"Popcorn" was composed by Gershon Kingsley, co-founder of the First Moog Quartet, which was the first musical group to play electronic music at Carnegie Hall. The quartet recorded their version of the song in 1969. Stan Free, a member of the quartet from 1970 to 1972, organized a collection of musicians and named them Hot Butter; they recorded their version of "Popcorn" in 1972.
This version of "Popcorn" reached #9 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was even more successful in Europe, reaching #1 in France, Germany, Holland, Norway, and Switzerland. Over a million copies were sold in France and two and half million were sold throughout Europe. Hot Butter released albums in 1972 and 1973, which mostly consisted of Moog synthesizer cover versions of classic instrumental songs, but did not achieve further success.
When searching around a while back, I found a dance routine performed to "Popcorn", which looks like it was produced in France. It consists of odd dance moves, random intrusive camera cutaways to closeups of the women dancing, and later cutaways to a man nodding in approval.
Created February 2, 2026.