They Meant Everything Back Then
Before smartphones or video games, kids often started their fun with a popsicle stick. Interlocking popsicle sticks is one of the creative ways children engaged their imaginations. If you were a kid who grew up as a child of the late 1980s-90s, you probably remember using popsicle sticks called Elsie Stix.
They were yet another colorful plastic insert that was not just packaging. It also contained a promotion-based toy, building implement, and small collectible. Each stick gave you a reason to make a real treat, a buildable treat.
The Popsicle Bonus Everyone Was Excited About
Occasionally when you pulled recently frozen snacks from the freezer, you may have seen a colorful plastic stick with some cute shape. It had various notches and cutouts. This was not the typical popsicle stick. They would snap together in various forms allowing you to build shapes and structures right where you were.
One stick became two, two sticks became a chain and before long you had a whole collection. Boxes and towers were built however your mind could see them.
What Were Else Stix?
Elsie Stix were promotional toys packaged with popsicles. Even if not all of the brands called them Elsie Stix, that is the name that stuck. After all, kids mostly played with durable plastic sticks in bright colors like yellow, red, green, and blue. While some makers crafted versions from wood, they kept the same interlocking shape.
Every stick had end shapes to connect to another stick. They could connect in linear fashion, at angles, and even be 3D patterns. They relied on what could become a construction set, one stick at a time.
Simple Pretend Play
Elsie Stix were not flashy or make sounds. There were no instruction guides. Its allure came from an innate creativity. Children would stack and arrange colors, trade colors with their friends. Then they would ultimately create some combination of structure or no structure at all. If you add a stick you built on to another stick, whether you added five or fifty sticks, it made to take something physical, and change its object in your mind.
When you connected a stick, it encouraged a little tactile-but-hands-on play that was new to you.
Why They Were Awesome!
Misleading marketing was Elsie Stix not being toy marketed. Sometimes companies included them with snacks, and people got excited about it. Children were not pestering adults to purchase Elsie Stix. Elsie Stix appeared to be free, and therefore, part of what made them new and special.
There was nothing better then taking your stick and tucking it away in a lunch box or pencil case. Adding and attaching your next stick build on to your lunch or pencil. Waiting and watching to see the next color or shape offered. The anticipation and uncertainty over color and shape added to the fun!
Elsie Stix Gradual Deterioration.
By the late 1990s, the era of interlocking popsicle sticks had come to an end. They were no longer included with snacks. Variety toys took their place. People soon buried them in junk drawers, old craft toys, and bins. Every so often, someone would find a box buried in a junk drawer and reactivate memories of jelly-stickyulated summer days by reconnecting or snapping two pieces of plastic together.
Still a Great Reminder!
Elsie Stix smack you into reality. Simple things create creative and synaptic memories without relying on batteries, advertising, screaming, or branding. All you need are buildables, those sticks, the urge to create something new! Try it…if you find a few sticks in an old box, find a few, and snap them together.
