Talk:PEZ

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[edit] Smoking

The mints weren't an "alternative to smoking" but an accessory, a counteractive to the bad breath caused by smoking.

Source? I'll have to go back to some of the reference books, but I'm pretty sure Haas was avidly anti-smoking. PxT 20:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
From David Welch's Collecting Pez (considered to be pretty much the definitive source for PEZ-related history), page 81: "Ed. Haas III has been described by several interviewwees as a health nut. His marketing strategy defined PEZ Candy as an alternative to smoking as well as a way to overcome the unpleasant after effects of smoking and of certain foods." PxT 05:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Model

I wouldn't think the "razor and blades" model applies here -- they presumably make money off the dispensers than the candy, right? Ben-w 21:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

PEZ considers itself primarily a candy company. They sell 3 billion+ candies a year in the US alone. The dispensers are very much used to drive candy sales, references in D. Welch's book -- don't have it handy right now, I'll try to look them up later. PxT 20:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Page Cleanup

This article has developed a lot of sprawl. What do you think? It should be fairly easy to combine some of the timeline information with the character list. I started the character list a long time ago and the timeline was started afterwords as a seperate list. Beakerboy 17:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I was never really sure why the timeline was there in the first place, since it's not very well maintained (and seems to me like a collection of indiscriminate information). Its removal will not, IMO, diminish the article. The few short blurbs in that chunk can be moved to the same heading under the characters list. We probably don't need to differentiate Euro-only releases or whatever; that's just excessive for an encyclopedia article. Some of the non-standard series (minis, keychains, plushies, pens, jungle mission) probably deserve some mention. We should hunt down some citations for most of this stuff. At the very least, the company history needs citations. The bits about the Pez streets should probably be moved into the Trivia section (I'll do that in just a minute). — Wwagner 18:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Someone should add the two mottos of Pez Candy Inc: the old one "Smoking prohibited, pezzing allowed," as well as the new, current one "A treat to eat in a puppet that's neat." §Dr. Benjamin

If you can find valid citations for them, by all means add them. The couple searches I've done didn't yield anything I'd consider authoritative. — Wwagner 22:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing, i'll find the site and post them once i do. §Dr. Benjamin

I know the "A treat to eat" line is from an advertisement from a while back. I've never heard of the other.Beakerboy 19:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dispenser Question

Have they made a Family Guy set of PEZ dispensers? I have not seen them, but do they exist???

No they haven't. It will likely never happen, as essentially all dispensers have a potential for a family audience. As Family Guy is one bit edgier that The Simpsons, who have been PEZ'd, they likely never would qualify. -- user:zanimum
I've heard only 2 real people ever appeared on a PEZ dispenser. Who? Include it? Trekphiler 00:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Betsy Ross, Daniel Boone, Paul Revere. I have added the info. PxT 18:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
How about those three Elvis Presley pez dispensers? When did those hit the shelves? -- Randall00 Talk 13:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Elvis came out a few months ago. The Orange County Choppers set was the first to be made to actually look like specific individuals. Elvis is the second set.Beakerboy 19:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

what about the nascar drivers? aren't they real people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.221.127.116 (talk • contribs)

They are certainly real people, but those dispensers are just the helmets of the drivers, not their actual faces. I remember seeing a bunch of batting helmets from all the MLB teams on EBay a while back - that's basically the same thing. — Wwagner 14:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flavors

Is there no section for the history of all the flavors? I know strawberry, orange, lemon, grape, raspberry, cherry, sourorange, sourblue raspberry, sour pineapple, sourgreen apple, and cola are current flavors ... and peppermint was used in the past ... but has there been others? SargeAbernathy 07:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC) There are also Sour Watermelon, Yogurt, Chocolate, Cherry, Lemon,Sugar free Orange, Sugar free Lemon, And sugar free Strawberry.

[edit] Translator

I deleted "besides its status as an acronym". It's not an acronym, & I, for one, am getting really sick of people saying something is without knowing what an acronym actually is. Trekphiler 00:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Vandalized

I'm pretty sure that mspaint picture and photo of socks don't belong here, can anyone remove them? Cuitlahuac 06:59, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that was one freaky edit. I took care of the reversion. — Wwagner 16:32, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Street names

The enthusiasm and nostalgia surrounding PEZ are suggested by the existence of two single-block streets in the U.S., presumably both named "Pez" at the suggestion of Pez enthusiasts:

Do we have any evidence for this? The street in NV is surrounded by other spanish-language street names, so I think its more likely related to the spanish word. As for connecticut... well, Orange CT is home to PEZ. Coincidence?

[edit] Picture

If someone can, attempt to find a better picture (multiple pictures would actually be helpful). Michael 22:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I have a PEZ dispenser, I'll see if I can get a good photo of it, or even better arrange three or more for a photo showing off the wide variety of PEZ dispensers. It also would be nice to have a photo of the dispensing process (the head tilted back, with the candy ready to remove). I'll work on getting this, but anybody else is welcome to beat me to it. --TexasDex 02:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm...Don't they show the dispensing process on those little yellow slips that come with PEZes? If possible, you might want to photograph that, too. Michael 06:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Mabye someone could put up a picture of the PEZ candies themselves (without their packaging on them of course) EditingFrenzy 16:18, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia section

I'm pretty sure the goings-on of an internet message board are not relevant to PEZ dispensers unless they reveal some factual information regarding said dispensers. Should the last article of trivia be deleted?

I agree. I could propose that PEZ dispensers are the greatest invention of all time, but I'd never write "it has been proped that...". Done.Beakerboy 16:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
What about the part when Eliott demonstrates the PEZ candy and its dispenser to E.T. in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial? Does it seem okay to you? --Angeldeb82 03:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yogurt flavor?

I did plenty of searching, and I was unable to find any reference to yogurt PEZ candies. I've never seen them in real life, either. Unless anybody else can find a reliable reference to prove it, I'd like to remove that from the listing. — Wwagner 02:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It's legit. There's a picture in one of the books. Peterson's 2nd edition I believe, but I would have to double check. PxT 17:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I have it in PezBase too Yogurt Pez, and I've seen the picture. It's an Arabic Candy Pack.Beakerboy 20:58, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Shawn's Peterson's Collector's Guide to PEZ, 2nd edition, page 143. The pack shown spells it "yoghurt" - PxT 15:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Note to editors - please don't "correct" it to remove the "h" unless you can provide a source that shows an actual candy pack spelling it that way. PxT 20:27, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bricks?

Do people really think they look like bricks? I dunno about that; too round. And what bricks have depressions in them? —OverMyHead 21:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing Excessive Trivia

I see a little bit of a revert war going on. I'm all for culling the "trivia" section to a meaningful and manageable amount. Several of the items are in wikiquote already and do not need to be duplicated here. Others, in my opinion, do not add much importance to the article. I can't image the Orange (fruit) article containing a list of every mention of oranges in movies, music, and television.Beakerboy 11:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I added back in the Stand By Me reference, as it is one of the most popular PEZ quotes of all time! "If I could only have one food for the rest of my life? That's easy. Cherry Pez. Cherry flavor Pez. There's no doubt about it."—Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.48.150.6 (talk • contribs) 11:23, 11 June 2007 UTC
Who (other than you) says it's "one of the most popular PEZ quotes of all time"? Being in a trivia/popular culture section does not suddenly remove the usual requirement for assertions to be properly referenced. 217.33.74.204 15:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the trivia section had gotten a little too trivial. One entry in particular, the last one about the manga series which has PEZ-like things. From the description, they're like PEZ, but they are not PEZ. That one should probably get the boot as well, unless we can find an interview of the artist stating categorically that the art was somehow directly related to PEZ. And the Stand By Me reference is already in Wikiquote; no need to duplicate it here. — Wwagner 14:03, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing character list

Does anyone care if I remove the charater list? First, it's quite long...longer than the article itself. Second, it's less to maintain as we can just cite myPezQL, PezBase or one of several books as a place where a reader can see a list. I beleive if this were a featured article, there wouldn't be a list of heads in it. What do you think?Beakerboy 11:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] real-life people in Pez

I just have to say that you're missing one real person on the pez list... I have a Pez dispenser with Santa Claus on it!--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] European PEZ vendors

I added what I believe is the complete list of official European PEZ vendors. My main interest lies in collecting vendors from all over the world. As primary literature on this subject seems to be practically non-existent in the world-wide web I added the information directly as a new section at the end of article rather than providing a link. Please feel free to correct my English (my native language is German, I am based in Austria).

So what has not been included?

  • Any fantasy machine that shows wrong colors, decals from other vendor types combined on the wrong box, wrong combinations of PEZ-girls and flavors, wrong colors.
  • Small variations of the pictured vendors due to improvements in serial production or availability of decals.
  • A very few probably privately labeled machines, revamped by the operators from some other products in order to vend PEZ, but without the official consent of PEZ rights owners.
  • The first version of the GWS vendor, that vended the flavor combination peppermint, lemon and eucalyptus (instead of grape-sugar that had been introduced around 1960) for which I don't have full copyright. Other than that it looks identical to the pictured one.
  • A vendor for PEZ-boxes with fewer than 6 columns. While I do not recall having seen these in operation myself I talked to a few people who firmly believed in its existence. After having consulting the last owner of the Theodor Braun company (Mr.Ebert), who had started the PEZ vending operation business in 1956 in Austria before buying Theodor Braun in the early 1980s, and he did not recall any such amachine, I conclude that this machine had been most probably a privately labeled 2way vendor. Logical candidate vendor machines for revamping would have been the less than successful vendors of Candita waffles or Schokli boxes of peppermint-candy coated chocolate lentilles (very much the peppermint candy version of M&Ms), that would have required only very minor modifications in order to vend PEZ-boxes.

--Heron.Alexandria (talk) 08:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally I think there are too many photos which distracts from the article. The point of the article is not to be a complete comprehensive "book" collecting photos and lists of all things in the PEZ universe. It's instead here to give a summery of PEZ and links to other references where more information can be found. I'd recommend you limit the photos to one or two which help illustrate what a vending machine is and explain how they are important to the overall subject.
Beakerboy (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 11:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I see your point. And finding and keeping the right balance for the article is perfectly what I always had in mind. As mentioned previously my main point is that the sort of information I added to the article is otherwise unavailable on the web, likewise from printed literature. Therefore I added what actually is a subset of vendors to the least prominent place in the article: at its very end - keeping the rest as it was before. Heron.Alexandria (talk) 21:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)