Dispenser:PEZ Lighter

In 1927 Austria, Eduard Haas III combined flavoring and oil molded into little bricks to create an adult breath mint. He named his new product PEZ, an abbreviation for pfefferminz, the German word for peppermint. Part of PEZ's popularity rested in its use as a substitute for smoking, so Haas developed a dispenser for his candy that resembled and functioned like a cigarette lighter. Pressing on the lid with a thumb (as one would with a lighter) caused a single mint to pop out. Haas introduced his PEZ to the United States in 1952--with little success. Haas retooled his breath mint to a fruit-flavored and colored candy marketed to kids. The dispenser intrigued kids from the start: Haas fashioned a 3-dimensional head of a popular cartoon character for the lid. Over the years, the company has kept up with popular culture, continually introducing dispensers depicting the current pop star of movies, TV, comics, etc. The company opened its American candy factory in 1973, and it keeps about 40 different dispenser available at any one time. In 1990, the size of the plant was doubled, and, to the present day, it operates 24 hours a day. Hundreds of characters have been depicted on PEZ dispensers in hundreds of variations for sale in 60 countries.