ORVILLE REDENBACHER originally called his popcorn Red Bow, a discreet reference to his own name and that of his partner, Charlie Bowman. A Chicago advertising consultant decreed that the product would sell much better if it was called Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn, and sent the men a $13,000 bill for the insight. Thus Redenbacher's name ascended into the pantheon of great American Living Trademarks, while Charlie Bowman's went the way of the fifth Beatle.

Like other immortals -- Colonel Sanders, Frank Perdue, Dr. Scholl -- Redenbacher had a negative glamour that inspired trust. He looked like a man who would spend 40 years crossbreeding 30,000 popcorn hybrids in search of "the perfect kernel." Redenbacher's version, which he didn't perfect until age 63, popped up twice as fluffy as the competition's. It also had fewer of those unpopped kernels, which Redenbacher called "the shy fellows." Hunt-Wesson, which bought the brand in 1976, was canny enough to keep Redenbacher as company spokesman. He became one of the best-known human logos in American commerce, more sympathetic than the Smith Brothers, less politically correct than Ben & Jerry. Perhaps his lanky frame reminded people that popcorn is a relatively low-calorie snack (though not when presented, as a Redenbacher cookbook suggests, in the form of Indiana Farms Blue Cheese Balls). Maybe his prewar hair style, bow tie and spectacles called up a sympathetic response from the inner nerd in all of us.

He began wearing bow ties while in high school in Indiana. He played the sousaphone in the Purdue marching band. He became the first county agricultural agent to broadcast radio interviews direct from the corn fields. He never bought a sports team, marketed his own merlot or got caught nightclubbing with Cindy Crawford. His was an all-American ascendency -- the builder of the better mousetrap, the triumphant 90-pound weakling, the Revenge of the Nerd. But in a bittersweet coda, Orville Redenbacher died at 88 while researchers were still struggling to bring his ultimate goal to fruition -- the "100 percent pop" for every kernel, including all the shy ones.