Sticks Nix Hick Pix

STICKS NIX HICK PIX was a headline printed in Variety, a newspaper covering Hollywood and the entertainment industry, on July 17, 1935, over an article about the reaction of rural audiences to movies about rural life. It is one of the most famous headlines ever to appear in an American publication.

Using a form of headlinese that the newspaper called slanguage, "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" means that people in rural areas ("the sticks") reject ("nix") motion pictures ("pix") about rural life ("hicks"). The conventional wisdom of the movie industry was that themes of upper-class life would not be popular in the countryside; according to the article, this assumption was incorrect.

According to Robert Landry of the Variety staff, the headline was written by Lyn Bonner; however, Sime's Site (a site for people associated with Variety, named after the paper's founder) credits it to Abel Green.[1]

Because it was the lead headline of the paper, it was printed in all capital letters. Standard style for other Variety headlines was initial capital letters on virtually all words.

Fame

The headline is one of a handful that have entered the lore of journalism, as described in the essay "Breaking Out from the Herd"[2] by longtime Associated Press reporter Hugh Mulligan:

Mulligan got all four headlines wrong, including the "Stix" headline: The 1975 New York Daily News headline was actually "Ford to City: Drop Dead". The April 15, 1983 New York Post headline was: "Headless Body in Topless Bar", and the October 30, 1929 Variety headline actually abbreviated STREET as ST.

He is one of many who have misquoted the "Stix" headline over the years. It is often[3] misquoted with all four words ending in X. That misspelling appeared in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy, in which George M. Cohan (played by James Cagney) explains the headline's meaning to several young people, who use it as the basis of an impromptu swing song.

Similar headlines

Parodies

Movies

References

  1. Besas, Peter. "Abel Green obituary". Simesite. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  2. Mullian, Hugh. "Breaking Out from the Herd" (PDF). Allworth Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-03-13.
  3. This newsgroup posting cites Google counts taken in late 2005.
  4. Safire, William (2002-10-24). "Hicks Nix Blix Fix". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
  5. Egan, Timothy (2013-03-07). "Hicks Nix Climate Fix". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-03-07.
  6. "HIX NIX STIX PIX – Kirkus Review". Kirkus Reviews. March 28, 1984. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
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