A telephone business sold to Bell, farmland and a family basement.

Jolly Time is a popcorn brand made by the American Pop Corn Company of Sioux City, Iowa. Its founder, Cloid H. Smith, came to popcorn after other careers. The Sioux City Public Museum, in its history of the company, says he began in business in Odebolt, Iowa, working at different times as a druggist, as an inventor of veterinary medicines and hand lotions, and as an oil driller in Texas, and that he ran a telephone company in Odebolt. Little Village, the Iowa magazine, reported in August 2024 that Smith had studied to be a pharmacist and sold veterinary supplies as a travelling salesman, and that in 1899 he and business associates started a local telephone company that grew across western Iowa and into neighbouring states.

The telephone business paid for the popcorn one. Both sources say Bell Telephone bought Smith’s company in 1912. The museum says he moved to Sioux City that year and used part of the money to buy farmland north of Odebolt, in an area known for the popcorn it raised. Little Village places the land in Sac County and says Smith rented it to a tenant farmer who grew popcorn. Unhappy with the low price the tenant was getting, the magazine says, Smith took over the preparation and packaging himself in 1914, starting the American Pop Corn Company in the basement of his house.

The museum gives a close picture of those first months. The family picked the popcorn on the farm, it says, carried it by wagon to Sioux City, and shelled, cleaned and graded it at home. Within a few months the work moved out of the basement into the family garage, and within a year a storage building had gone up. The Smiths found that popcorn aged and dried for a year popped better than new corn, the museum says, and in 1915 they put up a larger building with ventilation to help the corn dry. Little Village says that within two years Smith had opened a factory on the outskirts of Sioux City. The museum adds that the name Jolly Time became known within the first year.

Howard Smith, a flood, the microwave and a president from outside the family.

The company has passed down the Smith family. The Sioux City Public Museum says Cloid’s son Howard took over the company’s responsibilities in 1939 and, following his father’s wishes, sold only ten-ounce tins under the Jolly Time name. In the 1930s, the museum says, the company sold popcorn machines through its own radio programme and supplied vendors with popcorn, popping oil, salt and cartons. English Wikipedia, drawing on a 1972 company history written by Wrede Smith Jr., says the rise of radio, cinema and later television helped popcorn sales through the 1930s and 1940s.

Sioux City’s geography shaped the company too. The museum says that in 1953, soon after the company moved into a brick headquarters in the Leeds area of the city, a flood destroyed its corn, its storage cribs and nearly all of its records, and that the family helped drive the campaign to channelize the Floyd River to prevent further floods. English Wikipedia credits Cloid’s grandson, Wrede Smith, with leading that project with the Sioux City Chamber of Commerce.

The arrival of the microwave oven brought a new product line. The New York Times, in a business report of 22 June 1987, named American Pop Corn’s Jolly Time among the major microwave popcorn brands of the day, alongside General Mills’ Pop Secret and Beatrice’s Orville Redenbacher. The paper reported that the company was setting its microwave popcorn apart by saying it contained butter. English Wikipedia says the microwave business led the company to build a new plant and to sell in Europe.

Ownership has stayed with the family. In a release of 27 February 2024, the company announced that fourth-generation family members Carlton and Garrett (Garry) Smith were stepping back from day-to-day management and that Steve Huisenga, who is not a member of the Smith family, had been appointed president. The release said the Smiths, across the fourth and fifth generations, had decided to remain family owned and to bring independent members onto the board of directors, where Carlton and Garry would remain. Little Village reported in August 2024 that the company was still in the same location in Sioux City, still owned by members of the Smith family, and still producing Jolly Time.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group sell everyday things from the grocery aisle: microwave popcorn, hot cocoa, apple juice, applesauce, orange juice and iced tea. Their packaging comes in very different forms, from flat paper bags that open out in a microwave and tins or canisters of cocoa powder to juice cartons, plastic bottles and boxes of tea bags, and each format gives a designer a different surface to work with.

A bag, a canister, a carton and a box all have to carry the same few things: a name that can be read from a distance, a picture or colour that signals the flavour, and the instructions and legal text a food label needs. How those elements share the space says a good deal about how a brand wants to be seen on the shelf.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — who started the brand, who owns it now, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Metal tins, a slogan, toy tubs, cellophane and celebrity voices.

The package came first in the Jolly Time story. Popcorn did not travel well, Little Village explained in 2024: the kernels dried out and would not pop, cardboard did not keep the moisture in and glass broke in shipping. The magazine dates Smith’s answer to 1925, when he began sealing the kernels in metal containers that kept them fresh on store shelves, and says he advertised Jolly Time with the slogan “It’s guaranteed to pop.” English Wikipedia, citing the 1972 company history, dates the change from cardboard to metal cans to 1924 and gives the slogan as “Guaranteed to Pop.” Little Village notes that the old containers are now collectors’ items.

The museum’s history follows the package through later forms. It says the company sold popcorn in tubs that children could use as toys once they were empty, and in cellophane bags so shoppers could see the kernels inside. It also records a new design for the can that was used from 1942 until 1972. English Wikipedia says the company later moved to plastic packaging, in line with the rest of the industry.

Advertising gave the brand its voices. English Wikipedia says Jolly Time used celebrity endorsements from Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, and Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, and advertised on television game shows such as Let’s Make a Deal. The company today calls Jolly Time the “Official Snack of Happiness”, and its website says the business has been family owned since 1914 and works with farm families who grow its popcorn.

For a design guide, Jolly Time shows how a package can become the brand: a sealed can, a plain promise printed on it, and a family name kept on the business across more than a century in one Iowa city. Compare it with Pop Secret, the General Mills microwave brand it shared shelves with in the 1980s, and with Orville Redenbacher. For this guide we use tin red, kernel gold and popped cream with an ornamental slab serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Jolly Time’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.