| October 2024 |
Thinking
Outside The Dispenser Since 2001
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Spring Loaded: A Message from the Editor | top Hi there, and Happy October from Pezhead Monthly! I was quite busy in September picking up Pez scores, but I also celebrated my anniversary, made a very last-minute trip to Cincinnati and Jungle Jim's, and saw an awesome band called Galactic Empire, which played Star Wars music with a heavy metal twist and had very cool costumes. Granted, the month ended with a weekend without electricity, which was an indirect effect of Hurricane Helene, but I know many others had it much worse than I did. One of the Pez scores I picked up in September was Franky, the Frankenstein-inspired latest entry in the Pez Mascot series. In honor of this occasion, I made the following, with apologies to "Gone With The Wind":
In October, the Pez community will have 3 Pez events: the next IN Crowd in Fort Wayne, the PEZylvania Pez gathering happening the same weekend, and the next Virtual Pez Convention (VPC). I plan on attending IN Crowd, so I won't be able to make PEZylvania. This will be the first time that the IN Crowd will take place at a hotel, so I am excited to see how that goes, and of course I'm looking forward to seeing my Pez pals and maybe picking up some new stuff along the way. I'll share my thoughts about IN Crowd in next month's issue. As for VPC, this one is always a good time. This will take place on Saturday, October 26. I believe there will be a Pez art auction again this fall so that should be fun. And I may perhaps make an appearance at the event myself to read a Pez poem from the Pezhead Monthly archive, or maybe a new one. You can register for free here! I hope to see you there. This month's issue of Pezhead Monthly kicks off with a cover image that is the latest entry in the Egg Baby Pez horror parody series. This time around, it's an Egg Baby spin on the original "Beetlejuice" movie. It's not the first "Beetlejuice" Pez parody I've done; also check out this animated GIF of the famous "Day-O" dinner scene that I made a while back. (Also, props to the incredible artist Angelo Canale for this Beetlejuice custom Pez that's in my collection!) Also in this issue is the conclusion to my Thirty Years a Pezhead series, in which I reflect on the last 10 years of adventures from my 30 years of collecting Pez. Rounding out the issue is a rundown of my September scores and a Pez poem. Also, be sure to check out the newly updated Pezhead Monthly Halloween page and, if you missed the link above, The Horror of Egg Baby Pez. 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.
For starters, it was quite the surprise when a new Pez dispenser showed up online from a non-profit agency called the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling (CCPG). It was a puck with "Responsible Play the CT Way" printed on it, along with the website "ResponsiblePlayCT.org" on its stem. Word spread fast about this in the Pez FB groups and the agency ended up being quite overwhelmed by the interest. Aided by the help of a kind Pezhead who donated lots of shipping boxes, CCPG sold their dispensers for a very reasonable price, and I was lucky to score one of them. Elsewhere online, I picked up some more Japanese keychains from my Pez pal Jim, this time a Bubbleman and a Cow (to go along with the golden SpongeBob keychain I picked up in August). From the talented artist Mike Herz, I picked up 2 more form his Classic Monster custom pieces, The Creature Walks Among Us and The Mummy in Monster Form. And to conclude my online Pez scores, what month is complete without an order or 2 (or, these days, 3) from Pez.com? I know mine sure isn't! I picked up a whole bunch of stuff, including the new Minecraft dispensers (4 bagged, 2 two-packs, a 4-pack, and of course a second 4-pack to open since it contains unique dispensers not sold separately. I am not into Minecraft at all, and the designs on these dispensers can be a bit jarring, but hey, new Pez is new Pez! I also picked up some new bagged dispensers that I expect to eventually make their way into stores: Amy Rose from Sonic the Hedgehog and Maui and Hei Hei from Moana. Lastly, I picked up 2 Pez.com exclusives: the 50th anniversary purple crystal Hello Kitty and the latest Pez Mascot, Franky, to celebrate the upcoming Halloween holiday. Out in the wild, I picked up Pez from a variety of places. First off, alarm bells went off in the Pez world when not one, not two, but THREE new pairs of Pez socks were discovered at Dollar Tree. I hit numerous Dollar Tree stores in my area, many of them multiple times, looking for all of these pairs of socks. I was able to find 2 of them: one pair is white with floating Pez candy rolls and another pair is red. I am still looking for the blue pair and hope to find them soon. But in the meantime, I did score another pair of orange socks from Dollar Tree. These look pretty much identical to the previous orange pair that I got from this store, except one has "2023" printed on the sock and one has "2024." You know it's a crazy hobby when even the licensed socks have variations! Also in the wild, on a return trip to Jungle Jim's that was part of a quite impromptu trip to Cincinnati in mid-September, I found a factory error Suzie Sheep on card. Suzie is one of the newer Peppa Pig dispensers, and as it turns out poor Suzie is missing one of her eyes! And lastly, towards
the end of the month, I was quite surprised to see that World Market
had put out their Christmas Pez selection already. This included one
of the new Christmas dispensers, the red Elf, which I gleefully scooped
up. As a bonus, I found the new Toad variation with the painted white
collar. Here is the
new Toad variation (on the right) compared with the one that came out
way back in 2013 (on the left). In addition to the painted neck, the
new Toad has smaller pupils and a different color mouth and tongue. Here is a picture
of my September scores, which you can click for a larger view.
It's still hard to believe that I've been a Pez collector for 30 years. In previous issues, I covered my first 10 years and my second 10 years as a Pezhead. In this issue, I cover the final 10-year stretch of these amazing 30 years. These last 10 years saw my collection grow dramatically, not only with new official Pez, but also with other stuff like POP+Pez and custom pieces. It also saw a big increase in my creative efforts in Pez convention swag and here on the pages of Pezhead Monthly and, thanks to the kindness of multiple Pez convention hosts, I got to share my Pez poetry with others on multiple occasions. On top of all this, in the last 10 years Pez played a big part in the 2 times that I moved as well as my wedding. The last 10 years kicked off with a return visit to the Pez Visitor Center (PVC) in Orange, Connecticut. I had previously been there in 2012 as part of the Northeast Pez Convention. In 2014, I was fortunate enough to go back and pick up a lot of new Pez for my collection. I've made one return visit since, in 2017. Hopefully a trip back to the east coast is in the (mint on) cards sometime soon!
To the right is a picture of the curio cabinet, which you can click for a larger view. Looking back on it, I think I made the most of the space I had there. And eventually, we would move again and I would have my first ever room completely dedicated to Pez (More on that in a bit.) Let's flash forward a few years after this move, to another major event in my life as a Pezhead. After my New Year's Eve marriage proposal, my lovely girlfriend Jessi became my lovely fiancée, and then, in 2018, my lovely wife! Jessi graciously allowed me to integrate Pez into various parts in our wedding. This included custom painted table centerpieces made out of Pineapple bank stems, wedding favors made out of customized Pez dispensers and a Pez haiku that I wrote, a giant Heart dispenser with a pre-recorded message from Jessi and me to welcome our guests, and a groom's wedding cake Bride and Groom topper. More details and pictures are available in this Pezhead Monthly recap. Our wedding day was of course a very special day that I will treasure forever, and was without question one of the happiest days of my life. I was so grateful to Jessi for allowing Pez to play a part in it. She has patiently and caringly enabled my Pez hobby in many ways over the years, but nothing will ever top this. The second biggest thing that happened in my Pez world in 2018 was the start of a new offshoot of Pez: Pop+PEZ dispensers. Made as a result of a licensing agreement with Funko, these dispensers starting showing up in physical stores like Hot Topic, ThinkGeek, and GameStop, and in various places online. And they came out fast and furious. In just a few short years, there were more than 300 POP+Pez released, which is just an insane number of releases in such a short period of time. These days, on rare occasions we may get some exclusive ones, but overall we don't see them anymore. Some Pez collectors weren't a fan of POP+Pez dispensers, and I can understand why. The heads borrowed from the style of the POP vinyl figures and were placed on standard Pez dispenser stems. In some cases there was not a lot of differentiation among them. POP+Pez also introduced the idea of online exclusives to the Pez collecting world, which continues to influence certain new Pez releases (for better and for worse, but mostly for better in my opinion). As for me, I was a fan of them and enthusiastically added them to my Pez collection, travelling frequently to the stores where they were reported to have showed up in. I thought that the variety of series and characters was just wild, and either significantly expanded on standard Pez series (such as Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney) or introduced a whole bunch of series that never were, and maybe never will be, on standard Pez (such as Ghostbusters, Nightmare Before Christmas, cereal mascot creatures, and my personal favorite POP+Pez series, Masters of the Universe). I doubt I'll ever
own all of the POP+Pez dispensers ever made, especially since some of
the rarer ones still go for a few hundred dollars (and for that amount
of money I'd rather get vintage Pez). But I do hope to at least own
one or more of the 3 exclusive Batman POP+Pez: gold, rainbow, and zebra.
Here is a picture of most of my current POP+Pez display.
Less than a year after getting married, Jessi and I moved into a new house, where we still live today. (As a side note, moving into the new house meant that my 18-year streak of attending Pezamania had to come to an end in 2019, although I picked it back up since then and have now started a new streak.) There were many appealing features of the house, but one in particular stood out to me as a Pezhead: a bonus room in the finished basement. I immediately envisioned a nice, big Pez room, in a cool area (in more than one way) and away from sunlight. Shortly after moving in, I began the long process of converting it to a Pez room, which has by far been the biggest (and eternally ongoing) project of my life as a Pezhead. This included swapping out the carpet for laminate flooring and making many, many trips to IKEA for new display cases, as well as PezCollectors.com for new display shelves. I spent lots of hours listening to Pandora Radio (the Zombies and AJR channels were my go-to's) as I assembled all of that IKEA furniture. Another part of getting the Pez room ready was the process of opening all of those Pez boxes that had remained in storage for 4 years. According to my notes, this included 52 boxes, as well as some stuff that could not fit into boxes (such as my "Stand By Me" movie poster, some larger plushes, and multiple corkboards). Most of this stuff made its way into my new display, but some of it had to go into the storage room that was right near the Pez room. Here is a video that shows the progress of my Pez room, up to its first big debut in December 2020. I have to say that all of the work I put into the Pez room, and the work I continue to put into it to this day as my collection continues to grow, has been worth it. My favorite part has to be the Batcave, where I now display all of the custom Batman Pez I've made and have acquired from others. Here is a recent picture of the Batcave.
The other big event that happened in my Pez world in 2019 was the first Indiana Pez Gathering, also known as the "IN Crowd." This was a smaller gathering that took place at a Pez collector's home, where we bought, sold, and traded Pez, played games, admired the host's Pez collection, and just enjoyed the chance to hang out with fellow Pezheads. These events have taken place in various towns over the years. (This year's IN Crowd will take place in a hotel in Fort Wayne; I'll talk more about that in an upcoming issue.) I've lived in Indiana since 2000, so I am very grateful for the IN Crowd. It's pretty cool to have a Pez gathering so close to you, and it's also very kind of people to open their homes to their Pez friends. I am not sure if I'll ever host IN Crowd here at my house, but I guess never say never! IN Crowd, coincidentally, was the first Pez event that I made swag for. It contained a USB thumb drive with several of my Pezhead Monthly videos, some Pezzified photos relating to Indiana (which were the first pictures in the Indiana Wants Me collection on this website), and a custom Pez dispenser from my wedding. Since then, I've created swag for more IN Crowd gatherings, as well as Pezamania and the Michigan Pez convention. It's been an interesting learning experience making swag, and after spending lots of time and money in earlier attempts, I've gradually gotten better about it and continue to better adjust my swag to my own abilities and limitations. Also, breaking news… 2020 happened! But, despite the pandemic that took a hold of, well, everything that year, it somehow managed to be a standout year in my time as a Pez collector. Kicking things off literally the weekend before everything shut down was the second Pez Informational Gathering, otherwise known as P.I.G. Too. I was thrilled to attend this Pez convention, which was hosted by my Pez pal Josh Bales. Josh's enthusiasm for the hobby and for putting on a show was compelling and infectious (and who, by the way, also coined the term "IN Crowd" for the Indiana Pez gathering), and this was a quite refreshing and original take on Pez conventions. Yes, there was still the standard room hopping, but the games were high energy, interactive, and fun, and there were lots of great giveaway prizes (this is where I won a yellow Hot Topic Deadpool POP+Pez). There was even some delicious pulled pork made by my Pez pals JoAnn and Steven! The main event of P.I.G. Too was an informational session, where Josh invited anyone to come up and share some information about the hobby with everyone else. This was such a great approach because it gave the attendees a chance to not only a witness the action but also to be a part of it. People spoke about Star Wars variations, Superman prototypes, Bubbleman, and more. For my part, I read a few poems from Pezhead Monthly and got the crowd involved in a rousing rendition of "A Pezhead's Life For Me." I'll always have fond memories of that convention, as well as the next one that I attended in person and performed some more Pez Poetry at (PIGPIGPIG). Thank you, Josh, for making all of this happen! A few months after P.I.G. Too, and with COVID in full swing (with, as I recall, at least 2 Pez conventions cancelled by then), the Pez community was treated to a new type of convention for the first time, called the Virtual Pez Convention or VPC. Hosted by Landon Proctor and Morgan Rhinehart, this convention was held over Zoom. Since we could not meet in person, meeting over video chat was the next best thing. The VPC's big draw was room tours, where various Pezheads (some of whom are legends in the community) would take people on video into their Pez rooms and show their collections. We got to see lots of Pez stuff, and lots of unique displays, that we'd never have the chance to see at a live convention. Since its debut in April 2020, the VPC has had numerous other events, all of which I've gladly attended. In addition to the mainstay room tours, it's now grown to include giveaways, games, auctions, and seminars. I've also had the honor to read some of my Pez poetry at the VPC on multiple occasions, and have had a lot of fun with it. Here's my favorite of my Pez poetry performances, from April 2023. It features me dressed up as Sophia from "The Golden Girls"!
You can see my other poem readings here, and check out the videos from past VPC events here. I love the VPC! While it started as a way for Pezheads to gather virtually when there was no other choice, it's grown into a solid convention to look forward to multiple times a year. Also in 2020, I had the good fortune to be featured on the Pez Collection Podcast. This podcast, hosted by Andrea Smith and Justin Hansen, was a long running series that featured discussions with various Pez collectors about how they came into their hobby and their favorite parts of it. This was a really great time and, while I was pretty nervous about recording it, Andrea and Justin made it so easy and fun. You can read more about it here. It's also been nice to see these two folks in person at various Pez conventions! Later in 2020, I checked out a Pez art exhibit in Cincinnati called Pop Supernatural. This consisted of multiple historical figures cast as Pez dispensers. This exhibit was scheduled to close months before, but due to COVID no other exhibits had taken its place. And, my wife and I happened to be the only visitors at the time (perhaps due to the aforementioned COVID), so we had the art exhibit all to ourselves. It was definitely a case of being in the right place at the right time. Here is a picture from the exhibit. You can read more about it and see some pictures here.
Wrapping up a despite-all-odds incredible 2020 in my Pez world was a visit to my Pez pal Karen's house. Karen hosted the 2020 IN Crowd, and while the whole event was a good time, I was left speechless when I saw her Pez room. It was the first Pez room I've experienced in person that was on a completely different level from anything else. No other Pez room I've seen since has come close to it. It was just incredible, and I had the chance to see it again in 2023 when Karen hosted IN Crowd for a second time. You owe it to yourself to check it out here. Congratulations on this awesome room, Karen! 2021 brought about another new dimension to my Pez hobby: a significant new focus on custom dispensers, which now take up a sizable portion of my Pez display. I had already been collecting custom Pez on and off for quite a while, especially Batman customs, but I've added a lot of new custom Pez to my collection in recent years from a few people in particular: Mike Herz, Steve Glew (via Larry Mason), and Topher Yarrison. Mike started to release a few of his creations such as Howard the Duck and Uncle Sam, but then later really kicked things into gear with his 3D-printed Classic Monster series, which to date includes 23 non-working pieces (that are still evocative of the Pez dispenser design) such as Dracula, Wolfman, and Creature from the Black Lagoon. (Here is a semi-recent picture of my collection of his Classic Monsters; I've since acquired 7 more, but have not added them to this display yet). The detail on these pieces is amazing, and he has made other customs along the way, my favorite being the Adam West Batman and Burt Ward Robin that I picked up at this year's Pezamania. Steve's custom Pez that are made by Larry (and each individually signed by Steve) are inspired by his role as the legendary Pez Outlaw. (You may have seen the Emmy-winning documentary about Steve's Pez adventures, "The Pez Outlaw." I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen when it made the film festival rounds in 2022. I highly recommend it!). Larry has collaborated with Steve on over 50 pieces, mostly completely 3D printed customs along with some custom heads on Pez dispenser stems. I don't have all of the Pez Outlaw dispensers, but I think it's fair to say I have over 95% of them. My favorite Pez Outlaw dispenser so far is the Unidentified Pez Outlaw that I picked up at last year's Pezamania, which is the only one to my knowledge that actually lights up! Larry really does such incredible work on these, and on top of that he is one of the nicest and most thoughtful people in the Pez community. Topher's approach is hand painting existing dispensers, and he does so with great success. Since 2021, by my estimate I've added over 200 of Topher's creations to my collection. He does such creative work, and in the past year or two has really upped his game with higher quality paint, color fading, glow in the dark, and more. Topher is also a big reason why my custom Batman collection has grown so substantially. Here are two pictures and a GIF of some of my custom Topher pieces. You can click on each for a larger view.
And on a related note, I've also branched out into the world of creating custom Pez myself, mainly Batman-related. Previously I had mainly done stem swaps, putting Batman heads on various printed and other stems. My favorites have been the POP swaps, the Adam West Batman Pez bobblehead, and the giant Batman Pez. I'm still miles behind the masters of the craft I mention above, but I'm having fun with it and learning new stuff here and there. 2021 wrapped up with an extremely surprising Pez gift from my brother-in-law. He had heard me talking about a particularly sought-after dispenser for the past year or so, and did some digging around online. Lo and behold, on Christmas day, my jaw dropped to the floor when I unwrapped the paper and opened the box to find a Golden SpongeBob mint on card! Those of you who are in the Pez collecting community know what a rare and special treat this particular dispenser is. Here on the pages of Pezhead Monthly, it was the subject of multiple features, which I summed up in this article. I am so grateful to my brother-in-law for this awesome gift. Here is a picture of me with one of the best Christmas gifts I've ever received.
2022 was notable in my Pez world for one very big reason: I attended no less than SIX Pez conventions and gatherings that year, which was a new record for me. This included 2 VPCs as well as PIGPIGPIG, INCrowd 2022, and Pezamania. Most notably in 2022, I attended my first Michigan Pez Convention, hosted by Jim and Jody Blaine in Ann Arbor, Michigan. (The convention has since moved to suburban Detroit.) This was a very well put-together convention and a really fun time. It was a nice mix of a smaller-scale version of Pezamania (room hopping, charity auction, floor show), combined with the fun and interactivity of Josh's PIG conventions (especially game nights!). But it also had its own personality. For example, there was a VIP attendee dinner and an after-party featuring lots of larger-than-life game setups like inflatable axe throwing. Out of all of the Pez conventions that I've attended, it had the most "Pez family" vibe. And on top of that, of course there were lots of Pez pals both human and plastic. I go into more detail about my time at the Michigan Pez convention here. Jim, Jody, and their team did a great job of making everyone feel welcome and have fun, and I really hope to make it back to the Michigan Pez convention soon! 2023 marked another first for me, as I was technically able to attend 2 conventions at the same time! The first convention was not a Pez one, but rather one for the classic TV show "The Golden Girls" called GoldenCon. You see, my wife Jessi is a huge fan of this show (to put it mildly!) and the convention was just a few hours away from home AND on her birthday weekend, no less. It may not have been a Pez convention, but it definitely gave me a unique perspective into the role of the "enabler," which is a term we use in the Pez community for friends, partners, and family members who support our hobby in various ways. Jessi has been a supportive and patient enabler of my Pez hobby from the start and it's one of the many reasons why I love her so much. But as for GoldenCon, the tables were turned and now I was the enabler! I sure hope I lived up to it. The other convention I attended at the same time as GoldenCon, in a manner of speaking, was Josh's PIG4ALL. Although I did not attend the convention in person, I did put together a video that was played at the event and from what I hear, it went over pretty well. It was a Pez song parody of the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" called "Gotta Love The PIG4All!" and you can check it out here! At the end of 2023, I attended GalaxyCon, a pop culture convention in Columbus, Ohio. This was notable in my Pez world because it was where I was able to resume my Pez autograph collection. I had paused this due to a number of reasons, but at GalaxyCon I scored 4 new autographed Pez from the likes of Vincent D'Onofrio, Mara Wilson, and more. You can read all about it here. I'm planning to return to GalaxyCon this year and I am very much looking forward to getting at least one more celebrity signature, and it will be a big one. Al will be revealed in an upcoming issue of Pezhead Monthly! These past 10 years were quite busy here on the pages of Pezhead Monthly as well. After a couple of hiatuses earlier in this stretch, Pezhead Monthly came back in April 2020 and has been on a steady clip ever since (with a month off every now and then to recharge). A big part of Pezhead Monthly's resurgence was actually due to Josh's PIG Too convention, which was the first Pez convention I had attended in almost 2 years (although I did attend the IN Crowd gathering in 2019). It really brought me back into the spirit and joy of the Pez world and got my creative juices flowing again in a big way. Some of my favorite Pezhead Monthly cover images from these past 10 years include Orange in the USA, Machete Fills (which I made into a custom shirt that I like to wear at Pez conventions and elsewhere), Pezmaker, Weird Pez, and It's A-Pez Mario! For that last one, I made a bonus animated version too:
I also had lots of fun making Pez videos such as Candy Loaded In, The Limited Leprechaun (which was an original song I wrote and recorded), Gotta Have Grape, and Pez is Love! All this is on top of lots of Pez poetry, Pez song parodies, convention and other event recaps, and monthly score rundowns. It's been quite busy here at Pezhead Monthly HQ, and I'm looking forward to keepin' on keepin' on in the months and years ahead. So what does a Pezhead have to show for 30 years of collecting? A whole heck of a lot, as it turns out. There is of course my collection itself, which stands at about 2700 dispensers, as well as lots of customs (with my Batman customs being the highlight), many collector tins and boxes, and lots of other various items from conventions, fellow collectors, and other places. There is also an appreciation and an always-growing knowledge of the Pez world, which is much bigger than you think. I know I'll never be a full-on Pez expert, but it's always exciting to learn more about the hobby and to participate in it. There is also this very publication, which has been around since 2001 and allows me to creatively express my love of Pez in various ways. But above all, when I look back on these 30 years, I think of the memories that were made and all of the Pez pals I've met along the way, whether in person at conventions or online through Facebook and other places. I think about the many rooms of vintage Pez, as well as the camaraderie, that you can only find at Pez conventions. I think how I get that same feeling today when I find new Pez scores as I did back in that Tops grocery store way back in 1994. Here's to 30 Years a Pezhead, and here's to an even better 30 years ahead!
Phantom There once was an
opera Phantom
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