| October 2023 |
Thinking
Outside The Dispenser Since 2001
|
 |
|
Spring Loaded: A Message from the Editor | top Hello and welcome to Pezhead Monthly! With September now behind us, we bid a fond farewell to most of the Pez conventions this year. Most recently, there was the 10th Pez on the River convention in Winona, Minnesota, which by all accounts was a great time. But the year is not over yet! October will feature back-to-back-to-back Pez events: IN Crowd 2023 on October 7 in Lowell, Indiana, the 13th Pezylvania Pez Gathering on October 14 in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and the Virtual Pez Convention Fall Event on October 21 on Zoom screens nationwide, perhaps even worldwide. I will be attending 2 of these 3 events and will be reporting back in the November issue with my adventures. And wow, is there some big news in the Pez world: "The Pez Outlaw," the documentary about Steve Glew's adventures in the world of Pez in the 1990s, won an EMMY AWARD! This was part of the News and Documentary Emmys and it won for Outstanding Lighting Direction and Scenic Design. Congratulations to Steve as well as directors Bryan and Amy Storkel and everyone else involved in the movie, including many of my Pez pals who starred as extras! What a monumental achievement this is. If you haven't seen "The Pez Outlaw" yet, check it out on Netflix and other streaming services.
This month's issue
kicks off with a cover image that continues Pezhead Monthly's grand
tradition of celebrating the horror of Egg Baby Pez. Egg Baby Pez, for
those new to or unfamiliar with Pez collecting, was released as part
of the Easter set in 2004 and to this date is perhaps the creepiest
Pez dispenser ever made. Many contenders have come and gone, but Egg
Baby Pez just keeps on truckin'. This month's entry, a parody of the
poster for the classic movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, marks the tenth
horror movie poster that Egg Baby Pez has terrorized. To see all of
them, click here. Also notable in this month's issue is the return of a feature that has not graced the pages of Pezhead Monthly in over 11 years: "Five Questions." The simple idea behind this feature is that if you listen to Pez dispensers (or other Pez items such as calendars or convention tote bags), they have a lot to say. This feature used to be a staple of Pezhead Monthly, having been included in over 70 issues, including the very first issue in 2001 in which Homer Simpson Pez sat down for the Five Questions. Then, after a particularly gripping conversation with a Pezamania lanyard back in August 2012, followed by a 6-month hiatus of Pezhead Monthly, the feature just sort of fell off the radar. I am not sure why. Well believe it or not, Five Questions is back, baby! Appropriately enough, the subject for this month of Halloween is none other than Zombie Elvis Pez. This is an incredibly cool custom Pez dispenser that I added to my collection last year from the very talented artist Topher Yarrison. And what's more, there's even a bonus Pez song parody at the end of the interview! Now, does this mean that Five Questions will once again become a staple of Pezhead Monthly? I can't say for sure, but every now and then I'll do my best to listen to what my Pez collection is telling me and feature it in this publication. Rounding out this issue is some Pez Poetry, one of the three Pez poems this month references an iconic horror movie character and, on the very next line, one of my very favorite musical artists. I love it when a plan comes together. There is also a rundown of all of my September scores. And, this month's new content also means that there are refreshed Pezhead Monthly archive pages for Halloween, Limericks, Haikus, Pez Songs, and the ones already mentioned above for Egg Baby Pez and Five Questions. Thanks as always for reading Pezhead Monthly. I hope you have a great Halloween. Take care and see you soon! Joe Durrant P.S. Did you miss last month's issue? You can still read it here. To search the full Pezhead Monthly archives, hop on over to the archive page, where you can browse by feature, Pez Poetry Slam, or issue. There's also a Google search bar to help you search the content across the site. And hey, maybe you would like to submit some words, photos, artwork, or videos to Pezhead Monthly to be featured in an upcoming issue? That would be great! Check out the submission details here.
Also in September, I finally found the new orange Pez socks that recently started popping up at Dollar Tree stores, after several failed attempts for a couple of weeks. I am getting quite the collection of Pez socks, although as sock collectors go, I know I'll never quite catch up to some people, who as I understand it sometimes take the day off of work to organize their sock collection. From a Facebook sale page, I picked up the US Sportz set (baseball, basketball, hockey puck, football). This set actually came out 20 years ago. It was only when I recently re-organized and re-photographed my collection that I realized I did not have it. Instead, I had the European set, which consists of a soccer ball (on 2 different colored stems), a baseball, a basketball, a football, and a hockey puck. The difference is the European dispensers only have "PEZ" on the dispenser heads, while the US dispensers have "PEZ SPORTZ" on the heads. The more you know! From the Pez Outlaw himself, Steve Glew, I added 3 more pieces to my custom Pez Outlaw collection: Area 51 Pez Outlaw (complete with actual tinfoil hat- very nice) and 2 "Make-A-Pez" dispensers- all black and all pink. These dispensers are different from the many previous Pez Outlaw pieces because they are actually functional dispensers: the head (and bunny slipper feet) are custom, but the dispenser stem is an actual Pez stem. Pretty cool! Speaking of cool, I made my way back to the international grocery store/extravaganza know as Jungle Jim's again in September with my lovely wife. It's been a while since I've been to this fine establishment, and even longer since I found new Pez there. If my notes are correct, the last time I found new Pez there (not counting a factory error I found in 2022) was in March 2020. Well, it's time to reset the clock, because along with a plethora of pasta and a surplus of soda, I found the new Goofy and Superman Pez dispensers at Jungle Jim's in September! Thanks are due to the Facebook Pez Community page, which had a picture of the 2023 Goofy versus the previous one. They look pretty similar, but the 2023 Goofy does not have a black band on his hat and has black paint around its tongue. Check out the differences here (the left one is old and the right one is new). As for Supes, the recent Pez photos that I added/retook on my phone confirmed that the one I found at Jungle Jim's was new. The big giveaway for the 2023 release is the outlined "S" on the chest. From my Pez Pal and fellow Batman fan Cam, yet another quite talented artist in the Pez collecting community, I picked up a bunch of awesome custom Batman chromes. I scored my first Batman chrome pieces back at Pezamania 20, but those were only for the first couple of generations of Batman. The pieces I picked up from Cam include some newer variations of those first generations (some with only partial chrome) as well as newer generations all the way up through the most recent ones released last year. What’s also very cool about these chromes is that Cam resealed a couple of them in card and in box. This adds a new dimension and will kick up my Batcave display a notch or three when I get them all added in. Cam really knocked these out of the park and I am very grateful for the time and effort he put into them. I even wrote a poem about these scores, which you can read later in this very issue. Towards the end of the month, I found the Halloween House Kit at CVS. This is the third variation of creatable/edible houses that Pez has released recently, along with Christmas and Easter ones. Like those two, the Halloween House Kit comes with a mystery dispenser, although it is guaranteed to be one of the dispensers currently on the shelves as part of the standard Halloween set. Nonetheless, this is a fun addition to my collection. Later that same night, I finally found some Pez items at Five Below that I had been after for quite a while: the new Pez phone clips. These 2 clips are in the shape and likeness of Pez candy packs, including one retro style and one current assorted style. (Technically, the “current” style is retro too, as it has been replaced in recent years by an updated assorted style.) I burned more than a few dinosaur bones trying to find these and I was very happy to finally come across them! And lastly, with just hours left in the month, I picked up 3 more Pez packages from the mailbox.
Here are a couple of pictures of my September Pez scores. The Batman chromes were so epic that they warranted their own picture. (Plus, I ran out of room in the first picture.) You can click on each for a larger view.
Freddy There once was a
Pezhead named Freddy,
Must collect myself
In my mailbox just
today, I opened up those
cardboard flaps Dressed in silver
and in gold, There's one on card!
And two in box! These Dark Knights,
these Detectives, So please excuse
the giddiness
PHM: I have to agree! Zombie Elvis Pez, I'm wondering what your thoughts are about the collection that you now find yourself in. Do you feel welcomed, or do you find that your exposed brain and bloody visage is somewhat off-putting to the others? ZEP: Listen buddy, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret here. Pez dispensers in a collection, much like Pez collectors themselves, are a very welcoming community. It's like a never-ending party that just keeps getting bigger and better. Yes, some of us look a little different than others, but it doesn't matter. We're all just happy to be discovered and hanging out with each other, and not in store rack purgatory or heaven forbid a dumpster somewhere. So whenever new Pez are added to a collection, they are welcomed with open arms, even though most of us do not actually have arms. PHM: Wow, that sounds great. And if anything, your unique look maybe makes you more popular with others, doesn't it? ZEP: I guess maybe it does. I do try to keep a level head, although the exposed brain makes that difficult sometimes. The truth is, I don't hang out with many of my Pez buds on the regular because I'm not part of the main display. But there are a couple of benefits to this. First off, every day I get to look at the main display, which is pretty cool. And occasionally we shoot each other non-verbal greetings that roughly translate to "'Sup?" Also, my own corner of the Pez room is not bad at all because I am there with many other of Topher's extremely cool creations. And believe it or not, there are even other Topher creations in this collection with exposed brains. Every once in a while, we get together and sing "We're back on the train, yeah… back on the brain gang!" I'm telling you, Topher is an amazingly talented dude and I am very thankful that he made me. And I can't say for sure, but I suspect my collector is thankful too. PHM: I'd put money on that! Thanks again for joining us, Zombie Elvis Pez. This has been very enlightening, and I really appreciate that not once during this interview did you try to eat my brain. Maybe it helps that you already have a brain of your own, which I am sorry to admit I've been staring at for the past 10 minutes. To close things out, how about a song to celebrate the awesomeness of being a zombie Pez dispenser, or perhaps of having one in your collection, and also can you do it as an Elvis song parody? ZEP: I'll see what I can do, man. And by the way, thank you, thank you very much.
Zombie dispenser! I got a package
in the mailbox, Zombie dispenser!
I can't explain! So then I put it
on the book case Zombie dispenser!
I can't explain! Zombie dispenser!
I can't explain! Zombie dispenser! Also see the Five Questions Archive and the Pez Song Archive
Pezhead Monthly has been around since 2001, like a horror movie villian who just keeps coming back for more. That adds up to a lot of Octobers and a lot of Halloween features over the years. Fortunately, links to all of these features, including those from this month's issue, have been compiled on a single page for your convenience. Check out the Pezhead Monthly Halloween page here. And if you're brave enough, check out the Egg Baby Pez page here, which now includes 10 horror movie posters made somehow even scarier with Egg Baby Pez in them. Pezhead Monthly hopes you get lots of goodies in your trick-or-treat bag this year!
|
Follow
Pezhead Monthly on Facebook
| Twitter | E-mail
If you would like to contribute to Pezhead Monthly, click
here for the submission policy.
Copyright © 2001-2023 JoePez Publications
"Pezhead Monthly" is in no way affiliated with Pez Candy, Inc.
PEZ is a registered trademark of PEZ Candy Company Inc., Orange,
Connecticut.
Enjoy Pez, but please do so responsibly.
