Legacy MattersWho knew that Pez was a Viennese candy marketed to adults as an alternative to smoking?
The idea to market the candy to children in dispensers with heads and feet came from the United States, and Curtis Allina, a survivor of concentration camps made it happen.
Curtis Allin, 87, Put Heads on Pez Dispensers.
Introduced into the United States in the early 1950s, Pez sold fitfully. Then someone thought of remarketing it as a children’s candy, in fruit flavors, packed in whimsical dispensers. It fell to Mr. Allina to persuade the home office in Vienna, by all accounts a conservative outfit that took sober pride in its grown-up mint.
Mr. Allina prevailed, and the first two character dispensers, Santa Claus and a robot known as the Space Trooper, were introduced in 1955. Unlike today’s plain-stemmed, headed-and-footed dispensers, both were full-body figures, completely sculptured from top to toe.