Remember last month when I disassembled a Chapstick Tube to see how it worked? My cousin Gigi challenged me to do the same to a PEZ Candy Dispenser. So here we go. PEZ candies were first made in Vienna, Austria in 1927 and the names is a compression of PfeffErminZ (German for peppermint) which was the first flavor produced. The dispensers we know today were first introduced in 1955 and more than 1500 themed collector items have been produced since.

The general concept is you get a package of various flavored, rectangular chalky candy. You lift the “head” off the dispenser and fill a tube with the dozen candies. You then tilt the head back which pops the candy from the dispenser into your mouth. Clearly there are guides and likely a spring somewhere.

So first you need to pull out the candy cradle from sleeve. This can be a little tricky as the platform the candy sits on holds the unit together with a couple of outcroppings front and back of the sleeve. You have to rock it back and forth to free it with a small screwdriver. And now we see the spring!

From here it is pretty easy to remove the platform and spring from the sleeve. So we are almost done and look how happy the head of the dispenser still is. He’s smiling!

And finally we need to pry off the head from the sleeve and all the distinct pieces are visible. Four pieces of plastic and one wire spring. I don’t suggest you try this with your PEZ dispenser. Keep it assembled and hope it grows in value.

At this point I will take requests for future tear-downs, hopefully keeping it cheap and easy. I may make this a monthly feature. Whatever you do don’t ask about the lawn mower. Don’t even mention it.

As always you can find more at http://www.walterthinnes.com and on Twitter @walterthinnes