Hey Kids! Wanna get juiced and just can’t find Mommy’s Adderall? Need to really put on the speed for that sick game of Mega-Contact Tag? Why not grab a brick or two of pressed sugar? We are of course, speaking of PEZ, which you already knew because the prior sentence includes both the words sugar and brick. PEZ was invented in 1927, the year that also brought us Technicolor, television, and the Iron Lung (oddly TechnicolorIronLungTV is the name of my German synth-pop revival band). Truly a banner year for the entertainment industry, ventilation, and the children of Austria who were finally able to chew tiny bricks that allowed even faster mountaineering. Assuming they finished their schnitzel first.
But why dwell on the days when people had to breathe all by themselves when we can just examine the Pez of today? Assuming that the Pez of today was not in fact made in 1927, because I’m not entirely sure we would know the difference. For Pez, like Schrodinger’s Cat, exists in a terminal state beyond fresh and stale. In 1949, a patented dispenser for the candy is introduced, mirroring the pattern of Benjamin Franklin discovering electricity, but having Elihu Thomson inventing the meter for General Electric that made the big Illuminati bucks. Also, Austria has since contributed both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Wi-Fi to the world, so one must wonder why they’re just not in charge of the whole planet.
Pez shows up in America in 1957 with its wee bricks and a dispenser that looks like a plain rectangle that you might slam into the bottom of a Mauser. In a scant five years, Pez realizes that these American tykes need more razzmatazz, thus the first rectangle with a head on top is introduced. The Witch Pez dispenser is so successful that a Popeye style is introduced the following year, essentially Ground Zero for establishing generations of children who will now want to consume their candy in the manner of a high fructose nosferatu, tearing out the sweet meats of their colorful victims’ throats.
And with that, what says Christmas more than sugar delivered in collectible device that is the equivalent of a candy bracelet being used as a sweet garrote? That’s right kids, don’t think of it as a ritualized way of devouring Austrian KiddieKrak, think of it as European Confectionary engineering meeting the mutating soul of America. Don’t think of it as candy, no. Don’t even think of it as the single food you might consume for the rest of your life, even if recommended by the guy that got to marry Mystique. No, it is a finer thing than all of that, kids; it is sublime, it is ferocity, it is…a stocking stuffer.
You’ll find both Pez dispensers and bricks of bulk sugar bricks with which to reload them at most Graham Crackers locations. I’m afraid you’ll need to get your own Adderall.