Jolly Time Microwave Popcorn product reviews

There aren't a lot of microwavable popcorn out there in New Zealand. Either the butter isn't enough or it tastes waaaay to fake and nasty. And don't get me started on the overly salted garbage they call "popcorn" at the movie theaters.

I'm a girl who loves her popcorn. And even though I come from the city (Sioux City, Iowa) that makes this delicious treat, I'd like to think I'm not bias. I grew up with the Blast O Butter. Everyone loved it. Then as I got older my tastes and interest moved on. I've enjoyed Healthy Pop now and then when I want something lighter. Not perfect but good. And I'm not a kettle corn fan. WAY too sweet for my tastes which is odd since I love sweet things. But FunMania isn't that sickly sweet popcorn you get from the fares or (yuck) pre-popped. It has a lovely blend of salt and sweet that is just right. And I hate salt and sweet things. So I was surprised I enjoyed it. And when I mean "enjoyed", I mean I struggled to share. Over the many movies and subsequently many bags of popcorn I have found I enjoy the options Jolly Time has created. I can get my butter overload or I can just enjoy the crunch side. Or if that rare weird sweet/salty craving appears I can appease that.

I think the price is pretty good. It's higher than the cheap stuff, but it is also coming from the middle of the USA so the cost does go up. It's definitely worth a try, but I find it hard to find especially in Hamilton. At the moment I can only find it at Mills Street Pac N Save.

I am a popcorn lover so I was very pleased when I was accepted to review this range of popcorn and when one of the flavours turned out to be Cheddar Cheese I was so super excited that this flavour was the first to be tasted, tested and thoroughly enjoyed. I was very impressed that when I finally made it to the bottom of the packet that there were not many un-popped corn kernels left...and the flavour was fantastic...a strong cheese flavour yes which if you keep eating could become to overwhelming so this flavour is one that should be shared or eaten over several snack sittings, but this is a flavour I would most definitely add to the shopping list to buy more!

Then there is Fun Mania...kinda salty, kinda sweet, yeah, I was very apprehensive of trying this one because it just sounded weird!! The popcorn was more sweet than salty and I prefer a more savoury taste to my popcorn so this flavour was not suited for my taste buds and I didn't want to eat much, enough to get a taste was enough for me but my nieces finished the rest of the packet and they said they would eat it again as they liked the sweeter taste, but they also said it was more sweet than salty. Again I noticed that most of the corn kernels popped so it is value for money as there isn't much wasted.

Blast O Butter was okay to eat, very buttery flavour for my taste, and the butter coating on the popcorn was very yellow in colour and wasn't well distributed over the popcorn all that well, some pieces seemed to be covered in a lot more of the butter flavour than other pieces that seemed to lack the flavour of the butter. Not to my taste but my nieces enjoyed eating it and asked if I could buy more as they wanted another packet to eat straight away so that most say something about the popcorn!!

My second favourite flavour after the cheese flavour was Healthy Pop...the good old fashioned flavour of popcorn that I grew up eating, the right amount of a slight butter flavour and just enough salt to bring out the yummy flavour of the butter and popcorn. The crisp white appearance of the popcorn made it look delicious as well and I could have easily polished off the entire packet all by myself if I wasn't required to share it with the other members of the household...this was definitely a favourite and I will be adding it the shopping list and looking out for it in the supermarket. With the added bonus of it being that little bit healthier is definitely a good thing!

Crispy and White...and just like the name this packet of popcorn is very white, almost to the point I wondered what was done to the popcorn to make it that white! Flavour wise this was a winner, very tasty, I was expecting a plainer flavour but it was very yummy and I was happy to sit and eat handful after handful, I would be happy to buy more packets of this flavour and keep in the cupboard to have on hand as a quick and easy snack.

The Jolly time microwave popcorn is available in a variety of flavours and we were lucky enough to try all five, there were some we loved, and others we really didn't like, but this is proof of a company that is offering a wide variety to cater to all taste ranges! The packaging is bright and attractive, and draws you in - the colours are reminiscent of the cinema, setting the popcorn feel.

    •  Blast o Butter - I love buttery popcorn, so this was the first pack that was popped! I really enjoyed the buttery taste and the lightness of the popcorn. It popped evenly for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed every bite, of this flavour, and I really recommend this for those who do enjoy buttery popcorn.

    •  Crispy 'n White - This seemed the most boring of the flavours by description, and by nature I tend to avoid 'healthy' choices. But I gave the crispy n white flavour a try and I was pleasantly surprised. It had a lovely flavour, and I put some in the children's lunch boxes and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

    •  Healthy Pop - This is the equivalent to light butter, it still had the buttery flavour (not enough for me as I love butter and there can never be enough!) but it had a lovely flavour, and would be a great compromise for those who have a range of popcorn connoisseurs in their house. My teen doesn't like much butter, her sister does, but they could agree this was a good balance. I recommend this as a great product to have in the house to get and instant afternoon tea ready for hungry children.

    •  Fun Mania - My children were really looking forward to this flavour, and as soon as they had friends over they raced off to give it a try. They had trouble cooking it right, even though they followed the instructions they managed to burn some, and not cook some of the rest. The girls dove in and loved their first bite, and didn't like the next, teen one went back and had some more, teen two really didn't like it and wouldn't eat any more. I gave it a go, but it just wasn't' a good flavour combination for me, I think you need to have adventurous taste buds, and perhaps be a fan of the sweet and sour lollies? The fact that they were burnt really didn't help either!

    •  Cheddar Cheese - I love cheese so I was so excited that there was a cheese and popcorn flavour, people I talked to about it had a range of opinions on mixing cheese with popcorn, but I thought it was great. I cooked it and the cheesy smell wafted up through the microwave, the gooey cheesy flavouring looked like the orange cheese you get on Wendy's baked potatoes so I was keen to dive in and do the taste test. For me the flavour was as I would expect cheesy and aromatic. I couldn't eat a lot in one sitting though as it becomes too intense after several handfuls! Definitely one to share with other cheese lovers.

I got the popcorn to review and thought that at least if I don't like it then the kids will eat it as I have one who will do anything for popcorn. Healthy Pop was the one I thought I would try first and found it tasty and not too buttery. Most the family liked it so would buy as a treat.

Big Cheez was one I was looking forward to tasting as I love cheese in lots of varieties but found that the flavour was not even as some was bright yellow and other were white, I found after a few handfuls that I didn't like the taste that much but at least no tummy cramps or other complications (was warned that some reviewers did have that happen). I was not that happy with the flavour and wouldn't buy.

Blast O Butter was just what I expected, a very buttery taste and I didn't like the greasy feel on my fingers, wouldn't buy. Crispy 'n White was really nice and what I expected popcorn to be, nice and white not yellow from heaps of unneeded butter. Would buy.

Fun Mania was one that I thought I wouldn't like as the description didn't sound too appealing at all but lucky I was wrong and this was my favourite flavour, not too sweet and not too salty but just right. Will buy this one for sure.

I'll start off my review by saying that I love popcorn, but I don't love the stress of making it. For both me and my family, making popcorn can be a bit tricky, there have been a lot of times where the popcorn got burnt, but now that I have tried these, I see that microwave popcorn is much, much easier. There were a good range of flavours, ranging from a very interesting sweet-and-salty one, to a plain, unbuttered, unsalted flavour.

The first flavour I tried was the "Fun Mania" popcorn, which was rather interesting. My idea of a good sweet-and-salty combo is dipping my french fries in my sundae or thickshake whenever I have McDonald's, but unfortunately, this combo wasn't quite as good as that. Since this was the first batch of microwave popcorn that I've ever made, I made a mistake in the cooking time, so the popcorn got a bit burnt. The flavour was just a bit to unusual for my taste, so I will have to give the taste for this flavour a 8/10

The second flavour I tried was the "Blast O Butter" ; I thought that this would be the regular flavour, the kind that you get at the cinemas, but as it turns out, this was a lot more buttery. The wrapper said that the popcorn of this brand is a USA product, so the fact that the popcorn had a lot of butter was no surprise. It was with this flavour that I found a proper cooking time for this popcorn: about 2 minutes at 1000 watts, which didn't burn any of the popcorn, and there were minimal unpopped kernels as well.

The "Healthy Pop" flavour was exactly what I expected the Blast O Butter to be, the kind of flavour us Kiwis love eating in our cinemas. I loved the flavour, it was slightly buttery, and not too salty, a combo that I really enjoy. The cooking time I applied to the Blast O Butter, 2 minutes at 100 watts, so I think that this is the proper time to apply to this brand of popcorn, along with the requirement that the time must be altered proportionally to the wattage of the microwave used.

I found "The Big Cheez" to be rather unusual, it was too cheesy, the flavour was a bit too tangy, and quite frankly, a bit unpleasant. The amount of cheese in this popcorn was just too overwhelming for my tastes, so while I can easily believe that this is may not be the opinion of many others, in MY opinion I have to give the flavour of this bag a score of 7/10. Once again, the cooking time was efficient, and easy.

Finally, the last flavour I tried was the "Crispy'n White, which is pretty much the "white bread" of the lot, which is a good thing. I used this flavour to make some "popcorn fluff puffs", a recipe that was part of a recipe sheet for the Marshmallow "Fluff", also from GDL brands. The result was okay, I kind of screwed up the recipe, but the popcorn was an easy alternative compared to the stressful way of doing it in a pot.

Overall, I would have to say that I am very impressed with this brand, and would love to try and get my hands on more, as it served as an easy, and tasty snack. By averaging out my opinions on each flavour, the result was that I got a score of about 8/10, which is still a good score, I think. I hope that we get more stuff from GDL brands, as so far, their products have been rather appetizing.

I'm a big movie fan and what goes better with movies than popcorn! When a chance to review Jolly Time popcorn came up I was very keen to give it a go. Usually my flavour choices don't got beyond plain or buttered.

The first one I tried was one of the flavours I wasn't too sure about Fun Mania kinda salty kinda sweet didn't really sound like my type of thing. I was very surprised it was delish and was my favourite flavour! I was just what it said salty and sweet all at the same time, the salty flavour was there but the sweet shone through a bit more. My husband who's not a fan of popcorn gave it a try too and loved it, will be buying fun mania again for sure.

The next one I tried was healthy pop I was expecting it to have less flavour than normal butter popcorn but I found it really tasty and it didn't have the greasy after feel some butter popcorns have, another one I will buy again.

The blast o butter I had during a movie night with my niece. I loved the taste and to begin with really enjoyed it but soon found it left an oily feeling in my mouth so a couple of handfuls was more than enough for me. My niece however loved it and soon finished off the packet.

The crispy and white was another hit with me I found it had just the right about of flavour to it, one I would buy again! As I was the only one eating it I packed some of it in a sandwich bag and took it for lunch the next day and it was still crispy and yum the next day.

The last one I tried was the cheddar cheese and to start with I couldn't decide if I liked it or not, the first handful was ok but I soon decided one handful was enough for me. The flavour seemed very uneven on it and some pieces had far too much flavouring while others had next to none. I'm sure it appeals to some people but I've decided that its not for me.

We have our own popcorn maker so usually just make plain popcorn or if I am being a bit flasher I may pour over some melted butter and shake it up but as far as flavour goes that is about all I will add. We have tried microwave popcorns before but haven't had the most success usually either burning them or ending up with heaps of unpopped pieces in the bag after cooking. That is what I love about the popcorn maker as it never burns.

In the past we have used Ezipop microwave popcorn and we have got about half a big bowl full by the time you have picked all the unpopped pieces out. I took a photo after making up one of these to show the huge difference. One packet of this popcorn had my bowl overflowing and we had no unpopped pieces at all. I cooked it for just under 3 minutes and it was the perfect timing for us to make sure it was all cooked but there was no burning. The packet suggested 2-5 minutes so I went middle ground and wen't for 3 but didn't even need that long.

The first flavour we tried was the Healthy Pop this was my favourite of all the varities as although it had salt and butter it was very mild so felt a lot healthier and the butter wasn't overpowering. This is probably about the level of butter I would use if making it myself from scratch so is what my kids are used to and they really liked this one a lot. We also liked the Crispy N White as again it had a nice mild flavour to it which I think is what we like the best. It was a bit different having a sweet sort of taste to the popcorn but it wasn't unpleasant it was a bit like the popcorn you get at the movie theatre.

On the other hand the Blast O Butter had far too much butter for my liking, you could see the difference in colour between the two and I felt it almost had an oily feel to the popcorn when you were eating it. My kids weren't as keen on this one but my partner really liked it so finished off the bowl after the rest of us had had enough.

The cheese didn't go down to well either I am personally not a fan of cheese flavouring and I didn't like the smell even to start with so it wasn't a good start. You can certainly smell the cheese flavour as soon as you open it up and it gets stronger and stronger as it is cooking. When I needed to use my microwave next that is all you could smell so had to put a lemon in the microwave to get rid of the smell. My son liked the cheese ones actually eating a big handful and asking for more but I probably wouldn't buy them again.

Fun Mania was certainly different. I think although it says salty and sweet it is definitely more sweet than anything else and I wasn't really a fan of it. Surprisingly neither were the kids but I think they are so used to plain popcorn or just a bit of butter so was a bit different getting the sweetness. Again we probably wouldn't buy these again.

I loved these popcorns in general they were so easy to cook and cooked really well. It was so much more convenient to make a huge bowl of popcorn than getting the popcorn maker out and a lot less mess too as my popcorn maker seems to spit bits out all over the place. In future we would probably buy the Healthy Pop and the Crispy N White for family movie nights as we really enjoyed those flavours.

I love popcorn and have my own popcorn maker but have had bad experiences with microwave popcorn mainly because I usually burn it. When I was offered the chance to review Jolly Time Microwave Popcorn in five varieties I seized the opportunity to try the different flavours. My daughters (3.5 and 5 years old enjoyed the chance to eat popcorn every day for a week too.

Although the instructions on the packets said to cook on high for 2 to 5 minutes I was cautious with my 1200 watt microwave and found that 2 and a half minutes on medium high was perfect. The size of the packets provides great value for money and were great to share with the family or in several cases (if the kids were in bed) scoff the whole bag myself in front of the TV.

My youngest wanted to try The Big Cheez variety first. I must admit this was the one I was most curious about as I had never had cheese popcorn before. It had a very strong cheese smell and was a bright orange colour like Cheezels. This left colour around the kids' mouths. The kids loved it and ate more of this variety than any of the others. I found that I enjoyed the first couple of handfuls but the flavour was very strong near the bottom of the bag.

The next variety we tried was Healthy Pop. This was my favourite of all the packs probably because I am used to natural air popped popcorn. I found it to be very moorish and ate the whole packet by myself in front of the TV.

Funmania was the next one we tried. It cooked faster than the other varieties and a few pieces were very burnt (I think these were the ones that had more sugar on them). The flavour was a strange mix of sweet and salty popcorn. I am undecided about whether I liked it or not. The children happily ate it although not at the alarming rate they did with the cheese one.

Next was the Blast o Butter variety. This gave me very greasy fingers and the roof of my mouth had a greasy coating too. It was slightly too salty for me but for my husband who loves his salt this was his favourite. Although it wasn't a flavour I would usually choose the whole bag disappeared very quickly with only a couple of handfuls being shared with Hubby.

Lastly was the Crispy and White variety. This was probably my second favourite. Although it says it is natural flavour it has more calories, fat and sodium than the Healthy Pop. It was slightly too salty and greasy for my liking but again the bag was empty before I realised.

I am pleased I got to try all the varieties of Jolly Time. If I had only tried one I probably wouldn't have wanted to try the others but the Healthy Pop was great. The convenience of popping it in the microwave would be great when we go away on holiday or to give to the kids to take to a sleepover.

Everybody loves a good popcorn, so when KIWIreviews offered up a selection of Jolly Time popcorns for review, it was like an olympic race with people begging to get through. So when I was selected I was chuffed as. Not only was I going to get to review lots of popcorn, but a selection of fun and exciting ones too.

It is difficult to accurately rate these out of 10, as the review is for all five packets, but for me each rate differently. The first one we tried was blast-o-butter, it reminded me of the popcorn mum used to make, smothered in so so much butter. This one was most definitely my childrens favourite one.

The next on the list to try was the fun mania. I love the creative name for this one and the kids were really excited to try it, as was I, I'm always intrigued to try foods that claim salty and sweet or sweet and sour. Fun mania is definitely salty and sweet. How they do it is beyond me. The initial flavour is the sweet flavour, it tastes like plain popcorn lightly coated in icing sugar. It is the after taste that is the salty taste. All but one of my family liked this one.

Crispy-n-white and Healthy pop were perfect for a little bit of creativity and went very very well for caramel popcorn balls. They were simple and easy to prepare and the popcorn formed nicely into the popcorn balls too. I would use both these ones to make popcorn chains to decorate the Christmas tree with at Christmas time.

The chedder cheese popcorn was the one that interested me the most. I really struggled with the whole idea of cheese and popcorn together. Upon opening thr package we immediately noticed how these smelt like cheezles chips, and this excited everyone. Once popped the popcorn definitely had a cheesy smell and was an orangey yellow colour, but in comparison to the other popcorns we had tried it didn't appear as light and fluffy as the others, but smaller and somewhat crisper. I personally did not like it, my children said it was okay but not something they would like again. Of a family of five, 3 of us suffered sore tummys within an hour of consuming.

Finally I have to say, I am really impressed with the jolly time popcorns, especially with the fact none of the popcorn burned. Our last few bags of 'another' brand have either under popped or burnt. We did not have either of these problems with any of these popcorns :)

My husband and I enjoy a good popcorn and have tried a couple of different brands, so when these came up to review I didn't even need to think, just send in a quick 'yes please!'.

The first one that we had was the Crispy 'n Sweet, the reason being that I thought that we would like this the least. We tried a small handful each and were pleasantly surprised at the taste. I made a caramel honey sauce and poured it over the popcorn, then put small amounts into silicone muffin cases to harden. What I got was a gooey popcorn treat that the kids loves but my walls hate.

Our next one was the Cheddar Cheese, this one had me the most intrigued. As soon as I took off the plastic wrapper there was no doubt at all that it was cheddar, you could smell nothing but. Having a small handful to eat, this was a nice cheese flavour, better than I expected. I decided to give it a pizza twist by mixing garlic salt, parmesan and mixed herbs together and then coating the popcorn in it, was really nice and the cheese was perfect. The only downside was that it did give me a very sore tummy shortly afterwards, but other than that it was nice.

Blast o Butter I was looking forward to the least, given it's tagline of being like American Theatre buttered popcorn (my experience of this was already very buttery popcorn drizzled with more butter). However, once tasted, it was just like the Extra Butter popcorn that other brands do, so I was more than happy with that. I ended up mixing fried garlic and parmesean over this and boy was it yum!

Healthy Pop was the next on our list and we ate this one just as it was, which was a really good thing. I had thought about experimenting but then decided to just eat it as was. It was shared between myself, my mum and my husband and it was gone VERY quickly. Having gotten used to extra butter popcorn over the past year (thanks to hubby) I was happy to find that I really enjoyed this one, and I could easily switch back to this version.

Fun Mania was my last popcorn to eat and I was looking forward to it. My mistake was that I didn't stick around the microwave (this has a shorter popping time than some of the others) and so I did burn about 1/3 of the popcorn. Hubby and I may be picky, but the kids aren't and they gobbled down just over half the bag between the three of them. This, along with Healthy Pop, is my favourite of the five, and even better is that it tastes just as good as prepopped brand that it twice the price of this one!

The only downside to these popcorns was the sore tummy after the Cheddar Cheese and the three pimples that have popped up on my chin! But I have found a new brand of popcorn that I like so I'm sure to get all of these again.

We love popcorn here, its a friday night thing at my nanas place so it was a quick yes please to give this a try, as there were some interesting sounding flavours in there.

First we tried the Healthy Pop, this left the mircowave nice and clean and the bag was clean after it all popping, didn't take long. The popcorn is a nice white colour lighty salted which I guess is good being a healthy pop. Out of the five people that tried this one everyone was happy about it, as its the healthy version of popcorn, but more butter would of been good as it does sound healthy pop butter, so would expect more butter for it. Otherwise this is a good popcorn.

Next we did the The big cheez it cooked well, but sadly made a mess in the mircowave which my nana wasnt too happy about, they packet was more messy than I have ever seen on popcorn before. We felt the popcorn was uneven colouring you got some that were bright yellow and others almost white, the dark yellow ones were very strong in flavour and the other ones no flavour at all. My kids enjoyed this popcorn my son ate the most though. I wasnt impressed with this popcorn its one I would never buy, it gave my cousin and my son (almost 4) a son tummy and the runs its the only thing we had different on a normal night and it come on 30mins after eating it, they are also the ones that ate the most popcorn.

Next was Blast O Butter, we had this while watching movies at home with the kids, I liked this one, lots of salty flavor but not enough butter, I enjoy this type of popcorn and this is one I would buy again. It left the microwave clean but the bag not but thats ok as I didn't have a mess to clean up. The kids liked this one aswell and once that was gone wanted more popcorn.

Next was the funmaina, as the name sounds I thought this was going to be good, nope I didn't like this, my husband wasnt a fan and neither was my 5 year old daughter. It was very sweet almost like eating icing sugar, my almost 4 year old boy loved it and almost ate the whole packet to himself, which is prob not the best for him being so sweet. This is one I will not buy even though my son liked it I wont be giving it to him.

Crispy and white boy this one went down very fast after dinner, lovely white colour and lightly salted, this is prefect it went really fast. Would be prefect for school lunches. This is my favorite and would buy this again.

The price for these are just right, and I would buy a few of them again not all. I really didn't like the big cheez or the funmania they would be a no go for me again, as for the others I would. Prefect for movies, lunches and trips out to parks etc.