Sticks nix hick pix

STICKS NIX HICK PIX is one of the most famous headlines ever to appear in an American publication. It was 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. The headline, according to Robert Landry of the "Variety" staff, was written by Lyn Bonner.

Using a form of headlinese that the newspaper called slanguage, "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" means that, according to an Iowa theater manager, people in rural areas ("") 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.

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

The headline is one of a handful that have entered the lore of journalism, as described in this essay [http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:f17b5wOnueIJ:www.allworth.com/Samples/J_craft1.pdf+%22famous+headlines%22+journalism+nix&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2] by longtime Associated Press reporter Hugh Mullian:

cquote|Down the years, some of journalism’s most famous headlines have brilliantly suggested what happened and have coaxed the reader to find out more:
*WALL STREET LAYS AN EGG [written for "Variety" by Claude Binyon]
*FORD TO NEW YORK: DROP DEAD
*HEADLESS TORSO IN TOPLESS BAR
*HICKS NIX PIX IN STICKS

Mullian is one of many who have misquoted the headline over the years; it is also often [http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/msg/797abff6c37ed96b?d&mode=source&output=gplain This newsgroup posting] cites Google counts taken in late 2005.] misquoted with all four words ending in X.

Popular culture

*The headline (although misspelled with all four words ending in X) appeared in the 1942 movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy". George M. Cohan (played by James Cagney) explains the meaning to several young people, who use the headline as the basis of an impromptu swing song.
*In 2000 the "New York Daily News" used the headline "HICKS NIX KNICKS TIX" on page 1 and "HICKS' KNICKS TIX TRICK on page 5.
*A 1984 novel by David Burdett was titled "Hix Nix Stix Pix".
*In the "Futurama" episode "That's Lobstertainment!", the Daily Variety headline reads "Fox Exex Bax Sex Pix, Flix Lax Crux Bux, Stox Sinx, Ax Prex".
*The headline was echoed in a "New York Times" [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E7D6153CF937A15753C1A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print editorial] entitled "Hicks Nix Blix Fix" in 2002 by William Safire about the Bush administration's rejection of UN backed inspections as a solution to mounting nuclear tensions with North Korea
*In the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Thirteensomething" while Plucky reads the newspaper (Varietoon, obviously a parody of Variety) one of the headlines is "Hix Nix Stix Pix"

References

External links

* [http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=variety100&content=jump&jump=article&articleID=VR1117922332 The article at Variety.com]
* [http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=variety100&content=jump&jump=article&articleID=VR1117922319&category=1930 1935 exhibitor perspective 'Sticks' in memory]
* [http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-trivia-town-and-country.htm Online English-language course that describes it as "perhaps its (Variety's) most famous headline of all time"]