Push Pop: History, Flavors & Varieties

Snack History Nostalgia Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Push Pop are some of the most unique candies that are on the market today and they have been around since the 80s. This is one of those candy varieties that is very memorable to people of a certain age as Push Pops were a hugely popular item during the 90s. These colorful and fun to eat candies will not remind you of anything else that you have ever eaten.

If you have never tried a Push Pop, you need to make an effort to give this kind of candy a try. This is more than a flavor of candy, it is an eating experience! Many people will tell you that eating a Push Pop is all about how you eat it and less about the flavor that you have selected. This alone makes this candy a unique eating adventure in many ways!

Push Pop is sold in many different varieties and styles and you can enjoy this candy in gummy and hard versions as well.

History

This candy is fruit-flavored and is technically a lollipop. It is made by Topps Company Inc and first hit the market in 1986. There are many varieties of this fun and engaging candy and you will find that they are all pretty enjoyable overall.

The candy is made in a long cylinder and it is made to be pushed out of the tube as you eat. The original tubes had little clips in the lids that were supposed to allow you to hang them off your belt or the front of a notebook or other location where you might want to store your candy until you could continue to enjoy it.

There are both gummy and hard candy versions of these lollipops and you will find that both are equally fun to push from the tube and consume. Some of the gummy candies are also currently sold in tape dispensers that will let you pull out a strand of the candy and then break it off to eat it. This is a little like the bubble gum tape dispensers that kids of the 90s remember well.

The Triple Push Pop is a strange and silly but fun version of this candy. It is made with the same plastic tube but you can select from three different candy rods that are inserted into the tube. You can lick all three, or just push up one at a time to enjoy any flavor that you feel like at the time. This style of this lollipop will remind people of the pens from the 90s that let you select from a lot of different ink colors just by selecting the right color at the top of the pen.

Push Pop is made with a spring-loaded style in some flavors as well, which adds an entirely different level of enjoyment to the eating process. This is a candy that is intended to be eaten for fun and the company has succeeded in creating this outcome with ease! Push Pops have even won a Candy Industry Choice Award for best novelty candy. If you try one, you will see why this award was won! There is nothing that is like eating a Push Pop!

One of the most silly and enjoyable things about this lollipop is that you can put the cap on and save the rest for later. This is a fun gimmick since more lollipops are a commitment once you start eating them.

Think about how many times you have had to throw out a lollipop because you got interrupted while eating it and could not finish it! Or think about when you tried to wrap one up again to eat it later and just couldn’t make the wrapper stick to the candy the right way. This is part of the fun of the Push Pop and being able to cap it and come back to it is actually really nice if you get interrupted in your candy enjoyment.

This candy is actually produced in Southeast Asia and it is sold here in the US by Topps Candy. The containers that the candy is sold in have not changed much over the years and the bright and colorful little tubes instantly attract kids and teens alike to try them out. The current candy product is sold in tubes with silly faces on the top where the lid is. The flavors are displayed on the bottom half of the tube and there are cartoony graphics of the fruity flavors shown in this location as well.

This candy is sold in party packs as well, which come in their own bag with unique tubes inside. The colors of the bags are much the same as the colors of the pops themselves and their bright and colorful patterns are enhanced by balloons and other cartoony party items. This is a really whimsical brand that never takes itself too seriously and you will love the lighthearted fun that it offers in each interaction.

Flavors

Push Pops come in many flavors. There is no shortage of fun flavors for your enjoyment and you can try more than one at a time if you get a party pack that offers mixed varieties.

• Strawberry
• Watermelon
• Berry blast
• Blue raspberry
• Mystery
• Cola
• Twisted raspberry lemonade
• Cherry
• Twister cotton candy bubble gum
• Fruit Frenzy
• Bubble Gum
• Twisted Rainbow Sherbet
• Warped Watermelon
• Twisted berry
• Grape
• Berry Twisted
• Twister Strawberry Watermelon
• Apple
• Grape Push

All of these flavors are really unique and enjoyable and you will probably want to try at least a few of them if you are going to give this candy a shot for the first time. The original flavors were the more traditional ones on the list and the twister or twisted flavors and the warped flavors have been added in more recent years. The company seems to add flavors all the time, so you might see even more flavors and styles of this candy show up in the future.

The Triple Power version of this lollipop has three flavors in one, and you select which one you want to eat by pushing up different tabs. The twister versions are eaten by sliding the candy out of a dispenser that is small and flat and allows you to break off bits of candy to enjoy at a time. This is the newer version of the gummy tape dispenser that was quite large and round and bulky.

The flavors listed above are not made in every form of this candy’s delivery. You will find that the push pop basic flavors are most commonly sold with the basic shape while the twisted flavors or the other unique varieties are linked to the shape of the container or to the form of the candy.

Logo

Buy Online

You can also buy Push Pop at Old Time Candy by clicking the image below.

Ingredients

From the Allcitycandy entry for the box of multiple flavors and varieties:

• Sugar
• Corn syrup
• Buffered lactic acid

The Berry Blast Variety: artificial flavor, yellow 5, blue 1

Strawberry: natural and artificial flavors, red 40

Watermelon: artificial flavor, yellow 5, blue 1

Blue Raspberry: Artificial flavor, blue 1

Any of the varieties of this candy that are not the basic flavors might have other additional ingredients to make colors and flavors possible in combination. The boxes of each of the varieties will tell you what the ingredients are for these unique inclusions.

Nutrition

Serving Size:	1 Serving	% Daily Value*
Calories	80
Calories from Fat	9	11.3%
Total Fat	1g
Saturated fat	0.5g
Cholesterol	5mg
Sodium	25mg	2%
Carbohydrates	18g
Net carbs	18g
Sugar	15g
Fiber	0g	0%
Protein	0g
Vitamins and minerals
Fatty acids
Amino acids

• The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs.

Marketing

This candy was marketed in a very classically 80s and 90s way, complete with bright colors and kid-friendly targeting. There was a series of ads that were done speaking out against bullying that is memorable to kids of this era. The slogan for these ads was, “Don’t push me, push a Push Pop” and many people remember the interactions between the supposedly nerdy kids and the Push Pops that were supposed to save them from bullying.

Later ads featured the candy as a cartoon that interacts with the kids on the screen. There are all kinds of bright colors and zany things going on in these ads and you will definitely see the sense of fun that the brand wants to convey. Ryan Reynolds has even been in one of the older ads, a fact which gave the brand some new attention when people discovered this fact after some years of the candy slipping off the radar a bit.

 This is a candy brand that knows how to have fun, and its ads tell this story quite clearly. You will not be let down by a Push Pops ad if you want to see something that is silly, zany, and kind of wonderful overall.

Pictures

Commercials:

The anti-bullying ad that so many kids of the 80s and 90s remember well:

A cartoon-based ad that is much newer and yet still preserves the sense of zany and weird fun of the brand:

The Triple Push Pop in all of its glory is advertised here:

The Ryan Reynolds ad:

The Gummy Roll in the dispenser is featured in this ad: