Pez

History

Pez began as a compressed peppermint candy in Vienna, Austria, in 1927, created by Eduard Haas III. The name Pez comes from the German word for peppermint, PfeffErminZ, by taking its first, middle, and last letters. The first version was a round peppermint lozenge called Pez drops. Later, a different manufacturing method led to the hard, pressed brick shape that is familiar today. The candy was first sold in wrapped rolls, then in a small tin similar to modern Altoids containers. The first Pez dispensers, called "regulars," were invented by Oscar Uxa and looked like cigarette lighters. They held an adult breath mint that was promoted as a substitute for tobacco. The Haas Food Manufacturing Corporation of Vienna was the first company to sell Pez products.

World War II slowed down marketing and production. In 1945, the Pez Box Regular was created and promoted. The first dispenser was officially shown at the Vienna Trade Fair in 1949. Eduard Haas brought Pez to the United States in 1952, with Curtis Allina running the American business. In 1955, the company added heads to the dispensers and started targeting children. Early character dispensers included Santa Claus, Popeye, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck. Since 1950, more than 1,500 different Pez dispensers have been made, including the original character ones.

Pez vending machines were used in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The first German machines appeared around 1954, built by DWM and GWS, both based in Berlin. Machines later came to Switzerland, and then to Austria in October 1956, made by Glerios / R. Seipel & Co. and Theodor Braun of Vienna. In 1973, Pez built a factory in Orange, Connecticut. Scott McWhinnie became president of the company in 1983 and retired in 2003. Joe Vittoria took over as president in 2004. Around 2005, the original factory was doubled in size, and the dispenser line was expanded. In the mid-1990s, the peppermint flavor returned with new versions of the "regulars."

Characters

The earliest Pez dispensers were simple rectangular boxes with a contoured flip top, now called "regulars," and lacked any character heads. The first toy character heads appeared in 1955, following the candy's introduction to the United States. Since then, over 550 unique dispenser heads have been created, with thousands of variations. In the 1970s, a Bicentennial series introduced three historical figures: Betsy Ross, Daniel Boone, and Paul Revere. These heads did not resemble the actual people; instead, they used generic faces paired with different accessories. Star Wars dispensers, first released in the 1990s, became some of the most sought-after collectibles. The company originally avoided making likenesses of real people, but in 2006, a limited-edition set of three dispensers featured members of the Teutul family from Orange County Choppers. NASCAR-themed dispensers are based on the helmets of famous drivers, not their faces. In 2007, a limited-edition Elvis set included three dispensers representing different stages of Presley's life. The first Star Trek gift set, released in 2008, contained the seven original series crew members and the Starship Enterprise. A second Star Trek set, based on The Next Generation, came out in autumn 2012. For the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz in 2009, Pez produced a boxed set with eight dispensers: the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Dorothy Gale, Toto, Glinda, the Wizard of Oz, and the Wicked Witch of the West, limited to 300,000 sets. In 2010, a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs set was released, including a storybook and featuring the first characters on the "Short Stem" body, with only 250,000 sets made. A 2011 two-piece limited-edition set for charity featured Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Also in 2011, an eight-piece limited-edition set depicted characters from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films: Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gollum, with 250,000 sets produced. An additional 150,000 Walmart-exclusive sets were made, which replaced Bilbo with the Eye of Sauron.

Fandom

Certain Pez dispensers have become high-value collectibles. The most expensive confirmed sale was a Mickey Mouse softhead prototype, never sold to the public, which went for $7,000 in a private deal between an Austrian dealer and a U.S. collector. The priciest known dispensers are three Political Donkeys, each worth over $13,000; one of these once belonged to John F. Kennedy. The hobby of collecting Pez has expanded enough to support several annual conventions worldwide. The longest-running of these is Pez-a-Mania, held in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1991.

Media

In 2015, Envision Media Arts began work on an animated Pez film, with Cameron Fay writing the screenplay and Lee Nelson and David Buelow producing. Gregg Rossen, Catherine Judit Kaehne, Brian Sawyer, and Jonathan Hung served as executive producers. A collectible card game based on Pez, now out of print, required players to reach 25 points using cards featuring Pez flavors and dispensers; its core set had 204 cards. The 2022 documentary The Pez Outlaw followed a farmer who smuggled foreign Pez dispensers into the United States for profit. It was available on Netflix in 2023.