Fun Facts

    • In 1927, PEZ was created by Eduard Haas III in Vienna, Austria and was marketed as a breath mint for adults.

     

    •  The name PEZ comes from the German word for peppermint, pfefferminz. The first, middle, and last letter were used to create the iconic brand name.

     

    •  Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs hosted the very first PEZ Dispenser Day at Wrigley Field on Wednesday, June 14th, 2000. The game was at 1:20pm and the Chicago Cubs were playing against the New York Mets. The first 15,000 fans who entered the gate received a limited edition Charlie Brown dispenser wearing a Cubs hat and a souvenir card to go with it.

     

    • The first PEZ dispensers were called Regulars and resembled a cigarette lighter. They were marketed towards adults as an alternative to smoking.

     

    • The best selling dispenser of all time is Santa Claus.

     

    • To make a single piece of PEZ candy, it takes 3,000 pounds of pressure to compress the sugar into the brick shaped tablet.

     

    • PEZ had some unusual flavors of candy in the past including licorice, coffee, and chlorophyll.

     

    • The first ever PEZ Convention was held on Saturday, June 15, 1991 in Mentor, Ohio.

     

    • PEZ celebrated it's 95th anniversary as a brand in 2022 and continues to add new characters to it's catalog.

     

    •  PEZ dispensers are sold in over 80 different countries across the world.

     

    •  PEZ candy has produced many flavors over the years, but Peach has never been used in the U.S. market.

     

    •  A regular sized roll of PEZ candy has 12 tablets, the same amount of pieces that a regular dispenser can hold.

     

    •  Feet, which were tabs on the bottom of the stem used to help a dispenser stand upright, weren't added to the design until 1984 in Europe and 1987 in the U.S.

     

    • The part of the dispenser that pushed the candy forward when the head was tilted back is called the kicker.

     

    • Betsy Ross, Daniel Boone, and Uncle Sam have all appeared as PEZ dispensers.

     

    • Strawberry PEZ candy is called ja'goda in Eastern Europe and is called erdbeer in Germany.

     

    • The world record for the world's largest PEZ dispenser sculpture was set on June 30, 2016. The sculpture was over 7 feet tall and resides in the Aberdeen Centre Mall in Canada.

     

    • There are currently 10 different flavors of PEZ candy available in the U.S. including Strawberry, Lemon, Orange, Grape, Cherry, Raspberry, Sour Blue Raspberry, Sour Watermelon, Sour Green Apple, and Sour Pineapple.

     

    • The first PEZ dispenser was invented in 1948 by Oscar Uxa, 21 years after the first candy was invented.

     

    • A Tweety Bird Pez was featured in a Season 3 episode of Seinfeld titled The Pez Dispenser.

     

    •  PEZ dispensers have appeared in two different Toy Story movies. Ducky is a mutant toy composed of a Duck PEZ head, a baby doll torso, and a plunger base that appears in the first Toy Story movie. PEZ Cat is a PEZ dispenser toy in Toy Story of Terror!. She is a gray cat with glasses. An actual PEZ dispenser was released in 2014 and marketed as Terror Cat.

     

    • In 2005, PEZ was mentioned in Nickelback's song "Rockstar" with the lyrics "Gonna pop my pills from a PEZ dispenser".

     

    • The first Glow-In-The-Dark dispensers to be sold in U.S. came out in 2002 and included the Halloween character Polly Pumpkin and three glowing ghosts: Slimy Sid, Naughty Neil, and Happy Henry.

     

    • PEZ was featured in the movie Stand By Me in 1986 with the line "If I could only have one food to eat for the rest of my life? That's easy, PEZ. Cherry flavor PEZ. No question about it."

     

    • In June of 1999, the fast food restaurant chain Jack in the Box had a limited time promo where customers could buy a Jack in the Box mascot PEZ dispenser for a $1.99 with their food purchase. The Jack in the Box mascot head sat atop stems available in three colors: red, blue, and yellow. The promo was repeated briefly during the summer of 2000. The dispensers could mostly be found in Western states.

     

    • In 1979, PEZ introduced a clown character as the PEZ mascot, Peter PEZ. The original dispenser did not have feet. The dispenser was remade with feet in 1993 and was slightly updated. A second remake was introduced in 2001 and the face of the clown appeared chubby. 

     

    • The PEZ logo is designed to look like it is built out of the brick shaped PEZ candies. 14 bricks are used for the P, and 15 bricks each are used for the E and the Z, totaling 44 bricks.

 

    •  PEZ vending machines were introduced around 1954 and were used in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The first German machines were produced by two different companies in Berlin, Germany: DWM (Deutsche Waggon- und Maschinenfabrik) and GWS (Georg Wiegandt und Söhne). In October 1956, machines were introduced in Switzerland and Austria. These machines were produced in Vienna, Austria by Glerios/R. Seipel & Co. and Theodor Braun. 

    • Collectors typically do not use all 7 digits of the Patent Number to refer to dispensers. Instead they only use the first two numbers. For example, Patent 2.620.061 is referred to as a 2.6 Patent. 

    • The Tweenies Dispensers from 2002 were the first dispensers to have stenciled stems.

 

    • There are 64 different variations of the TMNT dispensers released in 1994. There were 2 sets, an angry version and a happy version, each with the four characters available on 8 different colored stems. The stem options were red, purple, orange, green, yellow, blue, black, and teal.

   


                  

 

 

 

 

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