Senna listening to Gary's story while eating chips.
    This is better than the soaps in Brazil!
  • And when DiDi and Maura end up fighting for Lynn’s favors, Lynn is very happy to sit and watch. (A little heartlessly, but hey, she didn’t make them do this.) Then the hotel room service waitress shows up with the meal Lynn had ordered — and she and Lynn end up sitting side by side, sharing the food and the show.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • The Monster in the Darkness is eating popcorn while watching Durkon have sex with Hilgya.
  • Also, this strip.
    Belkar: Do you think I have time to get popcorn??
  • Xykon, the Monster, and the Demon-roaches watch Redcloak fight Miko. Only the Monster actually eats popcorn (seeing as Xykon's incapable of eating), with the rest of them betting on the outcome of the fight.
  • As the three fiends prepare to watch Vaarsuvius fight a dragon, one of them pops some corn with magic.
• In the "Poltergeist in the Piano" arc for Pibgorn, by Brooke McEldowney, Dru watches the confrontation between the Vampire and Mr. Trudge (his minion) from a nearby tree branch, saying, "Buttered popcorn, I could really use some buttered popcorn."
• Planet of Hats: The Metrons in "Arena", after setting up the Involuntary Battle to the Death between Kirk and the Gorn captain.
• Questionable Content: Penelope reacts this way to Dora yelling at Faye for sleeping with her (Dora's) brother Sven.
• Sailor Ranko: Youmas (demons from Sailor Moon) watching Akane beat Ranma. Even though they don't eat human food.
• Norway does the popcorn-eating thing with fish in this Scandinavia and the World comic.
• Sluggy Freelance:
  • Riff takes a slightly relaxed attitude towards major revelations about hauntings in his house in this strip.
  • And used "straight" (albeit lampshaded) in this strip, when two scantily-clad women are fighting. Also an example of Wondrous Ladies Room, as apparently, all ladies rooms come with popcorn dispensers for just such a purpose.
• In TwoKinds, Karen, one of Trace's old friends, hits Trace on the head with a pebble and can be seen cheering on the sidelines with a couch, a banner, and some popcorn, saying she wants to see bloodshed.
• Weregeek: Abbie breaks out the popcorn when Joel and Dustin get into an argument.
• In The Whiteboard:
  • Bandit and Roger enjoy a bowl of popcorn while listening to Doc smash the heck out of a telemarketer.
  • Another time, Bandit sells popcorn to Doc and Roger while they watch a Mountain Dew-jacked up Jinx duke it out with Kasi in a powersuit.
  • Yet another time Pirta and Tawny eat popcorn while watching Shoey try to saw open a security door, with appropriate ear protection.

Web Original

• ESPN.com's humor section, Page 2, has taken a single comment made by Terrell Owens that seemed to reference this trope and put it through Memetic Mutation, culminating in a faux Day in the Life article in which his meals all had something to do with either "pop" (Pop Rocks, for example) or "corn". (Surprisingly, the breakfast section of this omitted the cereal "Corn Pops".)
• Some forums have a :popcorn: smilie. It is used almost exclusively in response to someone posting a controversial thread or by witnesses to an intense on-forum argument.
  • An animated GIF◊ of Michael Jackson eating popcorn from Thriller often shows up in similar circumstances.
  • An animated GIF◊ of The Joker from Batman: The Animated Series is often used too. It's from "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne", where Hugo Strange is auctioning the secret of Batman's identity (on videotape) to Joker, Two-Face, and Penguin. There's a similar one from Justice League.
  • There's also this◊ animated GIF of Stephen Colbert eating popcorn while wearing 3-D glasses.
• There's a moment of this at the end of the SCP Foundation tale, Duke Till Dawn.
• Political cartoon: "Brexit in a Nutshell◊" portrays the United Kingdom on fire while the rest of Europe watch with popcorn.
• One Running Gag in The Dark Id's Let's Play of Xenogears is Elly bringing sandwiches for the other characters to munch on during an Info Dump, cutscene, or villain monologue. This stops for a while after the story reaches Solaris and everyone learns to their disgust what goes in their "Soylent System" food supply. They do eventually start bringing sandwiches again later on, while noting that there's "no Solarian meat" in them.

Web Videos

• Atop the Fourth Wall:
  • Linkara runs off to make popcorn in the middle of his Silent Hill: Dead/Alive review when it looks like the annoying, obscenity-spouting Christabella is going to get her just deserts.
  • He does something similar in the Blue Beetle retrospective when Jaime is fighting the Reach:
    Linkara: Hey, can you guess what my second- and third-favorite issues of this book are?
    [brings up an open bag of tortilla chips]
  • He pulls out a bowl of popcorn during the Teen Titans retrospective, when the Titans and the Justice League are about to have an epic brawl.
• BAMF Girls' Club: When Hermione decides to go on a "classic 30-days magic fast", Lisbeth gives her one day before she'd crack. And then she starts watching Hermione around with a bowl of popcorn.
• In Channel Awesome-related shows:
  • Bargo eats popcorn while watching Sonya fight in the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation review.
  • Half of Sage's Ultimate Teacher review is him eating popcorn while showing random clips. And one point his boss Rob Walker shows up to chew him out for the lazy non-review, only to be reduced to the same state almost immediately by the sheer nonsensical awesome that is the movie.
  • Brows Held High: Oancitizen gains popcorn to eat out of nowhere whilst watching Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, as Oancitizen usually reviews Art House and Independent Cinema which Ghost Dog qualifies as, but it has some very "popcorn flick" scenes in it too.
• During Cleolinda Jones' recap of Breaking Dawn when they near the part where Bella realizes that Jacob has imprinted on her infant daughter:
  "Excuse me, I have to go make some popcorn, I'll be right back. [...] Okay, I'm back. Om nom nom."
• The Cry of Mann: In a lot of scenes where the family is experiencing drama and clashes between members, Ghost Lady can be seen in the background watching as an engaged spectator with food.
• Deadpool has a theater box of popcorn and 3-D glasses when he watches the superheroines fight the mooks in Deadpool: The Musical. He starts throwing handfuls of popcorn towards his mouth... his mask-covered mouth, so the popcorn bounces off and scatters everywhere.
• Empires SMP Season 2: At the Festival of the Rift, Pixlriffs starts passing Skittles^note (sweet berries in-game) around while watching a Compete for the Maiden's Hand duel between Pirate Joe and Shelby.
• In Final Fantasy In A Nutshell's second episode for Final Fantasy XIV, Gaius van Baelsar throws popcorn at Garuda for her, booing her and telling her she sucks for losing to the party.
• Tabloid YouTuber DJ Keemstar has become rather infamous for how regularly he does this during on-air discussions (among other, more serious reasons), to the point where most parodies of him feature at least one instance of the guy wolfing down a bag of popcorn or some other snack.
• Kitboga is a scambaiter popular on Twitch and YouTube. In "Multiple Scammers Battle Over $40,000" at one point two scammers argue back and forth for ages, telling Kit that he should hang up the other's call and that the other is a scammer. Kit comments that he should probably just be a playing a game right now, that they're wasting their own time.
• Madonna Dearest, which is a parody based on Mommie Dearest, in which drag queen artists acting as Madonna, her daughter Lourdes, and Barbra Streisand act out the scene in which Joan Crawford nearly strangles her daughter Christina to death, and Barbra just sits there and watches while eating popcorn.
• Sailor Mars does this during Neflyte's death in Sailor Moon Abridged (offscreen, since in the actual episode she's shown crying). "Wait a minute, this is great! Where's the popcorn?"

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: In "The Pajama War", the candy people panic and start a riot when Finn and Princess Bubblegum go missing, but Jake just sits back with some nachos and watches the chaos.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: In "Trail of the Missing Tails", when Dr. Robotnik's crazy cousin, Dr. Warpnik explains his origin to Sonic, Sonic is seen sitting in a movie theater-style seat while eating popcorn. At the end of the same episode, Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts (all three of whom were turned into giant monsters by Warpnik's machine), are all seen eating popcorn while watching Robotnik and Warpnik hit each other with fish.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Fury", Masami admits that she was afraid she'd "get annihilated trying" to break up a fight between her mom Yuki and Gumball's mom Nicole, and instead pulls out a bucket of popcorn and offers it to Gumball, Darwin, and Anais. The other kids promptly Face Fault.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: "Return to Omashu": Mai watches an epidemic erupting in the city of Omashu and offers fireflakes to her dad (who is supposed to run the city).
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • One episode has a huge fight break out in a Bad Guy Bar, complete with gunfire. In the background, you see the bartender casually dodge a chair, roll his eyes and lean lazily on the counter, and drag a bowl of peanuts closer to watch the show.
  • In "The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne", Hugo Strange is about to auction off a videotape that reveals Batman's secret identity to the Joker, Two-Face, and the Penguin. As he's about to ask for bids, the Joker can be seen munching on some popcorn.
• On an episode of Batman Beyond, Terry argues with his girlfriend. A couple of their friends eat snacks and watch.
• On the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episode "Prisoner #775 Is Missing", as Rath is ranting at a ship that's flying away with him clinging to the underside:
  Kevin: You know, Rath is the only alien that makes me want to get a box of popcorn, kick back, and just watch.
  Gwen: Kevin, this isn't the time for... okay, me too.
• Bob's Burgers:
  • During a hostage standoff at the bank in "Bob Day Afternoon", Mr. Fischoder sets up a lawn chair on the sidewalk and watches the action with a drink on his hand.
  • In "Beefsquatch", Louise sits back and munches a chocolate bar as she watches Nathan, disguised as Tina, try to taste Pam's hair.
• In Brickleberry, after Malloy overhears Woody saying he'll shoot Steve with his gun next time Steve is too annoying to handle, Malloy encourages Steve to keep bugging Woody on and on. Malloy gets a lawn chair and popcorn.
• On Camp WWE, while John Cena and Mark Henry are having an argument while Mark's hormonal over carrying a "food baby", the Bella twins witness the fight while munching on popcorn.
• In "Beastly Bungalow" on Care Bears & Cousins, Share Bear and Beastly have a heartfelt conversation after he steals stuff from her Share Shack to create his own Beastly Bungalow. While this is going on, the Care Bears and cousins that have been waiting are having a heated argument over cutting in line. After Share and Beastly notice this, Beastly comments on the hilarity of Care Bears arguing like that. Share says they have to do something and Beastly grabs one of the treats and tells her "Yeah, you're right! Pull up a stool! This is fun!"
• Used in an episode of Chowder. While Mung gets chewed out for forgetting his wedding anniversary, Shnitzel sits down on a stool in the background with a bag of popcorn, enjoying the show. He even interjects with an "OOH! Radda!"
• On a Very Special Episode of Clone High, Ponce de Leon dies in a tragic litter related accident. His best friend, JFK, falls apart during his speech at Ponce's funeral. It is so dramatic, the other attendees watch silently and intently, with Julius Caesar breaking out a bag of popcorn.
• DC Super Hero Girls: Zee Zatara and Oliver Queen sabotaging each other's efforts at advertising their respective shows is entertaining enough that Kara, Barbara and Karen end up watching them while eating popcorn.
• Dragons: The Nine Realms: When all the Riders arrive at the clearing where Eugene and the Sledkin-Buzzsaw-alliance are facing off, they start questioning each other's reason for being there. This soon causes their ongoing tensions to boil over again, much to the surprise and delight of the villains. While the Riders are arguing and bickering amongst each other, the villains stand off to the side for a while, enjoying the show.
  Buzzsaw: Wow, they ARE a mess!
  Linda: Can we stay and watch?
• In the episode "When Lightning Strikes" of Dragons: Riders of Berk, Tuffnut and Ruffnut eat nuts and watch as the entire village is being set ablaze by a lightning storm.
• A Running Gag in the DuckTales episode "Terror of the Terra-firmians!" comes from Louie having brought his popcorn with him on the adventure and his tendency to pull it out when things get interesting.
• This was a running gag in one episode of Earthworm Jim where every time Jim got into a fight, Peter would grab a bag of popcorn, sit down and watch it, claiming that it was "better than pro wrestling".
• Done a few times in Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • When Double-D and Eddy find Ed raiding Jimmy's fridge while sleepwalking, Eddy pulls out a bag of popcorn to eat. Double-D even asks, "Are you going to share those?"
  • And of course, Eddy's memetic "Popcorn Fairy" line.
  • And in the season 5 finale, where Eddy is eating a series of hot dogs whilst watching a match between Double-D and Jimmy, eventually even throwing them at Jimmy. Johnny and Plank are watching and commenting on the scene at one point, with both of them wondering where Eddy gets all the hot dogs from.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • The Pixies have done it when their plans were succeeding and Timmy was miserable. However, considering their anti-fun nature, it came out weird.
    HP: Hi Turner. Don't mind us. We're just here for the show.
    Sanderson: Your misery is like going to the movies for us. Want some popcorn?
    HP: It's unsalted and unbuttered, right?
    Sanderson: And unpopped.
  • Also:
    Timmy: Look, a child in pain!
    Crocker: Where!? [sits in a chair facing the direction Timmy pointed and starts eating popcorn]
• In Family Guy, Stewie goes upstairs to give Lois and Brian some privacy. He then returns to sit at the top of the stairs, watching through the bars of the banister, munching snacks, and injecting comments like, "Oh, my God, no way!" and "Ooh, bitch, you got jacked, bitch!"
• In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Challenge of the Superfriends", Eduardo mostly follows the action with a bowl of cereal. He even speaks surprisedly to the camera after the Twist Ending.
• In an episode of Franklin, Franklin is putting on a circus for his friends. While watching it, Bear is seen eating some popcorn. Beaver wonders how he got it while Fox asks Bear to give him some.
• Futurama:
  • Happens in "Parasites Lost". When Zoidberg investigates Fry's bowels with a surgical camera, everybody goes into a side-room with a video-screen and two-way mirror and... eats popcorn.
    Hermes: It's nauseating, mon! [takes another handful of popcorn]
  • Also, Bender remarks at Zoidberg's Supreme Court trial in "A Taste of Freedom" that "Court's kinda fun when it's not my ass on the line. Nachos?"
  • "Roswell that Ends Well" actually works the popcorn in as a plot point. Fry goes to microwave the popcorn for everyone to eat while they watch the supernova. The radiation from the microwave interacts with the radiation from the supernova and creates a time hole.
  • In "Stench and Stenchability", a little girl named Tanya ends up having a "cute little heart attack". Unbeknownst to anyone but Bender, she's actually a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, so while everyone else is watching her being resuscitated with worried expressions, Bender's watching while leaning back in a chair and munching on a hotdog.
  • In "The Late Phillip J. Fry", Fry, Bender and Prof. Farnsworth are stuck in a time machine that only goes forwards, so they decide to just sit back and watch the end of the universe while downing a few beers.
• In G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, when Cobra Commander's sillier-than-usual mechanical sea serpent scheme goes awry, Tomax, Xamot, Destro, and The Baroness are munching on fresh fruit and drinking milk as they are watching the whole ridiculous crisis on TV as they discuss how they are going to respond. They agree to hang back, let G.I. Joe and its related organizations hopefully exhaust themselves bringing the machine down, and then move in.
• In the Garfield and Friends episode "Binky Goes Bad," Garfield munches on a bag of popcorn, slurps a soda, and even eats steak while Binky the Clown is on trial for grand theft.
• Nergal Jr. and Irwin start to fight during a school dance on an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, causing the event to stop and confused students to watch. Suddenly, Grim (who is working as a chaperone for the evening) appears and orders the two boys to stop, but then sets up a deckchair in front of the audience, sits down, and tells them to continue.
• Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Phil Ken Sebben, while watching Birdman being strapped into the electric chair, casually eats popcorn and even feeds a piece to his arm-candy ladyfriend. Though sort of justified in that Harvey's trial, imprisonment, and pending execution are all part of the set-up for his surprise party, though his in-prison marriage to Magilla Gorilla is not. But honestly, Phil would have had the popcorn at a real execution. That's who he is.
• In the HouseBroken episode "Who's The Boss?" when Tabitha and Kit Kat are fighting, Shel is eating popcorn spilled on the ground.
• The second Superhero Episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes has Jimmy, Beezy, and Heloise all having a fight over who gets to save Lucius from the monster beating him. The resulting conflict is so entertaining that Lucius and said monster stop fighting and enjoy it over popcorn.
• Justice League:
  • In "Injustice for All, Pt. 2", the Joker rolls out a TV on a wheeled stand which also holds a large tub of popcorn. The screen shows surveillance of the Justice League headquarters in space, which is where Lex Luthor's hired supervillains planted a bomb. He places the TV right in front of Batman, who is being held prisoner.
    Joker: There's a surprise hidden in your little clubhouse, and once your chums get there — KABLOOEY! Popcorn?
    Batman: ...
    Joker: Oh, well. More for me.
    Ultra-Humanite: Joker, you sicken me.
  • Joker does it again in "Wild Cards" — fitting since he was broadcasting the episode's events as his own Show Within a Show.
  • "Maid of Honor" has Diana and Bruce both ducking off to get ready for battle when terrorists abduct the princess of Kaznia from a charity benefit. Diana gets into action first (not bothering to change out of her street clothes), and Bruce just sits back and picks at the catering while she trounces the terrorists single-handedly.
  • After Flash and Luthor are accidentally body-swapped in "The Great Brain Robbery", Gorilla Grodd discovers the switch but keeps quiet so he can watch Flash-impersonating-Luthor sweat until he gets found out by the others.
• Gunther from Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil does this in Box Office Blitz... during the commercials before the movie even starts. Long before it even starts.
• On Little Princess, as Scruff gets a bath in "Maid's Day Off?", Puss sits on a chair giggling, holding a tub of popcorn and a cup with a straw in it. He gets his when Scruff splashes him and his treats with bubbles, then Princess concludes he needs a bath too, forcing him to run off to escape.
• Littlest Pet Shop:
  • In the episode "The Secret Recipe," Zoe is eating a bag of popcorn while listing to Blythe's song. She then offers some to Penny Ling, who grabs every single piece from the bag in just one handful.
  • In "The Sister Story," Vinnie and Sunil are eating a bag of popcorn while watching Roger meditate. Then Minka swipes the whole bag.
• Metalocalypse:
  • The band indulges in this when Dr. Twinkletits falls out a window and gets mauled by the yard wolves. Hell, Nathan films it.
    Pickles: Gosh, maybe this is weird to say, but...am I the only one who's being made to feel hungry by watching this?
  • Later, Nathan and Murderface do this while watching Pickles beat up Seth at Seth's wedding.
• Bakshi's Mighty Mouse reboot had "Mighty's Tone Poem," where Mighty Mouse forces four of his arch foes (through an agreement with the prison) to watch his home movies (consisting of clips of the show from season one). Ink-Suit Actor versions of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel suddenly enter to give their take on the films, and they break out a bag of popcorn.
• Muppet Babies:
  • In "Animal Kong", Animal becomes Animal Kong, a gigantic version of himself when he gets upset that he can't play his drums during quiet time. At one point, Gonzo tries to distract Animal by launching himself out of a cannon and into a wading pool filled with popcorn. Rizzo is later seen eating some of the popcorn as he watches the potential destruction from the giant Animal.
  • In "Sparkly Star Switcheroo", the babies (sans Piggy and Rowlf) form a team of thieves to swap out Summer's Sparkly Star painting for a non-sparkly replica when Piggy thinks the painting is for her when Summer meant to give it to Rowlf. Animal is seen eating popcorn as he watches the monitors in the Muppet Bus, having taken on the job as the lookout.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • In "Applebuck Season", Rarity and Fluttershy nervously watch Applejack try to stop a stampeding herd of cows, but the happy-go-lucky Pinkie Pie just munches popcorn and says, "This is the best rodeo show I've ever seen!"
  • In the second season premiere, "The Return of Harmony", the Chaos God Discord sits in a theater seat with a bag of popcorn to watch Twilight Sparkle's brainwashed friends bickering. For bonus points, there's actually a reasonable explanation for where he got them.
  • In "The Cutie Pox", Spike eats popcorn as he watches Apple Bloom compulsively perform various talents (thanks to the eponymous "Cutie Pox").
  • In "Too Many Pinkie Pies", Spike grabs some popcorn and sits back to watch the Pinkie Pie clones try to watch paint dry. He ends up slumped over his stool, having eaten all his popcorn, before anything interesting happens.
  • "Princess Twilight Sparkle, Part 2":
    • Discord takes some popcorn while watching Twilight under the influence of a potion.
    • During the flashback Twilight experiences due to the potion, Discord is carelessly munching on a bag of seeds as Celestia and Luna are approaching him for the battle that will end up sealing him away. This has plot significance later; the seeds were actually part of his backup plan which ended up firing much later than he had anticipated. This is what causes the current problems in Equestria.
  • In "The Cutie Re-Mark", Starlight Glimmer goes back in time to prevent Rainbow Dash from performing a Sonic Rainboom when she was younger, and Twilight goes after her to stop her plan. During one of her attempts, Twilight attempts to prevent Starlight's plan by engaging her in a magic battle. It doesn't work because young Rainbow Dash is too busy watching the battle, complete with popcorn, that she fails to perform the Rainboom.
  • In "The Crystalling", a post-Heel–Face Turn Starlight Glimmer does this when, while trying to put off reuniting with her childhood friend Sunburst, she convinces Spike to tell the story of how he saved the Crystal Empire.
  • In "P.P.O.V (Pony Point of View)", Spike is seen eating some popcorn while listening to Pinkie Pie's version of what happened on the disastrous boat ride she, Applejack, and Rarity were on.
• The Owl House: Whenever Hooty wails on Lilith or Emperor's Coven members for trying to assault the Owl House, Eda picks up binoculars to watch.
• In the "Arabian Desert Danger" episode of The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, the Hooded Claw eats popcorn while watching Penelope get wrapped up like a mummy.
• In the ReBoot episode "The TIFF", a group of binomes watch Bob and Dot having an argument, and one of them is eating popcorn.
• The Simpsons:
  • In the episode "'Round Springfield", Homer has hot dogs while watching a surgery, and later a funeral. The hot dog man admits that he's following Homer around.
    Hot Dog Vendor: Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs here!
    Homer: Woohoo!
    Marge: What do you do, follow my husband around?
    Hot Dog Vendor: Lady, he's putting my kids through college!
  • In "Rosebud", Maggie doesn't want to give Bobo away, so Homer won't give the teddy bear back to Mr. Burns. He is later watched at work by three men. The first mentions they wanted to see the geek who valued the happiness of his children more than money. The second is disappointed his head isn't the size of a baseball. The third just eats his popcorn.
  • At the climax of "Cape Feare" Bart stalls for time when Sideshow Bob is about to kill him with the final request that he sing the entire score of H.M.S. Pinafore. This takes such a long time that Bart gets comfy with a bucket of popcorn and just enjoys the show.
• Devil Smurf in The Smurfs (1981) episode "It's a Smurfy Life" is seen eating popcorn after watching Angel Smurf reveal to Handy what life in the Smurf Village would be like if he never existed.
• Gargamel eats popcorn (and so does his mother) while he watches the Smurfs plan a coup against Papa Smurf through his crystal ball in The Smurfs (2021) episode "The Smurfs Show".
• South Park, in "Jared has Aides", Cartman covers for Butters (who was grounded but was forced to leave the house) and answers the regular phone calls from Butters' parents (being able to convincingly imitate Butters), proceeding to insult Butters' parents. Eventually Butters returns just in time and Cartman assures Butters that no one will ever suspect that he left the house. Butters thanks Cartman for being such a good friend, and Cartman replies that it was his pleasure and leaves. After that he sets up a lawn chair and grabs a drink and some popcorn and sits on the front lawn as Butter's furious parents get home from work and storm into their house, so he can listen to them giving Butters a royal beatdown. As he hears the scene unfold with a satisfied smirk on his face, Cartman remarks that if he were older, he would "totally start jacking off right now."
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • "Naughty Nautical Neighbors" has Squidward cause an argument between SpongeBob and Patrick. He then sits on a lounge chair with a souffle he was preparing and watches the two friends yell at each other.
  • In "Graveyard Shift", Squidward tells SpongeBob a ghost story. Instead of popcorn, SpongeBob uses his own arms in an exaggerated form of Rapid-Fire Nail Biting.
  • At the very end of "I Heart Dancing" as Squilliam forces Squidward through overwork the same way as he did to SpongeBob before, both SpongeBob and Patrick watch him get tortured up in the bleachers while sharing popcorn and soda.
• Steven Universe: Amethyst does this on a fairly regular basis.
  • In "Joking Victim", Amethyst eats fries while watching Lars going berserk after consuming some doughnuts that were seasoned with "fire salt".
  • During the flashback in "We Need to Talk", Amethyst munches popcorn while watching Pearl mock a young Greg Universe for not knowing about Gem fusion.
  • In "Back to the Barn", Amethyst eats popcorn while watching Peridot and Pearl compete in their "Robolympics".
  • In "Steven's Dream", while Steven is lashing out about the Gems not telling him anything about Rose and Pink Diamond, Amethyst offers Connie popcorn but she doesn't take any.
• The Titans East manage to produce some hammerspace popcorn for Control Freak's rant in Teen Titans. In a later episode, Kid Flash eats a hoagie and a bag of potato chips (which he stole from Mammoth) while watching the Hive Five argue with each other. What makes it even better is that Kid Flash was in a cage at the time. While the Hive Five were arguing, he ran out of the cage to get the hoagie, and then got back into the cage so that he could watch the argument. And then did it again to get the bag of chips.
• In the short, "The Horn Blows at Lunchtime" from the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Music Day", everyone is accusing each other of farting and a food fight starts. Buster and Babs just sit back, share a bag of popcorn, and watch the hectic scene.
• Tom and Jerry:
  • The cartoon "The Mouse From H.U.N.G.E.R." has secret agent Jerry entering a mouse-sized theater where he screens his assignment. He breaks out a bag of popcorn as he watches.
  • "Shutterbug Cat" has Tom showing movies of older T&J cartoons to examine where he's going wrong in trying to catch Jerry, who is sitting next to his mouse hole watching the film with a container of popcorn.
• In the hour-long special for Total Drama Josh and Blaineley are eating popcorn while watching the Total Drama cast on their inherently deadly quest to beat the Total Drama Dirtbags' bus to Orpah's studio.
• In The Transformers episode "Triple Takeover," the episode ends with Megatron, Starscream, Blitzwing, Astrotrain, and the Constructicons all battling each other for Decepticon leadership. Optimus Prime and the other Autobots decide to just sit back and enjoy the show. No popcorn, of course, since Transformers don't really eat. At one point, the fighting becomes a true five-way free-for-all, and even the other Decepticon Seekers (including dim-bulbs such as Ramjet and Skywarp) recognize that their best option is to just stay far away from the cloud of fists and laser fire... and start taking bets on who comes out on top.
• What If...?: Invoked in a rather dark way when Natasha from a post-apocalyptic universe calls out the Watcher for his non-interference rule:
  Natasha: We're just stories to you. We're not real. You watch us fight, win, lose. Tell me, did you make popcorn while Ultron murdered my friends and burned my world to the ground?
  • In the Season 2 episode What If…? S2E3 "What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?", When the Avengers finally get to Stark Tower and see the mutated Happy Hogan, they all team up to fight him... except for Bruce, who cheerfully watches what's happening while munching on a Christmas cookie.

Real Life

• During the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas, a number of people from the nearby towns brought picnic baskets to watch the battle. They started running once the Union soldiers ran right into them trying to escape the pursuing Confederates.
• During the height of the Rod Blagojevich hoopla in 2008-09,^note Rod Blagojevich, then governor of the state of Illinois, was caught being almost parodically corrupt. Long story short, when Barack Obama was elected President he was a sitting US Senator from Illinois with two years left to serve out his term; Obama, therefore, had to resign from the Senate, leaving his seat vacant with two years to go before the next scheduled election. Under US and Illinois law, the Governor of Illinois is supposed to appoint the new Senator when one of Illinois' Senate seats becomes vacant between elections. Blagojevich, already under suspicion for corruption, was caught trying to sell the seat to the highest bidder, and despite audio recordings of phone calls of him practically spelling out "I'm selling this Senate seat, how much will you give me?", he persistently denied any wrongdoing. both Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow broke out the popcorn on their respective shows while airing clips of a press conference.
• The tradition continues with bread sellers vending snacks to the Turks watching the Kurds battling with ISIS in Kobane.
• The Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta, after hearing he was leading the elections against the opposition (and ethnic-German) candidate for Presidency Klaus Iohannis in the 2014 election with a comfortable lead, and around 40% in opinion polls, said that he will “sit back with a bag of popcorn” in the first round of the election on November 2nd and "watch his challengers debate". Ironically enough, the Romanians were so pissed by this statement and his seemingly endless narcissism that they decided to choose the non-Orthodox, non-ethnically-Romanian as president. Romania is one of the most conservative societies in Europe. Go figure.
• During the chaotic January 2023 US Speaker of the House election where infighting among the incoming Republican majority led to the expected Speaker Kevin McCarthy repeatedly failing to gather enough votes 14 times (the first time multiple ballots for Speaker had to be drawn in exactly a century and the first time that many had been needed since 1855), the Democrats - who given the extreme tension between parties at the time - naturally basked in the pure schadenfreude of the chaos across the aisle and relished the opportunity to mock their political opponents, choosing to simply sit back and invoke this trope. Many members took to making posts on social media about popcorn in relation to the election, such as this one from Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu.
• As news of the Wagner mutiny in Russia was unfolding, a Ukrainian soldier was eating popcorn, prompting tongue-in-cheek news of a popcorn shortage in Ukraine.

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