Berita Hari Ini: What candy started as an anti-smoking tool?


	April 18, 2026

Original photo by Peter Ekvall/ Alamy Stock Photo

PEZ candy was created to help people quit smoking.

Today, PEZ is beloved for its fun dispensers, which pop out the tiny tablets one by one and feature children’s characters such as Barbie, Mickey Mouse, and Spongebob Squarepants. But the candy’s inventor originally created the flavorful bricks for adults, not kids — and it used to be quite different.

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		Numbers Don't Lie

Pressure (in pounds) the raw ingredients in PEZ undergo to become tablets

3,000

PEZ dispensers used to create the world's largest PEZ dispenser sculpture, a replica of London's Big Ben

9,404

Price a Prince Harry and Meghan Markle set of PEZ dispensers earned in a 2018 charity auction

$9,893

Minimum amount of individual PEZ candies eaten annually in the United States

3 billion

Hollywood almost made an animated PEZ movie.

The Lego Movie exceeded all box-office expectations by becoming the fourth-highest-grossing domestic film of 2014. Producers immediately started brainstorming about other nostalgia-inducing objects that could anchor an animated comedy. Envision Media Arts found a worthwhile property in PEZ, greenlighting a feature and hiring a screenwriter in 2015, yet no director or cast was ever announced. According to the Envision Media Arts website, “PEZ” remains in development, though it’s now listed as a TV show. In the meantime, anyone seeking a big-screen PEZ tribute can revisit the 1986 classic Stand by Me. In the Rob Reiner-directed film, 12-year-old Vern Tessio (Jerry O’Connell) contends, “If I could only have one food to eat for the rest of my life? That’s easy, PEZ. Cherry-flavor PEZ. No question about it.”