| December 2024 |
Thinking
Outside The Dispenser Since 2001
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Spring Loaded: A Message from the Editor | top Hello and happy December from Pezhead Monthly! A very busy end to November led to a slightly delayed December issue, but I am glad that it’s available now and I hope that you enjoy it. I am pleased to report that Pezhead Monthly is now on the social media site Bluesky! This is a newer site that feels like Twitter did in simpler, happier times. You can find Pezhead Monthly on Bluesky here. I’ll post on this app when new issues of Pezhead Monthly are online. As is the case with my Twitter/X feed, some non-Pez posts/re-posts may also appear now and then, but the feed is family-friendly and avoids politics and other divisive issues. You can also find Pezhead Monthly on Facebook or you can join the Pezhead Monthly Update email list here. This month’s issue of Pezhead Monthly kicks off with a cover image that Pezzifies a poster for the classic Christmas movie “Miracle on 34th Street” to include a certain Pez dispenser on a 3.4 stem. Also in this issue is my recap of the October 2024 Virtual Pez Convention, followed by what may be the first ever recap of an imaginary Pez convention, Pezamania 33 1/3. There is also some Yuletide Pez Poetry (features a rhyming haiku, for goodness sake, as well as a limerick with a double negative, because I like to live on the edge) and a rundown of my November scores. Also, be sure to check out the Pezhead Monthly Christmas page, which includes the Christmas features in this month’s issue as well as those from the archives. There’s quite a lot on that page, so kick your feet back and enjoy! December is already
one third over and I’ve gotten a lot of great scores and had a
fun Pez-related experience this past weekend. I’m sure there will
be plenty more Pez action to come this month. I look forward to sharing
all of this, along with a look back at 2024, in next month’s issue.
For now, I will take a breather where I can find it as the end of year
holiday season gets closer and closer. I hope you have a wonderful holiday
and Happy New Year, and I look forward to bringing more Pezhead Monthly
fun in 2025. Thanks as always for reading Pezhead Monthly. 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.
From Target, I picked up the Bullseye Christmas dog. I actually got this through the Target app, but they’ve since been seen in stores all over the land. This is a new Bullseye dog that is added to the 3 others that were released about 10 years ago (2 standard sizes and 1 mini). The new Bullseye dog joins the other new Target promotional dispenser from earlier this year, which was a truck. From Walmart, I picked up the exclusive Pokemon “Happy Holidays” 2024 dispenser. This was a surprise dispenser for many of us, although Walmart has also given us 4 different Christmas Grogus over these past few years, so it’s becoming a reliable go-to for exclusive licensed holiday Pez. From CVS, I picked up the new reindeer that has a slight variation from the one released last year, with darker antlers (as well as the new 11.4 patent number). This picture shows the two next to each other but it may be hard to spot the difference. I don’t always collect variations this slight, but every now and then I figure what the heck. Not bad for a couple of bucks! (ha ha?) From Five Below, I picked up the combination strawberry lip balm and keychain combo pack. The lip balm actually fits in the keychain piece, which is shaped like a brick of Pez candy. Pretty neat! From Sweetie, the amazing candy warehouse located near Cleveland, Ohio, I picked up the special “Election 2024” edition of the “Peter Pez for Prez” chocolate bar. (My visit to Sweetie’s ties into Pezamania 33 1/3, which I go into more detail about elsewhere in this issue.) From Pez.com came their first ever Thanksgiving Pez (technically the vintage Pilgrim and various Native Americans were part of the bicentennial set). This was a pretty smart re-use of an existing head mold: Pez took the Pizza Slice head, which was released earlier as part of the Treats set, and repainted it as… a piece of Pumpkin Pie! Pretty cool, if you ask me. To quote the theme song from “The Jeffersons”, we finally got a piece of the pie! Also, from Pez.com, I picked up 2 new Christmas Presenter Girls (light and dark skin colors), adding to the already existing Cherry, Lemon, Orange, and Sweets and Snacks versions of these girls. I like the retro design of this dispenser, and these latest 2 were from Pez.com were a welcome surprise for sure. And lastly, I also picked up a Pez Girl pen. I figured I still had a while until I hit the $49 minimum for free shipping, so I might as well add this small item to my order. Write on, brother! I also picked up various cool items from Facebook Pez groups. For starters, I scored 2 of the 3 French Dwarves, Simplet and Joyeux, to complete the set I started way back in 2012 when a friend picked up the first French dwarf (Grincheux) for me while on a trip to France. I also picked up the Bride and Groom Bobbleheads, which I believe completes my collection of the standard Pez bobbleheads (there are others that are more rare and that go for quite a pretty penny, which I may get one day). And lastly, from a new (to me) and quite talented Pez artist, Rich Kizer, I picked up a cool custom painted "Joker-ized" Batman. From Michael Herz, I got his latest excellent Classic Monster custom piece, the Venusian from "20 Million Miles to Earth." From the Virtual Pez Convention (VPC), which I talk about in more detail elsewhere in this issue, I picked up the convention dispenser (a golden Cupcake) and the contributor dispenser (a black Thank You Cupcake). I also won a giveaway at the VPC, which included a larger Pez truck and 4 Johnny Lightning die-cast cars. Although I already had the larger truck, interestingly enough I did not already have the 4 JL cars (Bride Camaro, Groom Camaro, and two Psychedelic Camaro convertibles), even though I did have 11 other JL cars in my collection. Not sure what the odds of that happening are, but I was quite glad to add these 4 new cars to my collection. Also from VPC, I won a couple of charity auctions. The auctions were both customizable pieces made by talented artists in the Pez community. First up, from Abby Broussard, I got a mirror Batman with cape. This thing is amazing! It has a chain to hang it, but I am too worried that it would fall and break (leading to much more than 7 years of bad luck). So I will figure out a way to prop it up securely in my Batcave. My other VPC charity auction win was from Larry Mason. Larry made me a beautiful custom stand that reads "Team Clevor Forever." (AND, Larry also surprised me with a couple of bonus custom pucks with 1966 Batman logos!!) Here is a picture of the stand. On the stand are various Pez dispensers (not made by Larry) that played a part in our wedding: the groom and custom bride cake toppers, a custom puck made by Ivan Jurjevic that I gave to my wife on our wedding day, the 4 different custom heart dispensers we gave out to guests as wedding favors, and an extra custom heart dispenser with a different font made just for us. (For those wondering, "Clevor" is a portmanteau of the middle names of me and my lovely wife, and blue and silver were our wedding colors.)
And here is a picture
of the rest of my November scores.
October 26 was the date of the latest Virtual Pez Convention (VPC). As always, the VPC was hosted by Morgan Rhinehart and Landon Proctor. By my count there was at the highest point about 120 attendees who were logged in to the VPC over Zoom. The convention featured various room tours, as well as some giveaways and a charity auction. There was also this weird guy dressed as Abraham Lincoln talking about Pez and root beer for some reason. First up was a room tour by Brandon Haydu. Brandon started collecting Pez around the same time I did, back in 1994. I always enjoy seeing Brandon at Pezamania and he always has some cool stuff for sale, including from Japan. So it was no surprise that his own collection also featured many of these items too. Along with the Japanese stuff, Brandon also had a nice variety of Yappy Dogs and a great candy pack assortment too. Brandon also gave a good tip on how to save Pez cookies (for example, from various swag trades, etc.) from ants: use acrylic spray! My method is a little different in that I simply stuff the cookie into my face. But maybe next time I will try the acrylic spray route! Next up was a different type of collector tour by Brian Cornett. Brian and his wife Arlene are fellow Hoosiers and Pez collectors/dealers who I enjoy seeing at Pezamania and have also seen at IN Crowd and a local toy show. They are good people and are among the earliest Pezheads that I’ve ever met in person, and I think that’s pretty cool. Brian started the tour with their year-round Halloween collection, which is on display year-round. This included some Pez and a lot of other Halloween stuff picked up from many different places. But the main event here was clearly their incredible Wizard of Oz collection, which went way, way beyond the collector’s set of Pez dispensers. For a solid 20 minutes (I think more, I lost count at one point), Brian showed us the amazing variety of Wizard of Oz-themed items that they had. There was a little bit of everything: books, cookie jars, Barbies, LEGOs, restaurant shirts, clocks, artwork, resin figures, dishes, and much, much more. It just went on and on! We were all on mute, otherwise you would have heard the sound of all of our jaws dropping to the floor. The VPC’s featured tour this time around was from legendary collector Judy Mesler. Judy is one of my favorite Pez pals in the Facebook groups. She is always knowledgeable and willing to help people who have questions, she has great sales (I’ve picked up a plethora of Batmans from her over the year), and her love (or, perhaps, complete lack thereof) of “vintage” Star Wars Pez is well-known. Judy also is at the forefront of keping us alert of scammers in the community, which is an unfortunate reality for those of us brave enough to buy online (and which is why I only buy from trusted dealers). Judy’s tour was pre-recorded but it felt just as immersive as if it was live. She and her husband Bill (who, it turns out, was the first collector of the two) have an unbelievable Pez collection that spans multiple rooms. They collect Pez loose as well as all variations of cards and bags. As you can imagine, this is quite an expansive and impressive display. In fact, they even display cards flat on walls and even on ceilings! Room after room, display after display, it just went on and on with seemingly no end in sight. I didn’t catch the details here, but I think they may have actually added an expansion to their house just for their Pez display! Also, like my Pez pal Karen who hosted IN Crowd, Judy and Bill have a guest list and souvenir Pez dispenser for people who visit to tour their Pez display. Another thing Judy is known for is being the Bunny Lady. She has an army (to put it mildly) of the Easter Bunny Pez dispensers, mainly this style of bunny. People even send her their bunny extras because her reputation for collecting them is so well known. We have seen pictures of Judy’s bunny army in the Facebook groups and at the VPC we got to see video of them. Judy has over 4000 bunnies! That is just unfathomable, and to see them all on display is really something to behold. All in all, it was a great featured room tour from Judy and Bill. There were a couple of other collection tours that I unfortunately missed large chunks of, but that doesn’t at all mean they were not special! One of these was from Bob Tipton. Bob has run the Northwest Pez convention in Washington state for 2 years now. I have not been yet but I hope to go someday. Bob’s VPC tour focused on his many pins. What I saw of his pin collection was amazing, and I’m sure that it barely scratched the surface of his tour. Another tour was done by Adam Germroth. Adam had a very impressive collection, especially in terms of Pez pals, as well as a great variety of unique cards and merry music makers. Overall, from the little that I was able to see, Adam had an amazing vintage Pez collection. In addition to the tours, there was also a charity auction of Pez art. The art ranged from custom Pez dispensers to artwork, skateboards, and more. There were lots of auctions this time around and some of them went for big prices, including Larry Mason’s custom Purple Cow dispenser for this year’s Pezylvania gathering, which went for $300, and a skateboard painted with the vintage Pez character Mr Ugly, which went for $270. I got in on the action too and won a couple of customizable pieces, a mirrored Pez and a Pez stand, which I cover in more detail elsewhere in this issue. All told, the auctions raised over $4000 for the VPC’s charity, the VPC Scholarship Fund. Adding to this total was the release of the attendee dispenser, which was a customized golden Cupcake. This was another great dispenser and there is a picture of it in this issue. Lastly, I was once again honored and thrilled to come back to the VPC to read one of my Pez poems. This time around it was the poem “Four Scores and a Root Beer To Go”, which was featured in last month’s issue. (Fun fact: I rewrote the poem less than an hour before the VPC started to include mention of the new Hamburger, Taco, and Cupcake block builds that I had just got in the mail earlier that day.) In the spirit of the poem, I dressed up like Abraham Lincoln and wrote a shorter, second poem to introduce the main one. Astute readers of Pezhead Monthly may notice a few callbacks to earlier poems and VPC performances. Here it is:
And here I am as Honest Abe himself:
I am not sure if there is video of my Pez poetry performance, but if there is I’ll be sure to feature it in an upcoming issue of Pezhead Monthly. All in all, this was another fun VPC that continues the now 5-year tradition of fun VPCs. It’s so great to meet with fellow Pezheads virtually. It can’t replace an in-person convention, but it offers its own unique experience that you can’t really find anywhere else. I am very grateful to Morgan and Landon, not only for their VPC hosting duties and prep work, but also on a personal note for their kindness and consideration in letting me be a part of the event. All of this is in addition to their duties as hosts of the biggest Pez convention in the world, Pezamania. I really don’t know how they do it! But there’s one thing I know for sure, and that is that I’m always looking forward to the next VPC.
Editor’s note: In late November, I embarked on a road trip to the Rochester area in western New York state. I had not been out there to visit in over 3 years and I am so glad I had the chance to get out there to see family and go to stores (7 different Wegmans!) and restaurants (Schaller’s! Don’s Original! Abbott’s Frozen Custard!!) I had not seen or been to in quite a while. On the way to NY, I happened to stay at the Holiday Inn in Independence, Ohio. This hotel is a special place in the Pez world, as it is where the world’s largest Pez convention, Pezamania, takes place. So, with a little bit of planning and a lot of imagination, I put together a Pezamania of my own, complete with a convention badge and dispenser! What follows is a recap of this imaginary convention. And it goes without saying that I’m looking forward to the real deal, Pezamania 34, when it takes place in July 2025! I had such a great time at Pezamania 33 1/3 on November 22-23! It was so nice to be back at the Holiday Inn in Independence, OH. The convention’s theme was vinyl records, which was fitting not only because an LP record has a speed of 33 1/3 rpm, but also because, like Pez dispensers, vinyl records are both vintage collectibles and new releases, and both have mass appeal. It also works out quite nicely that late November happens to be 1/3 of the way from Pezamania 33 to Pezamania 34! I picked up my convention badge right away to kick things off.
The convention dispenser features a vinyl record with a Pez clown in the middle of it, and also has a callback to the song "You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)". I love this song and I also sing it when I'm riding on the Tilt-A-Whirl or doing laundry.
I was really looking forward to some room hopping, but unfortunately no one seemed to be open when I got there, or for that matter not at all for the convention. I started knocking on some doors, but let’s just say that was not a smart idea. At least now I know that I should avoid rooms with signs of upside down pineapples.
I made it a point to stop by Club Impulse, which is THE place to be on a Saturday night in Independence, especially during Pezamania. I'll tell you what, I feel a karaoke song coming on...
After attempting to do justice to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “eBay” at karaoke (especially the line “Pez dispensers and a toaster”), I headed back out to the hotel lobby, where a nice toasty fire was underway. I was looking forward to Lounge Lizards, but I must have missed it during all of the karaoke madness earlier.
In closing, I think this picture best summarizes my experience at Pezamania 33 1/3.
It’s hard to believe that there are only 8 more months until I come back to this wondrous Holiday Inn for Pezamania 34. It promises to be a truly magical experience!
Pez Haiku #184 Don we now our gay
There once was a
Pezhead named Dasher
And finally, be sure to check out the Pezhead Monthly Christmas page, which includes Christmas poems, photos, and other features from the Pezhead Monthly archives, as well as the ones in this current issue. You can check it out here.
Merry Christmas and see you next year!
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