Whenever you see a great idea, especially one that works so well that we take it for granted, remember that somewhere there's a human being behind it.
And remember that many great ideas didn't necssarily start out in the form they've come to be.
Such is the case with the ubiquitous Pez dispenser.
There's hardly an American that hasn't sampled a Pez from the tilting head of some character made into a Pez dispenser.
Which is ironic, since the candy originated in Austria, and wasn't ever intended to be a candy at all.
Pez, which is a corruption of "pfefferminz", the German word for peppermint, started out as a remedy for smoker's breath.
They were an exceptionally strong mint flavored lozenge meant for adults only.
Most children couldn't tolerate the strong minty flavor.
Those strong mints were even packaged in "plain, long-stemmed dispensers meant to suggest cigarette lighters."
For several years, sales of the imported mints were steady, but low volume.
But then, Pez management in Vienna was convinced by an American representative to start producing Pez in fruity flavors and packaging them with whimsical, plastic heads -- "TV characters, cartoon figures or historical personages" -- that flipped back to dispense the candy.
The first two character dispensers, Santa Claus and a robot known as the Space Trooper, appeared in 1955.
After years of struggling in the American market, Pez became a hit -- and, of course, has since become a baby-boomer, pop-culture icon, featuring characters from Popeye to Mozart.
Pez today "sells tens of thousands of dispensers each year in 80 countries," and its vintage collectibles continue to do a brisk business on eBay and various Pez conventions.
The man behind that remarkable turnaround?
Curtis Allina, a Holocaust survivor who had emigrated to America.
Curtis Allina, who died last month at 87, can certainly be called the father of the Pez head.
A man who created an icon by using his head.
"Success is achievable without public recognition, and the world has many unsung heroes." --- Michael DeBakey, M.D.
