Mariah,

Very interesting further contribution.

As I said in mine of several days ago, the word "blockbuster" seems to
have been first applied to museum exhibitions as an insult - because
the "blockbuster" had so many negative associations of this kind.

I remember that during the first ever London blockbuster - the British
Museum's King Tut exhib. in the 1970s - a travel operator friend
capitalised  on the negative publicity by advertising his package holidays
and charter flights to Egypt under the slogan "Go to see King Tutankamen
in Cairo with us - it's quicker than going to the British Museum!".

Presumably on the old marketing principle that any publicity is good
publicity museums eventually appropriated the intended insult and began to
boast about it.

Patrick Boylan