barnumize

To enliven something, especially a spectacle or attraction.

There is nothing unusual at first appearance of this man who Barnumized the Classics and shook them and modern stage production into a new vitality.

To dumb down, cheapen, or vulgarize something, especially to create entertainment that appeals to coarse or unsophisticated tastes.

Kushner expects his boxers to make nasty remarks, scripted or otherwise, to Barnumize their sport in the manner of Bob Luce's version of wrestling promising gore for the paying fools.

To promote with bombast, exaggeration, or outright falsehood; to hype or sensationalize.

They went to work deliberately to Barnumize their prospective candidate. No prima donna was ever more thoroughly exploited by her Hebrew impresario. The papers swarmed with anecdotes, incidents, sayings. Nothing was too unimportant, and the new commander-in-chief pulled on his boots by telegram from Maine to California, and picked his teeth by special dispatch from the Associated Press.

To obtain money through fraudulent or deceitful means; to swindle or con.

Looking in retrospect over his career, old P. T. Barnum was equally frank, but he had a way of making people unaware of the fact that they were being buncoed while the buncoing was going on. And the Barnumizing operation of extracting money from the curious will be more successful today if it is made less palapably^([sic]) painful.

To spread inaccurate or false information.

The psychiatrists are getting beyond their depth when they begin computing feminine unhappiness. So when we read that some professor finds 98 per cent of us drooping with sorrow, I think we may safely charge him with Barnumizing.

Alternative form of Barnumize.