Perhaps only a Pezhead can understand the allure of a pineapple wearing sunglasses.
Pezheads from around the world journey to California's Silicon Valley to view the rare pineapple dispenser, one of hundreds on display at the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia. Bugs Bunny, Darth Vader and Elvis Presley all appear as plastic containers that spit out Pez candy tablets when their heads are pulled back.
“The key word for me is silly,” said Gary Doss, who owns the museum. “They're a fun, silly little thing.”
The dispensers may be silly because they were designed for children. Once those children grow up, some of them turn into collectors, who call themselves Pezheads. Pez's popularity spawned a 2006 documentary, “Pezheads the Movie,” at least nine collecting guides and annual conventions across the U.S.
The museum, which isn't related to closely held manufacturer Pez International AG, feeds the Pez passion. It has at least one of every dispenser sold to the public since 1927, some costing thousands of dollars. It also exhibits Pez-branded items from posters to vitamins to vending machines. The collection makes Doss, 53, a star in the world of Pezheads.
“He's a huge celebrity,” said Maheba Merhi, 34, a graduate student who owns more than a thousand dispensers. “Anyone who collects Pez has heard of the Pez museum.”
Enthusiasts come from as far away as Japan and Australia to marvel at a Pez figure they can't see anywhere else – because Doss had it custom-made: a 7-foot-10-inch (2.4-meter) working replica of the Pez snowman model, complete with black top hat and red nose. Guinness World Records certified the snowman last year as the world's largest Pez candy dispenser.
A galaxy of cartoon and comic-book characters adorn regular-size Pez dispensers, which stand about 5 inches (13 centimeters) high: Snoopy, Bugs Bunny, Fred Flintstone, Papa Smurf, Wile E. Coyote. A few have received makeovers and been reincarnated several times, including Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse.
Others are fictional characters like Frankenstein's monster and Mary Poppins or historic figures such as Betsy Ross and Mozart. Some Pez models are topped by trucks, baseballs, flowers, NASCAR helmets, even Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s smiley face.
For Doss, it all started in 1991, when he and his wife, Nancy, bought a few Pez dispensers at an antiques show in San Jose. He strewed them about the showroom of his computer store in Burlingame, about 15 miles south of San Francisco, to add a splash of color.
He soon noticed that customers were more interested in the Pez decor than in Commodores and Ataris.
“There were people knocking on the door from St. Louis wanting to see the Pez,” Doss said. “People weren't coming from St. Louis to look at computers.”
Doss decided to expand his product line and within a year was selling more Pez dispensers than PCs. He made it his mission to collect every model publicly distributed, now totaling 683, Doss said. He began exhibiting his vintage pieces even before he found the last one.
It took 12 years to track down the pineapple wearing sunglasses, which cost $3,000. It's one of the 10 rarest dispensers ever released to the public, Doss said. Collectors also covet prototypes, special-event dispensers and factory-mistake models, he said.
Doss sells new and vintage Pez dispensers at the museum and on the Internet. Current Pez models start under $2. A vintage cow with yellow head, green eyes and orange muzzle is priced at $1,200.
The museum gets about 12,000 visitors a year, charging $3 for admission, Doss said. He declined to disclose his revenue. Sales increase 10 percent to 15 percent annually, Doss said.
Prominent in the museum is a sign from the original Pez factory in Austria, which Doss said he bought for $1,500 on eBay in 2002.
Pez was invented by a Viennese confectioner. The first candies were mints, aimed at adults and packaged in small tins. The name comes from “Pfefferminz,” the German word for peppermint.
Fruit-flavored candies and character-head dispensers marketed to children were introduced after Pez entered the U.S. market in 1952. Pez International now sells more than 50 million dispensers a year in the U.S., said Joseph Vittoria, chief executive officer of the Pez Candy unit, based in Orange, Conn.
North American sales climbed 25 percent annually in the past few years, he said. Pez is sold in 90 countries.
“It's a pop culture item,” said Vittoria, 51, who owns about 200 Pez dispensers himself. “Clearly the collectors see the honesty of the product.”
Pez-lover Chris Skeene understands what draws aficionados to the museum. In 2005 and 2006, he and friend Chris Marshall attended conventions and visited collectors in their homes to gather material for their documentary, “Pezheads the Movie.”
“We found that people collect Pez for the simplest reasons,” said Skeene, 28, from his home in Atlanta. “You almost never find a Pez dispenser that's not smiling. It's something that brings joy and happiness to people in a way that something like a comic book or baseball card or action figure can't do.”
