From Karen Owen…
I think I actually have an answer for one of your questions that you posed on your site. I remembered that one of the times that the guys from Orange County Choppers were on with David Letterman, they showed Pez dispensers with their heads and mentioned that they were the first real living people to have been made into Pez dispensers. The Wikipedia entry for Pez says the company changed their policy on not doing recognizable real people in 2006 for the Teutels — they did Elvis in 2007 and the Star Trek characters in 2008. I'm a Star Wars fan and collector and am pretty sure they have only done the droids, aliens and helmeted characters as Pez, not the people.
I figured they'd changed it…I was just wondering what prompted it. I guess the opportunity to turn the Teutels into Pez Dispensers was too good to resist.
I remember back in Elementary School, there was a kid — a guy — who was shamed and ridiculed because one day at Lunch, he hauled out a Pez Dispenser of Popeye and kissed it to get the candy. He said that's how it was supposed to work; that you kissed the character and were fed a Pez in return. I'd never heard of that…none of us had. But a lot of other guys thought that was the gayest thing they'd ever heard of, even though they didn't call it quite that. For months after, the poor kids was subjected to wisecracks about kissing sailors in exchange for candy.
I used to wonder if that was a tradition in some circles…kissing the Pez Dispenser. But the one time I met the head of the Pez Company, I didn't think (or maybe have the nerve) to ask him. And I wondered: If it is an old custom, might that have something to do with them not putting real folks' heads on the product? As you can tell, I sometimes waste a lot of time wondering about very silly things…