Curtis Allina - RIPez

Curtis Allina died just before New Year on December 15th and you've probably got no idea who he is. Well, lemme tell you...

Allina was born in Prague but raised in Vienna. Vienna, back then, was the First Austrian Republic. As a Jew, he was imprisoned in various Nazi concentration camps and most of his family was killed in the Holocaust.

Unsurprisingly, after the war, he wanted out of Europe and emigrated to the United States, settling in New York. After doing some cruddy jobs, Allina found his way to Pez-Haas, and there, he created a pop-culture icon.

The Pez dispenser.

Previous, Pez was distributed in tins and in '55, Allina designed and sculpted the two of the famous dispenser - Santa Claus and a robot. The company was transformed. I mean, who bought Pez because it was the best sweet to buy? No-one. You bought it for the cool dispenser it came in. My first was a Smurf one... my last, a whole buncha Star Wars affiliated ones (the best being Chewbacca).

I'm not a collector by any stretch of the imagination... but like most pop culture vultures, sometimes, I can't resist buying things like Pez dispensers. It's a compulsion... a compulsion to buy tat which Mr Allina helped with!

There are collector nuts though, who pay thousands for rare Peziana. Today, they're a highly collectible pop-cultural artefact - they're immediately recognizable and contain that cool flip-back head which pushes out the Pez and snaps back with a super satisfying click.

There's whole websites, newsletters, books and even a museum (the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia in Burlingame, Calif) dedicated to 'em. There was a 2006 documentary called 'PEZheads: The Movie'.

It's a bona-fide pop-culture giant, and as such, we should celebrate Allina's role in it. Next time you see one, buy it and on the first *pop*, think "Curtis, this one's for you!" [Mof]