The Ring Pop was invented by Frank Richard, a product engineer for Topps, in 1975. Frank wanted to try and create something that might break a child’s thumb-sucking habit, a problem he faced with his own daughter. And so the idea for Ring Pop was born…
Ring Pop comes in the form of a wearable plastic ring with a hard candy ‘jewel’ attached. A ring so large that the only place you would expect to find it is on an 80’s street pimp. These jewels originally only came in grape and cherry flavour, over the years however this has expanded to eleven different flavours.
Ring Pop
As you probably already know, the Ring Pop was not the first piece of candy jewellery. The Ring Pop followed in the footsteps of other candy jewellery such as the candy necklace and candy bracelet. Both of which were first released in 1958, almost two decades before the Ring Pop.
Whether Frank Richard’s Ring Pop actually succeeded in getting children to stop the habit of thumb-sucking we simply do not know. What we do know is that they have been incredibly successful! It’s no surprise to us that you can still find them today, more than four decades after they first hit shelves.
