In this current timeline, it seems that ’90s kids are busy leveling up into adults filled with wistful memories of simpler times of their halcyon childhood days. Recalling summer afternoons spent lined up around the ice cream truck thanks to the pioneering efforts of Good Humor that paved the way, it’s worth taking a look back at one of the very best frozen treats of summer in the 1990s. The humble Flintstones Push-Ups are one of the many nostalgic frozen foods from the ’90s that deserve a comeback for the good of today’s youth and those still young at heart.
With Flintstones-themed branding on the boxes, in television commercials, and even on the ice cream wrappers, these popsicles were a feat of “prehistoric” proportions in flavors such as “Yabba Dabba Doo Orange” and “Granite Grape.” The boxes advertised the desserts as being “fortified with vitamin C,” a contemporary of the then-prominent Flintstones chewable vitamins.
With a cardboard tube housing your favorite flavor of sherbet and a stick with a platform underneath with which one would effectively “push up” the frozen dessert through the tube, fans were able to consume and enjoy these frozen indulgences. For the especially creative reading this, you might even recall repurposing the tubes and sticks into toys. Nestle Push-Up pops are alive and well, though no longer emblazoned with Flintstones branding, making them a frozen treat you nearly forgot about.
What made Push-Ups so great?
Often, it seems as if the treats of our childhood days change over time to a point where the taste becomes either unrecognizable or even unpleasant. In the last three decades, many companies have quietly changed the formulas and recipes for many beloved packaged foods out of concern for public health, supply chain costs, or other reasons. As such, it wouldn’t be out of the question if Nestle, in addition to updating the branding from Flintstone’s Push-Ups to simply Push-Ups, might have altered the recipe in some way. There is always the question of whether a food from childhood tastes different because one has grown up and their tastes have changed, or if the product itself actually has changed. The answer may lie somewhere in between both of these possibilities.
Whereas the frozen 1990s summer treats look and likely taste different than you may remember them, it’s still very much worth a periodic nostalgic indulgence if for no other reason than to test this theory. With so many ways to repurpose food containers, the utility of the Push-Ups packaging might still make for a fun desktop fidget toy. If there was one frozen snack that ’90s kids could get back exactly how they remember it, odds are, Flintstones Push-Ups might be at the top of that massive wish list.
