In the 1950's PEZ advertising was much different than today. During that time, PEZ was selling "regular" dispensers without the character heads for kids that we're familiar with now. Regulars were being sold to an adult market, so the ever popular "sex sells" marketing approach was used, essentially featuring PEZ pin-up girls. For an excellent article on this era, don't miss "The Sexy Side of PEZ!".
Gerhard Brause was the graphic designer PEZ employed to create many of the iconic "PEZ girl" images we know. His signature is shown on the Menthol Eucalyptus image below ("Schutzt vor Erkältungen" is German for "Protects against colds"). The four images above it are not signed and while they look very similar, they are probably modern reproductions of his style.
The PEZ Visitor Center has displays featuring many of the different PEZ girls, which can be viewed here.
The photo at the bottom shows the newly (2010) redesigned PEZ dresses by Lena Hoschek (middle in photo) and is from the PEZ International blog post "New styling for our PEZ ladies". So even today, PEZ is still staying sexy!
Being a fan of both PEZ and Edward Gorey I was immediately drawn to this sign. I've never seen a gloomy and rainy PEZ advertisement before, so this is unique. Apparently, the sign originates from the former Czechoslovakia and is circa 1930. Translated, "chran se vezmi" in Czech is "protect yourself and take" in English (I wasn't able to translate "Mlholi se", anyone know?). So the message was that Menthol Eucalyptus PEZ would protect you on those cold, rainy days. It measures 20 x 18 cm and is up for auction on eBay here until Sep 25, 2014 09:01:08 PDT.
Interestingly, today PEZ sells Fisherman's Friend "a menthol cough suppressant lozenge and one of the strongest and most effective cough and cold lozenge available." Fisherman's Friend is "manufactured by Lofthouse of Fleetwood, LLC, located in Lancashire, England, and sold exclusively in the United States by PEZ Candy Inc."
For those of you interested in adding the elusive MTV Moonman Giant PEZ to your collection, now is the time. An eBay seller has reduced the price on these quite a bit. Below is a photo showing the six different colors available: Pink, Gold, Green, Silver, Blue, and Black.
Months ago this same seller had each Moonman listed at $100 including shipping. Recently the seller dropped the listing price to $40 plus $16 shipping. Apparently the seller has a stockpile of these and is motivated to sell.
The Silver version was given away in celebrity gift baskets at the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2005.
Info from the eBay auction listing:
"In 2005 Brand New Products was commissioned to replicate a limited
edition of the iconic MTV Astronaut award onto a giant PEZ dispenser.
These Limited Edition High Gloss Silver Electroplated Dispensers were
produced for an exclusive group of MTV V.I.P's during the awards
ceremony in Miami Beach in 2005.
During the production
process an even smaller 96 piece production run of test dispensers were
made matching the (5) primary colors used on the MTV box design; Blue,
Black, Yellow, Pink and Green."
