In 1958, The Chordettes, a female singing quartet, came out with a worldwide hit – Lollipop. It was written after Julius Dixson was delayed for a meeting with his songwriting collaborator, Beverly Ross. The reason? Dixson’s daughter had a lollipop stuck in her hair.
The Chordettes, Wikimedia Commons
Lollipops have been stuck in our lives for a very long time.
Head back ten thousand years. Food historians believe that cavemen found honeycombs in abandoned bee hives. They tasted the syrup and loved it. These early humans used sticks to dig out the sweet honey. They sucked everything left on the sticks, not wanting to waste a drop.
Lollipops – also known as suckers, Dum-Dums, lollies, chupa chups and other tasty names – were born.
Shirley Temple sang about The Good Ship Lollipop. Prince silently slurped a lollipop during the 1995 hit, We Are the World, at the American Music Awards. Khloé Kardashian is always seen with a red lollipop. The 70s TV detective Kojack, played by actor Telly Savalas, once admitted that he sucked on lollipops every day except Sunday.
Huh?
Some people say that lollipops are appetite suppressants. Others believe they help cut back on nasty habits like smoking and snacking. Many experts claim lollipops provide stress relief and mood enhancement by triggering the release of endorphins.
CIMA describes lollipops as a “simple pleasure amidst the chaos” with the “potential to address oral fixation and a moment of sweet escape.”
Who would have guessed?
The ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Arabs got the idea. They made their own version with fruit and nuts on a stick coated with honey. Later, the Greeks and Romans also used honey to make sweets.
Sugar changed the recipe. In the Middle Ages, nobility and the rich savored “boiled sugar” on a stick. To sweeten the experience, these suckers became a status symbol for the wealthy elite.
Cool suckers.
By the 1600s, sugar was more plentiful (and cheaper). London street vendors peddled the treat. They were soft rather than hard. The term “lollipop” became popular, literally “tongue slap.”
Candy makers saw the potential. However, producing lollipops tended to be a slow and tedious process. It wasn’t until the 1900s and automation, that lollipops took off – along with great names, creative variations, and of course, stories.
Most people credit George Smith from New Haven, Connecticut, with the invention of the “modern” lollipop in 1905. He owned the Bradley Smith Company. Smith experimented with leftover candy, melting it on sticks by hand and bringing it home to his children. He named the sweet after his favorite racehorse, Lolly Pop, and eventually trademarked it in 1931. By then, the name “lollipop” had become generic. Manual labor was slow and Max Buchmuller, a foreman in the company, invented a machine to speed things up. They were eventually able to produce 750 Lolly Pops per minute, distributing them around the world. Smith sold them for a penny apiece.
Students from Dwight Elementary School later lobbied to make lollipops the official Connecticut State Candy. They won. The Lollipop Law was just passed on June 3, 2024.
Competition entered the business. Russian immigrant Samuel Born designed an even faster machine – producing 2,400 sticks per hour. He called it The Born Sucker Machine. It was so innovative that San Francisco awarded him the keys to the city.
Quite a name.
Today the most popular are Tootsie Roll Pops. Introduced in 1931, they provided a sweet, flavorful treat during the Depression. In 1970, Doner Advertising Agency came up with an iconic TV commercial: a cartoon boy asked talking animals a critical question: “how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” Tootsie Roll Industries reported that it got over 20,000 letters from kids trying to solve the problem.
Researchers actually studied it.
Today, twenty million Tootsie Roll Pops are produced each day.
You can get lollipops in hundreds of flavors, colors, and shape. There are many tasty names, like Whistle Pops, Bubblegum Pops, and Saf-T-Pops. Bring home a giant or a stick-shaped pop. Try strange flavors like Zolli Pops (that clean teeth), red-hot pops, pops with crickets, or cocktail-flavored pops. If you have the spare change, buy yourself a Kim Kardashian one-million-dollar lollipop imbedded with 280 princess-cut-diamonds. Check out the largest lollipop in the world that weighed 7,003 pounds. There’s even an annual National Lollipop Day.
Become a sucker! You’ll love it.
Hee hee…”cool suckers”…That made me laugh! Very appropriate though! I must admit I’ve never been much of a fan of lollipops but after reading your article I have the urge to try a few and give them a second chance. And I have always enjoyed tootsie roll pops, so maybe I’m a bigger fan than I thought… Regardless, another great article, thanks for the fun read!