OTTUMWA, Iowa - President Barack Obama was in Ottumwa, Iowa to meet with the Popcorn Growers Coalition regarding the popcorn shortage.
Lonnie Farlander, founder and president of the PGC, expressed his concern to the president that if something is not done and done soon, many of the thousands of U.S. movie theaters will find their popcorn machines empty.
Farlander said that in the 50 years that he has been in the popcorn business he has never seen it this bad. He attributes a lot of it to countries that have seen the number of walk-in theaters increase by as much as 500 percent.
Some of these countries include Portugal, Pakistan, Peru, and Poland, and that is just the P's.
When asked why so much movie popcorn is going to other countries, Farlander responds by saying that foreign countries never complain if they once in a while get popcorn weevils in their popcorn shipments like the American theater owners do.
He said they just simply email us and say that they found 16 popcornies (movie theater talk for popcorn weevils).
What the foreign theaters do to address the problem is to simply give the movie goers who find popcornies in their popcorn a free box of Raisinets, Gummi Bears, or Twizzlers.
President Obama said that his Address To The Students program was extremely successful. He noted that TV ratings went through the roof and as a result he has decided to do an 'Address To' show once a month.
His staff is presently working on October's 'Address To' edition, which will be an 'Address To The School Janitors.'
In that speech the president will point out how very important it is for janitors to always make sure that they use the proper cleaning product for the particular job that they are doing.
He disclosed that last week, a janitor at a high school in Muskogee, Oklahoma, whom the president said shall go nameless, accidentally used Parmesan instead of Ajax or Comet to clean a urinal. And now every time one of the students uses the urinal he comes out of the bathroom craving a pizza.
The president stated that CNN and Fox are both currently vying for the right to televise monthly editions of the 'Address To' series.
Catalina Hartzenello, 51, a senior advertising executive with the Budweiser Corporation has stated that her company has agreed to sponsor the 'Address To' programs whether they are on CNN or Fox.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Larry King said that the janitor's name is Salvo Allesandro. He is 52, and he lives at the corner of 91st and 92nd streets in Muskogee, Oklahoma with his Cherokee wife, Little Fawn, 59. Allesandro drives a burnt sienna 2002 Kia Borrego, with personalized license plates MOP-1.]
