The Pez Outlaw (2022) Movie Script
Okay. Ready?
Cheers, you guys.
Oh, ta-- tastes awful.
Oh, that's cold.
I always say to you,
"Are you mad?"
Doing a movie about Steve?
Okay.
In my-- you know,
in my eyes, you are--
you are making
a movie about a loser.
So, uh,
why are you doing that?
I met Steve Glew
about 20 or 25 years ago.
I did not even know
what Steve was-- was doing.
No one knew him.
No one knew where he came from.
No one that you asked had
any idea who the hell he was.
But everybody
wanted what he was selling.
I mean,
I was handling amounts of money
that I had dreamed of.
And doing a deal
for $500,000...
I had no idea that he had
made millions of dollars.
I remember reading
something and thinking,
is my dad a criminal?
I learned
to protect my space.
I saw people
follow me all the time.
I was paranoid
beyond belief.
When I'd get home,
and open that bag,
it was diamonds.
It was gold.
Pez.
I won the lottery.
It's like printin' money.
Listen, Steve
Got your loving, ha
Welcome
to the wonderful world of Pez.
Those colorful little
candy dispensers
many of us purchased
for pennies years ago.
Well,
pennies make dollars, folks.
You nearly
made me throw my life away
What-- what is that,
a Pez dispenser?
You want one?
You played a game
only you could win
Some Pez are quite rare.
And how much is this worth?
Between three
and four thousand dollars.
Your love
is like fool's gold
Just like a mirage, baby
And all
that I got from you
People inside
the Pez cell
think that this thing
has already peaked,
and it has not.
Fool's love,
oh yeah
Nothing but fool's love
oh yeah
Nothing but fool's love
That's good.
I've been waiting to tell
this story for 20 years.
When we moved out here,
we became back-to-earthers.
We had goats,
we had chickens, we had pigs,
we had a cow or two.
Yeah, you couldn't imagine
living anywhere else.
Right there.
It was where the grey barn was.
-Silver barn is.
-Yeah.
I wear three pair of socks,
and I keep a paper towel
with me at all times.
It just helps you cope.
My whole life,
I'd been poor.
Poor is when you don't have
enough money.
When your house payment's
only $125 a month.
Um, yeah,
we lived in a ratty old house
that snow came in,
till we wrapped it in plastic.
Literally,
a big sheet of plastic.
The expectations
in my life were
this guy
won't amount to nothin'.
He's a joke.
But I've always had
an inner person that...
that knew
there was more.
Uh,
that I could achieve more.
At that point
in our life, um,
we didn't have two pennies.
And if you did have
two pennies,
it was because you weren't
paying something else.
There was never excess money.
You used to make, like,
$11 an hour as a--
as a skilled tradesman
who knew his stuff.
My job
was mind-numbingly boring.
I worked
for almost 25 years
as a machinist
in a factory.
I would set the cut, and, uh,
while the cut was running,
I'd have
plenty of time to think.
And I'd think about,
uh, something better.
Tom Clancy
was his author of choice.
He's in books, submersing
himself in that story and--
and kind of living
that adventure.
Because he hated his job.
-Target acquired...
I mean,
I suffered through it.
Don't get me wrong.
But I always wanted out.
I always was waiting,
every minute of every day,
to figure anything out
that would get me
the hell out of there.
Yeah,
I was pretty miserable,
until I found cereal boxes.
And I just
really loved them.
I'm a cereal box guy.
Always have been.
Being compulsive obsessive,
it's not the box,
it's the stack.
There's a sense
of joy when you find
something you hold special.
There it is.
The screwier a box is,
the better it is.
I love cereal boxes.
They're just fun.
Cap'n Crunch.
And they're a part
of my childhood.
We were the generation
that ate the sweet cereal.
And I eat
the sweet cereal still.
Steve, uh,
was never shy about things.
He'd be running
up and down the aisles, like,
"Oh,
look at this box variation.
Look at this,
or look at that."
And he was very
passionate about what he did.
Steve figured out
a way of working the system
of mail order premiums.
Like, send ten box tops
for this free craft radio.
Frisbees,
sports item, cars.
I was getting
all kinds of stuff.
I learned to take
those out and sell 'em,
and it was generating
revenue back into the family.
And it was thousands
and thousands of these items.
He totally
skewed their system, and--
and he did it often enough
that they actually changed
corporate policy about--
about premium redemption.
You know
that little disclaimer?
They say "one per household."
That's me. I did that.
I mean, it--
it was the first
effort of
"push it till it breaks."
We started
going to toy shows,
and I was yankin'
down 300 bucks a show.
Thank you. One dollar.
Thank you. Just one.
After they closed
the window on cereal premiums,
it seemed
like the end of the road.
But I had enough product
for one last toy show.
That's when everything changed.
Everything.
It was very,
uh, film noire.
I remember
the moment completely.
Pez.
Oh, my God, oh, my God,
I want one of them,
I want one of them.
Oh, my God.
I could sell these and do
really, really well.
Toy world is full of people.
They go, "Shh, shh,
don't tell anybody."
Where did you get those?
Kolinska.
It was--
it was haunting.
'Cause it's like "Rosebud"
from, uh, Citizen Kane.
-Rosebud.
And she leaned over
and told me,
"You want the good stuff?
You gotta go to Kolinska."
It was like the temptation
of the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow.
The collectors loved...
things that weren't available
to the open market.
Things
that you couldn't go down
to your grocery store
and pick up.
They wanted
what was available in Europe.
And so I was like, "Dad,
let's see what we can get,
you know,
right from the factory."
I don't go places.
I mean, Europe--
Europe is this thing
that rich people
only do, and...
not something in my world.
Welcome aboard.
Welcome aboard the spacious...
I was about 20 years old.
I had never
been out of the country.
But there was no way
I was gonna just
let that dream die anyway.
I kind of took
the reins
and contacted a--
a local travel agent.
This needs to happen
in order to take
that next step.
How bad
do you want that next step?
A new concept
in air transportation.
I don't know.
I don't know, yeah, okay.
Let's go.
-He got me a passport.
Next thing you know,
we had tickets.
Next thing you know,
we're on a plane.
Well, I heard that
he was making a trip to Europe,
and I thought he was insane.
He didn't speak
any foreign language.
There was no internet,
he had no contact people
on the ground,
he was just some hillbilly
from Michigan
who got on a plane...
and then just
landed somewhere.
You know,
the state of Europe
was vastly different
back then than it is today.
The Berlin wall
hadn't been down very long.
The wall has
suddenly become irrelevant.
Something, as you can see,
almost to party on.
How do you measure
such an astonishing
moment in history?
He was operating
out of this capitalist scheme,
but he had no idea
what he was doing.
But, you know,
he has that,
like,
magical little troll quality.
When you're doing this,
and you're fully invested,
it's either win or lose.
Live or die, you know?
So we always had
everything on the line.
We had to take out a loan
from our credit union
to make
this very first trip happen.
Failure wasn't an option.
We had to find the factory.
But here you are,
you know, these small-town guys
going out into the world,
you know?
It's-- it's the big
adventure of a lifetime.
At this time,
the conflict and genocide
in Croatia was going on.
And we were right
on the southern border.
So, we were driving around,
you know,
trying to go off from a map,
but at one o'clock
in the morning, in the dark,
where you're not seeing every
sign or anything like that.
And we got hopelessly lost.
We screwed up.
We were on an old
dirt road somewhere,
and there was a chain
across the road.
And it just basically
said, "Zagreb - X miles."
We were out
in the middle of nowhere,
looking in the dark
for any pops on the horizon.
Well.
-I don't know why...
but Kathy's always
believed in me.
We met at age 18.
Kathy was one
of the flower children,
uh, the beautiful people.
I was just a guy.
Not worth a hill of beans.
And yet, she sees the guy
that's-- that's there.
The potential.
The minute I saw her,
I knew she was it.
Completely.
And we've been together
every day since.
Kathy allows me my dreams.
Until I get too far off path,
then she reins me back in.
She knows I get dangerous,
and careless...
occasionally.
But she supported me 100%
on the--
the trip to Europe.
I thought we were dead.
But thank God I had Josh.
Thank God.
-I mean-- .
I truly began
to appreciate him.
Our first trip to Europe
for Joshua and me was like
our graduation from
childhood to manhood.
I did lean on him to be able
to emotionally do this.
The next day
we were supposed to be finding
the factory, and still
we had no idea where it was.
And then, I see it.
It's printed, the address
is printed right on here.
It's right there, and
you're just, like, holy crap.
I'm-- I'm amazed
how an American
is able to get
into the factories.
We really get a long ways
by playing up "dumb American."
"Came here for Pez?
Dumb American."
You know what I mean?
I couldn't make
out any sense of this.
Uh, I don't want
to insult Steve now,
because appearance-wise,
what is it-- like, a homeless.
Yeah.
Actually, he looks like a poor,
homeless guy.
I got in.
Looking
disheveled and crazy
has always worked for me.
Everybody
underestimates you.
And that's when I met Marcos.
And what he showed me,
it was overwhelming.
It was exactly like
Willy Wonka
& the Chocolate Factory.
We had got
our golden ticket...
and we were in there
to buy our heart's desire.
I saw so much wonderful Pez.
This is the stuff
people dream of.
It was,
like, you hit the lottery.
-It was unreal.
Marcos's job was design.
We had made a friend.
A soulmate.
That truly appreciates
the artistic talent,
the vision.
I-- I got what he was saying
and how much he loved it.
It was stuff that just
wasn't sold in the U.S.
Pez USA rejected damn near
everything Marcos would do.
My name is Bud Damberg,
and I'm the former
marketing manager for Pez.
And I was there
for about 15 years.
I love working
in the candy industry.
It's one of the sweetest
industries around.
Literally.
Back in the 1990s,
Pez USA
and Pez International
out of Austria,
operated
very independently.
Pez International
had distribution
throughout
the entire world.
But not the United States.
Because
of Pez USA's agreement
with the parent company
in Austria,
they have 100% control
of everything Pez-related
in the United States.
And the, uh,
president and CEO
of Pez USA
was Scott McWhinnie.
Also very fondly known
as the "Pezident."
He was the ultimate
decision-maker.
He ran a very tight
and very lean ship.
"I love Pez" is a very common,
uh, statement.
However, the kids of today
know nothing about nostalgia.
They love Pez
for what it is.
The people at Pez USA
decided what came
into the US and what didn't.
If Scott didn't want something
sold in the United States,
it wasn't sold
in the United States.
Europe would bust it's butt
and come up with a great idea,
or get some
really good licenses,
and Pez USA
would say no.
No, stupid, we hate it, no,
no, you're ignorant,
we hate it.
But everything
unique and creative
that they came up with,
I could not get enough of.
And that endeared us to them.
They loved us.
Just loved us.
These people were hungry
for American dollars.
They wanted to work with us.
They wanted to do business
with us and everything.
I was looking at the,
uh, cabinet, in the office,
and they had a display
in there of--
of dispensers that
hadn't even hit the market.
Um, one of them
was the Bubble Boy dispenser.
Our jaws
just dropped to the floor.
Uh, especially once, uh,
he told us
the stories behind 'em.
Bubble Man was a reject
from an idea to sell gum.
Now, I had heard
of the Bubble Boy dispenser.
He wasn't going to
be released.
Well, he gave me one
from the cabinet.
I mean, that was--
that was the coolest thing.
He also gave me a purple Dino
and a yellow Dino.
Stuff that should
never have been out there,
but it existed.
It was just
really wonderful Pez.
At that point, I was home free.
I had my product.
All of the obstacles
had been hurdled.
-All except one.
Coming back through US
customs was the hard part.
Here at Homeland
Security Investigations,
we investigate
transnational crime.
Uh, basically
any crime that touches,
uh,
the United States border.
Uh, either inbound
or outbound.
It runs across the spectrum.
It could be, uh, contraband,
in that-- in the--
in the form
of narcotics, money,
body parts, human heads,
of course, arms.
You know, various animals.
Unfortunately, sometimes
those animals don't make it,
but other times they do,
and all of a sudden
you're opening a,
you know, a suitcase,
and there's birds in there
or something else.
It can be entertaining.
Uh, for a serious crime,
you could be looking
at decades in jail.
He just had
great big duffle bags
full of thousands and thousands
of Pez, and I don't know what
the customs people thought,
or maybe they didn't even
really look at them.
They must not have,
or he wouldn't have been able
to bring 'em in without
all the proper paperwork.
It was something I learned.
You had to be methodical
about how you went about it.
I had to appear to be...
a fool.
Disheveled. Crazy.
So, I'd stay awake for 24
hours prior to hitting customs.
Well, that's--
that's exactly
what you don't wanna do.
Uh, you know, the more odd
and the more you stick out,
if you're disheveled
and don't sleep
and you're acting a little,
uh, kind of out of sorts.
If anything, that's gonna
attract more attention,
and it certainly
would for me.
Oh,
I knew it would work.
Um, doing crazy things
that made no sense.
-Because then I'm harmless.
-You should be honest.
You're gonna have to declare
what you're coming in with.
You needed to be
as honest as you could,
without being
completely honest.
Yes,
I was definitely doing
something technically illegal.
Did I care? Nah.
Not in the slightest.
Not in the slightest.
Um, the items that--
that Steve Glew
was bringing over
were grey market items.
Um, which were items
that were not manufactured
for United States market.
They were legitimate
Pez dispensers,
but he did not have
the licensing rights
to bring them in.
Pez Candy Inc.
in the United States
is the only licensed entity
to sell them in this country.
Let me
think about that one.
A snafu made
everything I did possible.
There was one simple,
little thing
that would have shut
me down.
Pez USA contacting
international customs
and registering...
that they were
the sole importers
of Pez products
from Europe.
My name's Julie Hilario,
I'm a special agent
with Homeland
Security Investigations.
Oftentimes,
we find that trademark owners
may not be knowledgeable
that they need
to record their trademark
with U.S. Customs
and Border Protection
for enforcement
at the border.
One of the customs
agents that I dealt with,
he said, "uh, you know,
uh, well, you know,
you're not the importer
for this."
And he got his sheet out,
and he was lookin',
and he was lookin',
and he was lookin'.
He said, "Oh, my God."
Pez USA, I did check,
and their trademark
is not recorded
with Customs
and Border Protection.
Yeah,
I wasn't aware of that.
I mean,
I know that, um...
they had some very expensive
lawyers in New York
that spent a lot of time
and money.
They were supposed to make
sure that it was registered
in all
the classes of trade.
They have a US patent
and trademark with USPTO,
um, but they didn't take
the second step of actually
recording their trademark
with Customs
and Border Protection
for enforcement
at the border.
And he goes,
"if they're that stupid...
go ahead."
When we got back from
Europe after the first trip,
going back to work sucked,
big time.
It was like being in prison.
But not having any money,
I had to
stick it out for a while.
I guess my dad, uh,
had done some talking
to, you know, the--
the Pez dealers,
and one of them heard that--
that I had that Bubble Boy.
Buyers appeared...
through word of mouth.
The phone chain
was people talking to people
that talking to people.
Honestly,
I was flabbergasted
at the prices
that people would pay.
They're like, you know,
I'll buy that Bubble Boy
from you.
-$1,250.
I was like, what?
I mean,
it was a gift from Marcos,
so we didn't have the intention
at all of selling it.
Here I am,
a college student
paying for my own tuition
and everything...
being offered 1,250 bucks
for a piece of plastic
that was given to me for free.
The last thing
in the world I wanted to do
was sell Bubble Boy.
But, hey, man, I gotta pay
some bills.
Money talks.
Money talks.
The collectors
bought pretty much
everything I had,
overnight.
I paid 27 cents each.
300 bucks.
Without those
early sales, I never
would have been able
to quit my job.
One of my last
memories in the shop
was Enya
playing on the radio.
And it was just floating.
Through the whole shop.
Her voice. And echoing.
Let me sail, let me sail
let the Orinoco flow
Her music was,
like, a place I wanted to be.
And traveling to Europe,
and my dreams,
married perfectly well
with that.
When I left the shop
for the last time, I went from,
uh, working 79-hour work
weeks to doing my own thing.
I went to selling toys
and Pez full-time.
Sail away,
sail away, sail away
Sail away,
sail away, sail away
Sail away,
sail away, sail away
At that time, the hobby
was kind of this small,
closed group,
and we all knew each other.
And Steve was like this,
you know...
magical troll who just
sprung forth out of nowhere.
But then he found out
about the Pez community
and started
talking to all of us.
The Pez community
was a smallish community
that taught
me everything I-- I learned.
Welcome to the wonderful
world of Pez collecting.
You're hooked now.
I mean, I like to drink
scotch, I like fast cars.
But there-- there's nothing
that compares with the feeling
you get when you get
a great find in Pez.
So, this is my Pez room.
So, I've
been collecting about 20 years.
Your Thors, you're gonna be--
$200-300 range.
This Pony
would probably go about 1300.
I have 53
covered grandstands.
They each hold 80 dispensers.
I have everything filled up.
Every empty space
is filled up with junk.
So, if you want to
give me a title,
you can say to me I am
a crazy collector.
I will say
that I've spent
$2,500
for one dispenser.
The most I ever paid
for Pez was $11,000.
-For one?
-One.
And so,
in the Pez world,
the person who brought
the most new product
to us was Steve Glew.
With the prices
people were paying,
Josh and me were itching
to go back
and get more product.
And I had heard
the real mother lode...
was Hungary.
And Gunther was a person
of importance there.
He had been a person
within the upper echelon
at Pez corporation
in Austria, in Linz.
And he had been tasked
with the role
of opening up the East.
He had power.
He had power.
First time I met him, I believe
it was on our second
trip to Europe.
I mean, like,
I walk in the door
and I ask about Pez,
and Gunther Leitner
came out in the most God-awful
plaid sports jacket
I have ever seen in my life.
He comes up to me
at the counter and he said,
"I hear you're here
huntin' for Pez, eh?"
And I goes,
"Yeah, I'm huntin' for it."
He says, "Yeah,
I know, I know, I know."
And he says, "Don't you--
don't you know who I am?"
No,
I have no idea
who you are and I don't really
give a damn.
Gunther took a Post-it,
just a stupid little Post-it.
Wrote a few words,
signed his name.
He said, "Okay, take this.
Go over there."
And I handed the post-it
to the, uh,
the guard at the gate.
I mean, he might as well
have hopped to and clicked
his heels
and opened up the gate.
I mean, really.
That little Post-it.
Everybody did
anything we ask.
People walked up to me,
and every time
I showed it to 'em,
"Yep, yep. Yep, yep.
Over here. Over here."
Next thing I know,
they got a truck...
for me to load.
And take everything
off to the airport.
And he truly
was that powerful.
Just wished
I could have taken it all.
I really wish I could've,
but I couldn't.
I only had 4,000 bucks
maybe in my pocket, so, I mean,
it was very disappointing
for Gunther, you know?
Gunther didn't give
the money to Pez.
He kept it.
Oh, and the last thing he says
as he's getting out of the car.
He leans back in and he goes,
"I don't know you.
I don't know you."
Oh, my God.
So, now we're finding out
all these illegal dispensers
are all over the place.
Word came
out that somebody took
some pre-production
samples and were selling those.
Pre-production samples,
illegal, on the black market.
And apparently somebody
would go over to Europe
and meet up with some of the,
um, workers who worked
in the factories
after hours
and pay 'em a few
hundred U.S. dollars,
and before
you know it you had all these
pre-production
samples disappear.
Well, my
reaction was...
isn't anybody
watching the factory?
It's not like
when you go on a vacation
you bring
a dozen back with you.
This guy was bringing thousands
and thousands of them over.
Scott was furious
that this was happening.
So,
his mission was to find out
who was doing this.
I was a police
officer for 20 years,
and I started my newsletter,
Pez Collectors News, in 1995.
As a collector,
the idea of the newsletter
was to get the word out there
to other collectors and just,
what's out there,
and what's real,
and is-- is there any
fakes going around.
In a lot of senses,
Richie was the number one spy
for, uh, Pez USA
No, I wasn't a spy.
People thought
I was the Pez police, but no,
I really
didn't tell them anything.
Did he report back to Scott?
Yes.
Not a doubt in my brain.
Scott McWhinnie
absolutely had a reputation
for kind of, "the Pez
company hates collectors."
And he's not
a particularly likeable guy.
He's a little pompous,
he's a little full of himself,
he's a little insecure.
I was told by many people
that-- that Scott McWhinnie
had spies in the Pez world.
That anything we would say
would get back to him.
Scott was very aware
of the growing
collectors market.
He was also very well-aware
of the illegal activity
going on
in the collectors market.
So, one
of the first things we did
to get information
out to them,
was we invited Richie Belyski
up to the factory.
He had a tour of the factory,
um, he interviewed Scott
for an hour or two,
and we went to lunch.
It was interesting.
It was the first time
I was ever in there,
and they don't give
tours to people.
Um, yeah.
Yeah, he did.
He was sort of a little bit
like a PR agency in a way.
That one's worth about $700.
There's another sticker
on the back.
An original sticker.
Wow, that's terrific.
Well, thank you, Richard.
We appreciate it.
We all love Pez,
and now we know why.
I remember
when I went to the Pez factory,
Scott McWhinnie pulled
one out of his pocket.
He goes,
"Hey, you see this dispenser?
-You know what this is?"
-And I said yeah.
And he says, "Yeah,
I'm gonna be sellin' it soon."
Bubble Man was designed
by Scott McWhinnie.
He loved it.
Absolutely,
he was passionate about it.
That was his.
He had the character
developed and designed.
Even went as far as having
the name, um, registered.
Um,
and it was a project that Scott
pretty much
worked on himself.
And I-- I think he--
he cared very much about it.
However,
that project was put on hold.
And when Scott heard
that people were bringing
Bubble Man over into
the United States
and selling them for an obscene
amount of money,
that burned him up.
Most expensive one here
right now is this guy here.
And he's not old.
He's from 1992.
He's called
the Bubble Gum Man.
He's a prototype.
Scott McWhinnie was watching,
um, some news reel
of a Pez convention,
and he saw the Bubble Man.
Some girl had
one for sale.
There's only about
20 known in the whole world.
It was something they designed
that they didn't have to
pay licensing for.
Manufactured a few,
and looked at it and said,
"what were we thinking
when we made this?"
-And that was the end of that.
-It's butt ugly.
- That's right.
And Scott McWhinnie
had a fit.
And right now
his asking price
is $1200.
Wow, $1200 for a Pez?
That's amazing.
At this point, when Scott
became aware of the-- the abuse
that was going,
the best way of killing that
was to take those dispensers
and put them into the direct
marketing program, and sell
it to all the collectors
at a reasonable price.
Okay,
this is Bubble Man.
It's worth nothing.
Everybody shouted,
"Bubble Man! Bubble Man!"
These are absolutely rare.
They will not produce it.
And then it--
then they produced it.
Maybe actually on purpose
to-- to-- to--
to damage the collector scene.
The reason that anybody
was willing to pay 1200
to begin with was because,
at the time,
they thought that
there were less than ten.
I gotta tell you,
when we put Bubble Man
out there,
it was insane
the amount of orders we got.
People want 'em, you know,
for a $1.99.
You got
a $1200 dispenser.
So, it was like--
They've sold more
Bubble Boy than any--
probably any
damn dispenser ever,
and it came out
of Scott being so mad
that
he couldn't see straight,
and ordering
the product to stomp on us.
You deal with the devil.
And in all honesty,
Scott McWhinnie
was my arch-nemesis.
Oh, I hated his guts.
And that's when I decided
to become the Pez Outlaw.
I needed a vessel.
A person.
I needed to build him.
So that I can draw him in
when I need him.
I definitely viewed the whole
thing as an adventure.
The money,
the travel, the quest.
My goal from that point on
was for accumulation.
I needed the product
so I could beat Scott.
Every sale I could take away
from Scott McWhinnie
was a nail in his coffin.
As the Pez Outlaw,
ain't nothing stops me.
I mean,
for good or ill.
I will win.
I will win.
In the end.
At that point,
we were going to Europe
about every three
or four weeks.
And going to shows
in between that.
Sometimes
even landing at shows
and going directly to them.
We had so much cash
a-- after some of these
conventions that,
you know, you-- you did
feel like a rock star.
I had so much money
that I was absolutely drunk.
And ta-da,
we have a basement.
But I mean,
we bought a ton of things.
We bought a new house.
Well, guess what?
Here's my house in the ditch.
My mom really was able
to have the freedom with them
coming into a little more money
to really pursue
what she wanted to do.
She went to schooling
to become
a therapeutic
horseback riding instructor.
Steve had become
nouveau riche at this point.
His Pez market was booming.
He was making tons of money,
which he never had before.
Hey, that's
how I was doing things.
I just-- talk to my bank.
Do this, do that.
He was so generous
with his money,
he paid his family
and all his helpers well.
I benefitted,
'cause I got to go to college
without having to pay
for any of it.
It was magic.
The whole time was magic.
I won the lottery.
Pez Outlaw was
so dominant in the marketplace
that Scott McWhinnie,
the Pezident...
He was losing.
They advertised nothing.
I had two full-page ads
in one publication,
a full-page ad
in another publication...
every month.
He was blatantly
advertising these things.
There's the easiest way
to find out.
Steve was his own worst enemy.
You know, put a billboard up,
here I am, guys.
Come after me.
So, it's like--
Well, you gotta remember,
at the end of the day,
Pez is a brand.
It's a registered brand.
You go over there
on vacation, you bring back,
you know,
a dozen, yourself.
You can sell them online.
Nobody cares about that.
When you start selling
thousands of 'em,
and you're running
full-page ads...
now you become a business.
Scott took it
very seriously,
"I'm gonna protect my product,
I'm gonna protect my brand.
They're not gonna get
away with that any longer.
After I couldn't
go with him anymore,
um, I wasn't scared for him,
but I definitely was surprised,
uh, that, you know,
he was able to-- to go alone.
It was very nerve-wracking
headin' off on my own.
I think his mental health,
uh, state of mind,
ex-drug persona, has to--
it-- it can't not
play into paranoias.
I learned
to protect my space.
Getting off the
highway, taking back roads.
Totally paranoid.
I saw people
following me all the time.
If I thought there was somebody
behind me, man, I'd ditch 'em.
He had things
to be paranoid about.
So, I would imagine that
he didn't know who to trust.
Coming
from the Midwest,
I had never seen officials
with machine guns.
So, every border crossing
was a threat.
Not just the people
with machine guns...
...but the biggest nightmare
would be losing the load.
That mattered.
Every bag
out on to the blacktop.
Every bag open.
Every bag dumped.
Could I have possibly
gotten arrested?
Yes.
Would traps have been laid?
Yes.
Sometimes, all he really wanted
was a bribe.
I learned, if something
happens of that nature...
Hand out some money,
you're done.
Being that close to illegal,
maybe illegal.
Of course you're paranoid.
Scott never,
ever went to Europe
to go chase down Steve.
So, there--
there's none of this,
you know, Scott
in a dark suit, you know,
trying-- you know,
hiding behind corners.
You know,
"I got you, Glew."
You know?
There wasn't
any of that drama.
None of that ever existed.
Would Scott McWhinnie
have tried
to have people follow me?
Yeah, he would've done that.
In a heartbeat.
But if they were following me,
I did shake 'em.
Steve Glew
was standing here.
This was the place-- the place
Steve Glew was waiting for me.
I just decided
to go visit Johann.
I don't know
how I had his address,
where I got it,
I have no idea, but I did.
He came to me
without appointment.
He just was standing
in front of my door.
All of a sudden,
a guy pulls up on a, uh...
mo-- motorbike.
And I said, "You are lucky,
I am Johann Patek."
And he said,
"Oh, I am Steve Glew
from America
and I want to buy Pez."
I just wanted to buy Pez.
My answer was,
"Oh, yes, let's do."
Let's do some deals
and I will show you something.
I ask him to wait outside,
and then I went in
and brought him some Pez.
I had to sit on the curb
outside this house he owned.
While he went in
and got the product.
Johann Patek. Yes.
I do not know very much
about him that I would tell.
It's all very basic here.
Johann
is a collector in Austria.
You know,
is this off the record?
-Oh, okay.
"What's in there?"
I don't tell you.
I will tell you later.
There's not much
to tell there.
I mean, he's basically
just been a competitor of mine.
And now, something
dangerous will appear.
Let me see. Uh.
Hi, guys. Hands up,
or I shoot you.
It's a genuine Pez shooter.
Now, Zorro. Oho.
I am fighting for the poor.
I am taking
the money from the rich.
I am Zorro and I--
so everybody
could recognize me,
I have Zorro
written on my stem.
Otherwise, somebody would say,
"I am a bank robber."
He knows everybody.
But, yeah, he's a--
Um...
He was in the right
place at the right time.
Steve happened in and kind of
got in that territory.
Um, and I don't know
if they're friends.
Can we go up there and film?
-No.
-No?
-Okay, well, why not?
-No.
Because this will--
in-- affect my business.
Oh, I have to...
...be silent
because I'm on a tape.
I have no business.
I never was
a businessman.
I always wanted to be
part of the collectors game.
He just
didn't want me to see.
If people knew
how much he actually had,
like, if I had opened
my mouth to the world
that he had one bazillion...
uh, the value
would have plummeted.
Then, all of a sudden,
he wasn't interested anymore.
Because he thought
he-- he could get it
for an apple and an egg.
But this was not so,
and so we parted our ways.
He did not even know
what he was doing.
I mean,
every dedicated collector
is crazy a little bit
in his mind.
Because otherwise
he would not be a collector.
Collecting is, um,
more or less a-- a disease.
I think
my symptoms of anxiety,
depression,
the highs, the lows,
where you-- you-- the minute
you've-- you get high,
the immediate thought...
is what you know is coming.
The low.
So, you don't even
get to enjoy it.
In my brain,
I decided that
what was going on--
well,
I just made something up.
I have a very good...
imagination, and...
my heart is in creation.
Hah!
It's actually straight.
By that time,
I had my master's in business.
And I'd always envisioned,
you know,
coming and working
for my dad, uh, anyways.
He had the momentum,
he had the pockets,
he had the mechanism in place.
We had six employees,
Josh was on the team.
And I continued
my adventures as Pez Outlaw.
I enjoyed messing
with Scott McWhinnie.
He'd go
into boardrooms in Europe,
screaming and yelling
and calling everybody names.
Here he is,
some president
of an international
corporation.
-I am Pez USA! I am--
-And yet,
I'm the number one thing
on his mind?
Oh, my God,
I think I love you.
We could've, um, sued him.
Brought him to court.
The time, the money,
the frustration,
to sue this guy.
I have other ways I could
do it for a lot less money.
I doubt literally
that people were following me.
Yeah, the Shadow.
The Shadow was following him.
That's fun.
That's fun.
It ain't paranoid
if it turns out to be true.
Scott would call
his counterparts over in Europe
and discuss
these illegal dispensers
that Steve was importing
and selling,
and about having a stop put
to it, and the Europeans agreed
to hire a private investigator
to put an end to it.
I don't know who that was,
'cause they're private.
Did they find out anything?
It-- it seemed
like there was pieces
of the puzzle that
were hard to put together.
I mean, I have
my own personal theories...
that...
you know, I think
that maybe there was
some people with-- inside
the company at the time
that were doing things
they shouldn't have been doing.
Steve has told us that...
Gunther Leitner was actually
selling things
under the table to him.
No.
I mean,
my experience with Gunther,
he was always
an upstanding man.
Upstanding businessman.
Gunther was well-known
in the Pez organization
because he was in
charge of the factories.
You know, he was the--
the top guy, so...
that-- that would be
beneath him, to do that.
-Dog, come here.
David Welch?
Do you know that name?
Steve Glew
became so notorious...
that even over there,
they had pictures
of Steve Glew in the factory.
And Pez even decided,
let's put video cameras
here-- there-- there,
24/7 on the lines,
so if somebody came in at night
or whatever, we can see them.
It was definitely
a cat and mouse game
between McWhinnie and I.
-I was a threat.
So, yes,
there were meetings a-- amongst
myself and Scott and other
people within the company.
But he was passionate
about it.
And-- and passionate
that, you know,
that he wanted 'em stopped.
I had to be very careful.
Very careful.
Where I went,
how much exposure
I gave myself.
They just knew who I was.
Everybody knew who I was.
On one of the last trips
to Europe...
it's like visiting
this very special,
wonderful place.
And the door
to the factory offices
was wide open.
And Gunther...
...Gunther
happened to be there.
And he came running
out of the offices
into the parking lot,
and he just goes,
"You cannot be here!
You cannot be here!
I cannot be seen with you!
I don't know you!
I don't know you!"
After that,
I knew I was persona non grata.
And if I went near
the place--
I mean, poor Marcos saw me and,
you know, it's just,
big hearted wonderful Marcos,
who you love dearly.
Won't look at you,
won't say a word.
They were afraid of me
because I could get 'em fired.
Um, they were afraid
to lose their jobs.
Every one of 'em.
Even knowing me
or saying they liked me
could cost them
their job and their livelihood.
And eventually it did shut
their factories down.
Uh, Kolinska turned into a...
a ketchup factory, and soup.
Ormoz turned
into a dustpan factory.
And, uh,
I don't say it with a brag.
But I accept responsibility
for both being shut down
because of me.
It had nothing
to do with Steve Glew.
There wasn't
one decision made
regarding a factory that had
anything to do with Steve Glew.
Zero.
I could see
the writing on the wall.
I was headin'
down the tubes.
Scott McWhinnie was winning
at that point,
because when you make it
impossible for somebody
to buy the thing
that competes, you win.
Yeah,
it was deeply frustrating.
I got the hell
out of there and...
it was just sad.
Once I got home...
there really wasn't room
for old me anymore.
Kathy's hands
started twitching.
And, uh, the Parkinson's
started coming on.
I can't do that.
Not gonna do that.
Not doing that.
The whole story's about her.
I was busy.
Being what I call
Pez Outlaw,
and doing
what I needed to do
to earn what I thought
was being a man then.
But I knew
that I needed to be better.
It's okay, you'll be
all grown-up and spotted,
and we'll show
you these pictures.
As things became
more difficult for my mom...
he stepped up
to a new level of being
that I don't even think
the closest people,
you know, in our lives,
would've ever expected
to happen.
Um...
but that...
that's how much
he loves her.
My mom.
I used to think
I had to ride a horse...
to be the man
she could love.
She liked horses, so,
"Ooh, I gotta be a cowboy."
So, I tried to be a cow--
You ain't gotta be a cowboy.
Be useful. Be decent.
Be kind.
Tell her you love her.
I went out
and did this crazy thing
because this crazy thing
took care of my family.
But if I was gonna
continue with Pez,
I realized that
I had to take action.
We gotta find
other ways to do things.
And that is what led to...
the big decision.
Trying to find...
There we go.
After buying
all this product for so long,
i-- it finally occurred to me,
why don't I create my own?
Um, I had a lot of good ideas,
just like Marcos.
He's gonna hate me for this.
Steve was very creative.
He kept coming up with all
these different
interesting
color variations like, um,
crystal Pez
with see-through heads.
If the order was,
you know, large quantities,
anyone can get anything
directly from a factory.
I decided to create
my own designs.
I'd named 'em
the "Holiday Colors."
The half million-dollar order
was my attempt to come out
of the shadows,
and do business openly.
I was trying to go legit.
Yes, definitely
I was trying to go legit.
And not have to talk
in code.
And, uh, be able to say,
"Yes, this is my product."
I mortgaged my house.
I took out a line of credit.
-That got me 250 of it.
And then, believe it or not,
I had 250 cash.
You know,
we went from bringing it back
in, uh, duffle bags,
to importing it through
a broker in Grand Rapids.
And we were spending
huge amounts of money.
They created
all my product...
in the name that
it was going to, like, Taiwan.
And Taiwan packaging.
Rerouted it to me.
Legally. On paper, legally.
I laid out
the whole business plan, and...
I could afford to pay
just under five bucks
per to have them made.
And then sell 'em for 25
and be on a good profit margin.
And I'd been assured that
this was going to be
exclusive to me.
And I have faxes
of those assurances.
We were set.
Half a million dollars
was gonna turn into...
a minimum
of 2.5 million dollars.
And then Christmas time
rolls around,
and I was just so excited.
What is Christmas?
Christmas is for living
What is Christmas?
Christmas is for love
Christmas
is for taking dreams
And making
dreams come true...
Oh, my God.
Are you kiddin' me?
...everyone,
especially for you
Everything I wanted
was in front of me.
This is the stuff
people dream of.
Christmas is for everyone,
especially for you
The best thing in the world.
And Scott McWhinnie,
I'm not done yet.
We started selling
it at conventions,
I started
selling it at toy shows.
Everybody wanted his colors.
You know,
he had five different stems
of a yellow snowman
and of the red snowman.
You could only buy them
from Steve.
It was so different
than what Pez was putting out.
So, this is Pez's version
of the skull.
Right?
So, this is his variation.
You know, he did the black face
with the yellow eyes.
It just popped.
It looked cool.
Steve Glew had so many
color variations of things,
that I was in shock when I saw
those all out at one table.
They were
selling like a madman.
And it was more
than I could dream of.
To have my own product line
that I was proud of.
And I was,
I was extremely proud of it.
That was the year
that I did a million bucks.
It was magic.
Going legit had worked,
but it was the briefest
moment ever because,
oh, man,
did the shit hit the fan.
Steve and David Welch
and I were walking
from our rooms upstairs
down to the convention floor.
And we walked
through the door,
and the first thing we see
is this huge display.
I had a job to do,
and I executed the job.
And the job
was to help stop this.
This is what Pez did
with the Misfit.
This is how
they packaged it.
To them, it was misfit,
it was ugly.
The ones that Steve had done
were on Pez cards.
They were made
at the factory.
They were on the--
a stripe candy card.
But then when we walked
into the ballroom that day,
they were
on a completely different card,
and they were actually labeled
on that card as Misfits.
Scott came up
with the name Misfits
'cause they didn't fit into
the rest of the assortment.
The Misfits
were manufactured
as a way to put
him out of business.
Where he was selling them for,
say, 20, 25 dollars,
we're selling
them now for $1.99.
He sold for less
than I paid to have it made.
So, basically...
pulled the gas
right out of him.
Scott used the marketplace.
He used the market
to-- to kill him.
The Pez company decided
to put him out of business.
Steve and David
turned around
and they went back
to their room,
and they never came back
that day.
It was horrible.
It was just horrible.
They hurt him.
They hurt him financially,
really bad.
Yeah. Yeah.
A little--
a little satisfaction.
The man
was broken that day.
I dropped my prices,
pushed it out into the market
as cheap as I had to.
It didn't work.
Worthless.
I didn't realize
how devastating it was
to him,
though, initially.
This was right
around the time my wife
and I got married, and Steve
was supposed to drive up
from Michigan for our--
for our wedding.
And, uh, he just was a no-show,
and I didn't know why.
We lost contact after that,
and Steve stopped calling.
I think he-- I think
he stopped taking phone calls,
too, because of what--
of what happened to him.
That's when he went into his--
his period of seclusion.
Where he just, like,
dropped off of the,
uh, off of the map.
You know, he just
sort of went off the radar.
Which is exactly
what the plan was.
I lost all my money
and went
$250,000 in debt.
You know, you fight for--
to pay your bills.
You damn near lose your house
so many times it's tiresome.
Josh had to slowly let go
of all four of the employees,
including my son-in-law.
And his last job...
was he fired himself.
Yeah, I went through
some pretty bad years.
Financially and mentally.
But I think that...
the crash was
important to find me.
I had a decade
of what I call a primal scream.
Scott McWhinnie decided...
that he finally
had the way to kill me.
And he was right.
He did.
Okay.
After the crash,
the story was all I had left.
And that's when
I wrote my blog,
Pez Outlaw Diary.
You don't just
create a product.
You create a story.
When Steve
started writing his blogs...
nobody knew
any of that about him.
Steve feels
that this is his legacy now.
He wants people
to know what happened.
He wants
the story to be out.
It validates it.
It says, "Yes, this happened."
I think everyone
wants to be remembered in life.
They wanna make their mark.
And they wanna
get it right.
At least once.
Honest to God,
if it wasn't for Pez Outlaw,
nobody would remember
Scott McWhinnie.
He's a plot point
in my story.
If I can get this character
of Pez Outlaw...
deeply ingrained enough
into the history
of Pez, then...
that will be enough.
It's a good story.
It's a good story.
It was 20 years
before I saw Steve again.
And he swore he'd never go
to another convention.
I said, "Steve,
everybody wants to know
about you, Steve.
Everybody wants to hear
your story."
Nowadays,
I think that, you know,
with all the new collectors
coming into the hobby,
they-- they don't know
of the backstory.
They don't know-- they weren't
there when it happened, and...
For a guy like
me who wants to collect
everything Pez,
his history was--
was part of the influence
of-- of even why I collected.
Steve Glew
was a featured person
at the convention,
and he hadn't been
heard from for years.
And I mean,
there was many, many,
many people that
wanted his signature.
He definitely
has a great cult following.
He-- he was just this...
I don't know,
Pez God.
I mean, how--
how else do you say it?
I think everyone
wants someone just to say,
"I see
what happened to you
and it-- and it matters."
It's-- it's a huge thing
to find out
that you're not alone.
Everybody
wants their story told.
Everybody wants
to be remembered.
The story of Pez Outlaw
is an act out
of my mental issues.
Learning to cope
with anxiety, depression...
and...
the voices in your head,
so to speak.
And in some cases,
some of the things
that you have
are actually tools.
They are not burdens.
Honestly,
I think his story is good,
and it's fun,
but I think the human side
of Pez Outlaw
is way more valuable.
I can be who I am
and be miserable...
or I can be who I am...
and try
and find the good in it.
And if you're lucky,
like me,
you married your therapist.
She's been
everything to me.
Everything.
I hope you have success.
I wish-- I wish you-- because
you're very sympathetic man.
But I think
you picked the wrong topic.
That's my impression.
Let's see...
if you--
if you also have to take out
a mortgage for your house.
Then I-- I-- I--
I keep right.
You picked the wrong person.
Anyway.
Cheers, you guys.
Oh, ta-- tastes awful.
Oh, that's cold.
I always say to you,
"Are you mad?"
Doing a movie about Steve?
Okay.
In my-- you know,
in my eyes, you are--
you are making
a movie about a loser.
So, uh,
why are you doing that?
I met Steve Glew
about 20 or 25 years ago.
I did not even know
what Steve was-- was doing.
No one knew him.
No one knew where he came from.
No one that you asked had
any idea who the hell he was.
But everybody
wanted what he was selling.
I mean,
I was handling amounts of money
that I had dreamed of.
And doing a deal
for $500,000...
I had no idea that he had
made millions of dollars.
I remember reading
something and thinking,
is my dad a criminal?
I learned
to protect my space.
I saw people
follow me all the time.
I was paranoid
beyond belief.
When I'd get home,
and open that bag,
it was diamonds.
It was gold.
Pez.
I won the lottery.
It's like printin' money.
Listen, Steve
Got your loving, ha
Welcome
to the wonderful world of Pez.
Those colorful little
candy dispensers
many of us purchased
for pennies years ago.
Well,
pennies make dollars, folks.
You nearly
made me throw my life away
What-- what is that,
a Pez dispenser?
You want one?
You played a game
only you could win
Some Pez are quite rare.
And how much is this worth?
Between three
and four thousand dollars.
Your love
is like fool's gold
Just like a mirage, baby
And all
that I got from you
People inside
the Pez cell
think that this thing
has already peaked,
and it has not.
Fool's love,
oh yeah
Nothing but fool's love
oh yeah
Nothing but fool's love
That's good.
I've been waiting to tell
this story for 20 years.
When we moved out here,
we became back-to-earthers.
We had goats,
we had chickens, we had pigs,
we had a cow or two.
Yeah, you couldn't imagine
living anywhere else.
Right there.
It was where the grey barn was.
-Silver barn is.
-Yeah.
I wear three pair of socks,
and I keep a paper towel
with me at all times.
It just helps you cope.
My whole life,
I'd been poor.
Poor is when you don't have
enough money.
When your house payment's
only $125 a month.
Um, yeah,
we lived in a ratty old house
that snow came in,
till we wrapped it in plastic.
Literally,
a big sheet of plastic.
The expectations
in my life were
this guy
won't amount to nothin'.
He's a joke.
But I've always had
an inner person that...
that knew
there was more.
Uh,
that I could achieve more.
At that point
in our life, um,
we didn't have two pennies.
And if you did have
two pennies,
it was because you weren't
paying something else.
There was never excess money.
You used to make, like,
$11 an hour as a--
as a skilled tradesman
who knew his stuff.
My job
was mind-numbingly boring.
I worked
for almost 25 years
as a machinist
in a factory.
I would set the cut, and, uh,
while the cut was running,
I'd have
plenty of time to think.
And I'd think about,
uh, something better.
Tom Clancy
was his author of choice.
He's in books, submersing
himself in that story and--
and kind of living
that adventure.
Because he hated his job.
-Target acquired...
I mean,
I suffered through it.
Don't get me wrong.
But I always wanted out.
I always was waiting,
every minute of every day,
to figure anything out
that would get me
the hell out of there.
Yeah,
I was pretty miserable,
until I found cereal boxes.
And I just
really loved them.
I'm a cereal box guy.
Always have been.
Being compulsive obsessive,
it's not the box,
it's the stack.
There's a sense
of joy when you find
something you hold special.
There it is.
The screwier a box is,
the better it is.
I love cereal boxes.
They're just fun.
Cap'n Crunch.
And they're a part
of my childhood.
We were the generation
that ate the sweet cereal.
And I eat
the sweet cereal still.
Steve, uh,
was never shy about things.
He'd be running
up and down the aisles, like,
"Oh,
look at this box variation.
Look at this,
or look at that."
And he was very
passionate about what he did.
Steve figured out
a way of working the system
of mail order premiums.
Like, send ten box tops
for this free craft radio.
Frisbees,
sports item, cars.
I was getting
all kinds of stuff.
I learned to take
those out and sell 'em,
and it was generating
revenue back into the family.
And it was thousands
and thousands of these items.
He totally
skewed their system, and--
and he did it often enough
that they actually changed
corporate policy about--
about premium redemption.
You know
that little disclaimer?
They say "one per household."
That's me. I did that.
I mean, it--
it was the first
effort of
"push it till it breaks."
We started
going to toy shows,
and I was yankin'
down 300 bucks a show.
Thank you. One dollar.
Thank you. Just one.
After they closed
the window on cereal premiums,
it seemed
like the end of the road.
But I had enough product
for one last toy show.
That's when everything changed.
Everything.
It was very,
uh, film noire.
I remember
the moment completely.
Pez.
Oh, my God, oh, my God,
I want one of them,
I want one of them.
Oh, my God.
I could sell these and do
really, really well.
Toy world is full of people.
They go, "Shh, shh,
don't tell anybody."
Where did you get those?
Kolinska.
It was--
it was haunting.
'Cause it's like "Rosebud"
from, uh, Citizen Kane.
-Rosebud.
And she leaned over
and told me,
"You want the good stuff?
You gotta go to Kolinska."
It was like the temptation
of the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow.
The collectors loved...
things that weren't available
to the open market.
Things
that you couldn't go down
to your grocery store
and pick up.
They wanted
what was available in Europe.
And so I was like, "Dad,
let's see what we can get,
you know,
right from the factory."
I don't go places.
I mean, Europe--
Europe is this thing
that rich people
only do, and...
not something in my world.
Welcome aboard.
Welcome aboard the spacious...
I was about 20 years old.
I had never
been out of the country.
But there was no way
I was gonna just
let that dream die anyway.
I kind of took
the reins
and contacted a--
a local travel agent.
This needs to happen
in order to take
that next step.
How bad
do you want that next step?
A new concept
in air transportation.
I don't know.
I don't know, yeah, okay.
Let's go.
-He got me a passport.
Next thing you know,
we had tickets.
Next thing you know,
we're on a plane.
Well, I heard that
he was making a trip to Europe,
and I thought he was insane.
He didn't speak
any foreign language.
There was no internet,
he had no contact people
on the ground,
he was just some hillbilly
from Michigan
who got on a plane...
and then just
landed somewhere.
You know,
the state of Europe
was vastly different
back then than it is today.
The Berlin wall
hadn't been down very long.
The wall has
suddenly become irrelevant.
Something, as you can see,
almost to party on.
How do you measure
such an astonishing
moment in history?
He was operating
out of this capitalist scheme,
but he had no idea
what he was doing.
But, you know,
he has that,
like,
magical little troll quality.
When you're doing this,
and you're fully invested,
it's either win or lose.
Live or die, you know?
So we always had
everything on the line.
We had to take out a loan
from our credit union
to make
this very first trip happen.
Failure wasn't an option.
We had to find the factory.
But here you are,
you know, these small-town guys
going out into the world,
you know?
It's-- it's the big
adventure of a lifetime.
At this time,
the conflict and genocide
in Croatia was going on.
And we were right
on the southern border.
So, we were driving around,
you know,
trying to go off from a map,
but at one o'clock
in the morning, in the dark,
where you're not seeing every
sign or anything like that.
And we got hopelessly lost.
We screwed up.
We were on an old
dirt road somewhere,
and there was a chain
across the road.
And it just basically
said, "Zagreb - X miles."
We were out
in the middle of nowhere,
looking in the dark
for any pops on the horizon.
Well.
-I don't know why...
but Kathy's always
believed in me.
We met at age 18.
Kathy was one
of the flower children,
uh, the beautiful people.
I was just a guy.
Not worth a hill of beans.
And yet, she sees the guy
that's-- that's there.
The potential.
The minute I saw her,
I knew she was it.
Completely.
And we've been together
every day since.
Kathy allows me my dreams.
Until I get too far off path,
then she reins me back in.
She knows I get dangerous,
and careless...
occasionally.
But she supported me 100%
on the--
the trip to Europe.
I thought we were dead.
But thank God I had Josh.
Thank God.
-I mean-- .
I truly began
to appreciate him.
Our first trip to Europe
for Joshua and me was like
our graduation from
childhood to manhood.
I did lean on him to be able
to emotionally do this.
The next day
we were supposed to be finding
the factory, and still
we had no idea where it was.
And then, I see it.
It's printed, the address
is printed right on here.
It's right there, and
you're just, like, holy crap.
I'm-- I'm amazed
how an American
is able to get
into the factories.
We really get a long ways
by playing up "dumb American."
"Came here for Pez?
Dumb American."
You know what I mean?
I couldn't make
out any sense of this.
Uh, I don't want
to insult Steve now,
because appearance-wise,
what is it-- like, a homeless.
Yeah.
Actually, he looks like a poor,
homeless guy.
I got in.
Looking
disheveled and crazy
has always worked for me.
Everybody
underestimates you.
And that's when I met Marcos.
And what he showed me,
it was overwhelming.
It was exactly like
Willy Wonka
& the Chocolate Factory.
We had got
our golden ticket...
and we were in there
to buy our heart's desire.
I saw so much wonderful Pez.
This is the stuff
people dream of.
It was,
like, you hit the lottery.
-It was unreal.
Marcos's job was design.
We had made a friend.
A soulmate.
That truly appreciates
the artistic talent,
the vision.
I-- I got what he was saying
and how much he loved it.
It was stuff that just
wasn't sold in the U.S.
Pez USA rejected damn near
everything Marcos would do.
My name is Bud Damberg,
and I'm the former
marketing manager for Pez.
And I was there
for about 15 years.
I love working
in the candy industry.
It's one of the sweetest
industries around.
Literally.
Back in the 1990s,
Pez USA
and Pez International
out of Austria,
operated
very independently.
Pez International
had distribution
throughout
the entire world.
But not the United States.
Because
of Pez USA's agreement
with the parent company
in Austria,
they have 100% control
of everything Pez-related
in the United States.
And the, uh,
president and CEO
of Pez USA
was Scott McWhinnie.
Also very fondly known
as the "Pezident."
He was the ultimate
decision-maker.
He ran a very tight
and very lean ship.
"I love Pez" is a very common,
uh, statement.
However, the kids of today
know nothing about nostalgia.
They love Pez
for what it is.
The people at Pez USA
decided what came
into the US and what didn't.
If Scott didn't want something
sold in the United States,
it wasn't sold
in the United States.
Europe would bust it's butt
and come up with a great idea,
or get some
really good licenses,
and Pez USA
would say no.
No, stupid, we hate it, no,
no, you're ignorant,
we hate it.
But everything
unique and creative
that they came up with,
I could not get enough of.
And that endeared us to them.
They loved us.
Just loved us.
These people were hungry
for American dollars.
They wanted to work with us.
They wanted to do business
with us and everything.
I was looking at the,
uh, cabinet, in the office,
and they had a display
in there of--
of dispensers that
hadn't even hit the market.
Um, one of them
was the Bubble Boy dispenser.
Our jaws
just dropped to the floor.
Uh, especially once, uh,
he told us
the stories behind 'em.
Bubble Man was a reject
from an idea to sell gum.
Now, I had heard
of the Bubble Boy dispenser.
He wasn't going to
be released.
Well, he gave me one
from the cabinet.
I mean, that was--
that was the coolest thing.
He also gave me a purple Dino
and a yellow Dino.
Stuff that should
never have been out there,
but it existed.
It was just
really wonderful Pez.
At that point, I was home free.
I had my product.
All of the obstacles
had been hurdled.
-All except one.
Coming back through US
customs was the hard part.
Here at Homeland
Security Investigations,
we investigate
transnational crime.
Uh, basically
any crime that touches,
uh,
the United States border.
Uh, either inbound
or outbound.
It runs across the spectrum.
It could be, uh, contraband,
in that-- in the--
in the form
of narcotics, money,
body parts, human heads,
of course, arms.
You know, various animals.
Unfortunately, sometimes
those animals don't make it,
but other times they do,
and all of a sudden
you're opening a,
you know, a suitcase,
and there's birds in there
or something else.
It can be entertaining.
Uh, for a serious crime,
you could be looking
at decades in jail.
He just had
great big duffle bags
full of thousands and thousands
of Pez, and I don't know what
the customs people thought,
or maybe they didn't even
really look at them.
They must not have,
or he wouldn't have been able
to bring 'em in without
all the proper paperwork.
It was something I learned.
You had to be methodical
about how you went about it.
I had to appear to be...
a fool.
Disheveled. Crazy.
So, I'd stay awake for 24
hours prior to hitting customs.
Well, that's--
that's exactly
what you don't wanna do.
Uh, you know, the more odd
and the more you stick out,
if you're disheveled
and don't sleep
and you're acting a little,
uh, kind of out of sorts.
If anything, that's gonna
attract more attention,
and it certainly
would for me.
Oh,
I knew it would work.
Um, doing crazy things
that made no sense.
-Because then I'm harmless.
-You should be honest.
You're gonna have to declare
what you're coming in with.
You needed to be
as honest as you could,
without being
completely honest.
Yes,
I was definitely doing
something technically illegal.
Did I care? Nah.
Not in the slightest.
Not in the slightest.
Um, the items that--
that Steve Glew
was bringing over
were grey market items.
Um, which were items
that were not manufactured
for United States market.
They were legitimate
Pez dispensers,
but he did not have
the licensing rights
to bring them in.
Pez Candy Inc.
in the United States
is the only licensed entity
to sell them in this country.
Let me
think about that one.
A snafu made
everything I did possible.
There was one simple,
little thing
that would have shut
me down.
Pez USA contacting
international customs
and registering...
that they were
the sole importers
of Pez products
from Europe.
My name's Julie Hilario,
I'm a special agent
with Homeland
Security Investigations.
Oftentimes,
we find that trademark owners
may not be knowledgeable
that they need
to record their trademark
with U.S. Customs
and Border Protection
for enforcement
at the border.
One of the customs
agents that I dealt with,
he said, "uh, you know,
uh, well, you know,
you're not the importer
for this."
And he got his sheet out,
and he was lookin',
and he was lookin',
and he was lookin'.
He said, "Oh, my God."
Pez USA, I did check,
and their trademark
is not recorded
with Customs
and Border Protection.
Yeah,
I wasn't aware of that.
I mean,
I know that, um...
they had some very expensive
lawyers in New York
that spent a lot of time
and money.
They were supposed to make
sure that it was registered
in all
the classes of trade.
They have a US patent
and trademark with USPTO,
um, but they didn't take
the second step of actually
recording their trademark
with Customs
and Border Protection
for enforcement
at the border.
And he goes,
"if they're that stupid...
go ahead."
When we got back from
Europe after the first trip,
going back to work sucked,
big time.
It was like being in prison.
But not having any money,
I had to
stick it out for a while.
I guess my dad, uh,
had done some talking
to, you know, the--
the Pez dealers,
and one of them heard that--
that I had that Bubble Boy.
Buyers appeared...
through word of mouth.
The phone chain
was people talking to people
that talking to people.
Honestly,
I was flabbergasted
at the prices
that people would pay.
They're like, you know,
I'll buy that Bubble Boy
from you.
-$1,250.
I was like, what?
I mean,
it was a gift from Marcos,
so we didn't have the intention
at all of selling it.
Here I am,
a college student
paying for my own tuition
and everything...
being offered 1,250 bucks
for a piece of plastic
that was given to me for free.
The last thing
in the world I wanted to do
was sell Bubble Boy.
But, hey, man, I gotta pay
some bills.
Money talks.
Money talks.
The collectors
bought pretty much
everything I had,
overnight.
I paid 27 cents each.
300 bucks.
Without those
early sales, I never
would have been able
to quit my job.
One of my last
memories in the shop
was Enya
playing on the radio.
And it was just floating.
Through the whole shop.
Her voice. And echoing.
Let me sail, let me sail
let the Orinoco flow
Her music was,
like, a place I wanted to be.
And traveling to Europe,
and my dreams,
married perfectly well
with that.
When I left the shop
for the last time, I went from,
uh, working 79-hour work
weeks to doing my own thing.
I went to selling toys
and Pez full-time.
Sail away,
sail away, sail away
Sail away,
sail away, sail away
Sail away,
sail away, sail away
At that time, the hobby
was kind of this small,
closed group,
and we all knew each other.
And Steve was like this,
you know...
magical troll who just
sprung forth out of nowhere.
But then he found out
about the Pez community
and started
talking to all of us.
The Pez community
was a smallish community
that taught
me everything I-- I learned.
Welcome to the wonderful
world of Pez collecting.
You're hooked now.
I mean, I like to drink
scotch, I like fast cars.
But there-- there's nothing
that compares with the feeling
you get when you get
a great find in Pez.
So, this is my Pez room.
So, I've
been collecting about 20 years.
Your Thors, you're gonna be--
$200-300 range.
This Pony
would probably go about 1300.
I have 53
covered grandstands.
They each hold 80 dispensers.
I have everything filled up.
Every empty space
is filled up with junk.
So, if you want to
give me a title,
you can say to me I am
a crazy collector.
I will say
that I've spent
$2,500
for one dispenser.
The most I ever paid
for Pez was $11,000.
-For one?
-One.
And so,
in the Pez world,
the person who brought
the most new product
to us was Steve Glew.
With the prices
people were paying,
Josh and me were itching
to go back
and get more product.
And I had heard
the real mother lode...
was Hungary.
And Gunther was a person
of importance there.
He had been a person
within the upper echelon
at Pez corporation
in Austria, in Linz.
And he had been tasked
with the role
of opening up the East.
He had power.
He had power.
First time I met him, I believe
it was on our second
trip to Europe.
I mean, like,
I walk in the door
and I ask about Pez,
and Gunther Leitner
came out in the most God-awful
plaid sports jacket
I have ever seen in my life.
He comes up to me
at the counter and he said,
"I hear you're here
huntin' for Pez, eh?"
And I goes,
"Yeah, I'm huntin' for it."
He says, "Yeah,
I know, I know, I know."
And he says, "Don't you--
don't you know who I am?"
No,
I have no idea
who you are and I don't really
give a damn.
Gunther took a Post-it,
just a stupid little Post-it.
Wrote a few words,
signed his name.
He said, "Okay, take this.
Go over there."
And I handed the post-it
to the, uh,
the guard at the gate.
I mean, he might as well
have hopped to and clicked
his heels
and opened up the gate.
I mean, really.
That little Post-it.
Everybody did
anything we ask.
People walked up to me,
and every time
I showed it to 'em,
"Yep, yep. Yep, yep.
Over here. Over here."
Next thing I know,
they got a truck...
for me to load.
And take everything
off to the airport.
And he truly
was that powerful.
Just wished
I could have taken it all.
I really wish I could've,
but I couldn't.
I only had 4,000 bucks
maybe in my pocket, so, I mean,
it was very disappointing
for Gunther, you know?
Gunther didn't give
the money to Pez.
He kept it.
Oh, and the last thing he says
as he's getting out of the car.
He leans back in and he goes,
"I don't know you.
I don't know you."
Oh, my God.
So, now we're finding out
all these illegal dispensers
are all over the place.
Word came
out that somebody took
some pre-production
samples and were selling those.
Pre-production samples,
illegal, on the black market.
And apparently somebody
would go over to Europe
and meet up with some of the,
um, workers who worked
in the factories
after hours
and pay 'em a few
hundred U.S. dollars,
and before
you know it you had all these
pre-production
samples disappear.
Well, my
reaction was...
isn't anybody
watching the factory?
It's not like
when you go on a vacation
you bring
a dozen back with you.
This guy was bringing thousands
and thousands of them over.
Scott was furious
that this was happening.
So,
his mission was to find out
who was doing this.
I was a police
officer for 20 years,
and I started my newsletter,
Pez Collectors News, in 1995.
As a collector,
the idea of the newsletter
was to get the word out there
to other collectors and just,
what's out there,
and what's real,
and is-- is there any
fakes going around.
In a lot of senses,
Richie was the number one spy
for, uh, Pez USA
No, I wasn't a spy.
People thought
I was the Pez police, but no,
I really
didn't tell them anything.
Did he report back to Scott?
Yes.
Not a doubt in my brain.
Scott McWhinnie
absolutely had a reputation
for kind of, "the Pez
company hates collectors."
And he's not
a particularly likeable guy.
He's a little pompous,
he's a little full of himself,
he's a little insecure.
I was told by many people
that-- that Scott McWhinnie
had spies in the Pez world.
That anything we would say
would get back to him.
Scott was very aware
of the growing
collectors market.
He was also very well-aware
of the illegal activity
going on
in the collectors market.
So, one
of the first things we did
to get information
out to them,
was we invited Richie Belyski
up to the factory.
He had a tour of the factory,
um, he interviewed Scott
for an hour or two,
and we went to lunch.
It was interesting.
It was the first time
I was ever in there,
and they don't give
tours to people.
Um, yeah.
Yeah, he did.
He was sort of a little bit
like a PR agency in a way.
That one's worth about $700.
There's another sticker
on the back.
An original sticker.
Wow, that's terrific.
Well, thank you, Richard.
We appreciate it.
We all love Pez,
and now we know why.
I remember
when I went to the Pez factory,
Scott McWhinnie pulled
one out of his pocket.
He goes,
"Hey, you see this dispenser?
-You know what this is?"
-And I said yeah.
And he says, "Yeah,
I'm gonna be sellin' it soon."
Bubble Man was designed
by Scott McWhinnie.
He loved it.
Absolutely,
he was passionate about it.
That was his.
He had the character
developed and designed.
Even went as far as having
the name, um, registered.
Um,
and it was a project that Scott
pretty much
worked on himself.
And I-- I think he--
he cared very much about it.
However,
that project was put on hold.
And when Scott heard
that people were bringing
Bubble Man over into
the United States
and selling them for an obscene
amount of money,
that burned him up.
Most expensive one here
right now is this guy here.
And he's not old.
He's from 1992.
He's called
the Bubble Gum Man.
He's a prototype.
Scott McWhinnie was watching,
um, some news reel
of a Pez convention,
and he saw the Bubble Man.
Some girl had
one for sale.
There's only about
20 known in the whole world.
It was something they designed
that they didn't have to
pay licensing for.
Manufactured a few,
and looked at it and said,
"what were we thinking
when we made this?"
-And that was the end of that.
-It's butt ugly.
- That's right.
And Scott McWhinnie
had a fit.
And right now
his asking price
is $1200.
Wow, $1200 for a Pez?
That's amazing.
At this point, when Scott
became aware of the-- the abuse
that was going,
the best way of killing that
was to take those dispensers
and put them into the direct
marketing program, and sell
it to all the collectors
at a reasonable price.
Okay,
this is Bubble Man.
It's worth nothing.
Everybody shouted,
"Bubble Man! Bubble Man!"
These are absolutely rare.
They will not produce it.
And then it--
then they produced it.
Maybe actually on purpose
to-- to-- to--
to damage the collector scene.
The reason that anybody
was willing to pay 1200
to begin with was because,
at the time,
they thought that
there were less than ten.
I gotta tell you,
when we put Bubble Man
out there,
it was insane
the amount of orders we got.
People want 'em, you know,
for a $1.99.
You got
a $1200 dispenser.
So, it was like--
They've sold more
Bubble Boy than any--
probably any
damn dispenser ever,
and it came out
of Scott being so mad
that
he couldn't see straight,
and ordering
the product to stomp on us.
You deal with the devil.
And in all honesty,
Scott McWhinnie
was my arch-nemesis.
Oh, I hated his guts.
And that's when I decided
to become the Pez Outlaw.
I needed a vessel.
A person.
I needed to build him.
So that I can draw him in
when I need him.
I definitely viewed the whole
thing as an adventure.
The money,
the travel, the quest.
My goal from that point on
was for accumulation.
I needed the product
so I could beat Scott.
Every sale I could take away
from Scott McWhinnie
was a nail in his coffin.
As the Pez Outlaw,
ain't nothing stops me.
I mean,
for good or ill.
I will win.
I will win.
In the end.
At that point,
we were going to Europe
about every three
or four weeks.
And going to shows
in between that.
Sometimes
even landing at shows
and going directly to them.
We had so much cash
a-- after some of these
conventions that,
you know, you-- you did
feel like a rock star.
I had so much money
that I was absolutely drunk.
And ta-da,
we have a basement.
But I mean,
we bought a ton of things.
We bought a new house.
Well, guess what?
Here's my house in the ditch.
My mom really was able
to have the freedom with them
coming into a little more money
to really pursue
what she wanted to do.
She went to schooling
to become
a therapeutic
horseback riding instructor.
Steve had become
nouveau riche at this point.
His Pez market was booming.
He was making tons of money,
which he never had before.
Hey, that's
how I was doing things.
I just-- talk to my bank.
Do this, do that.
He was so generous
with his money,
he paid his family
and all his helpers well.
I benefitted,
'cause I got to go to college
without having to pay
for any of it.
It was magic.
The whole time was magic.
I won the lottery.
Pez Outlaw was
so dominant in the marketplace
that Scott McWhinnie,
the Pezident...
He was losing.
They advertised nothing.
I had two full-page ads
in one publication,
a full-page ad
in another publication...
every month.
He was blatantly
advertising these things.
There's the easiest way
to find out.
Steve was his own worst enemy.
You know, put a billboard up,
here I am, guys.
Come after me.
So, it's like--
Well, you gotta remember,
at the end of the day,
Pez is a brand.
It's a registered brand.
You go over there
on vacation, you bring back,
you know,
a dozen, yourself.
You can sell them online.
Nobody cares about that.
When you start selling
thousands of 'em,
and you're running
full-page ads...
now you become a business.
Scott took it
very seriously,
"I'm gonna protect my product,
I'm gonna protect my brand.
They're not gonna get
away with that any longer.
After I couldn't
go with him anymore,
um, I wasn't scared for him,
but I definitely was surprised,
uh, that, you know,
he was able to-- to go alone.
It was very nerve-wracking
headin' off on my own.
I think his mental health,
uh, state of mind,
ex-drug persona, has to--
it-- it can't not
play into paranoias.
I learned
to protect my space.
Getting off the
highway, taking back roads.
Totally paranoid.
I saw people
following me all the time.
If I thought there was somebody
behind me, man, I'd ditch 'em.
He had things
to be paranoid about.
So, I would imagine that
he didn't know who to trust.
Coming
from the Midwest,
I had never seen officials
with machine guns.
So, every border crossing
was a threat.
Not just the people
with machine guns...
...but the biggest nightmare
would be losing the load.
That mattered.
Every bag
out on to the blacktop.
Every bag open.
Every bag dumped.
Could I have possibly
gotten arrested?
Yes.
Would traps have been laid?
Yes.
Sometimes, all he really wanted
was a bribe.
I learned, if something
happens of that nature...
Hand out some money,
you're done.
Being that close to illegal,
maybe illegal.
Of course you're paranoid.
Scott never,
ever went to Europe
to go chase down Steve.
So, there--
there's none of this,
you know, Scott
in a dark suit, you know,
trying-- you know,
hiding behind corners.
You know,
"I got you, Glew."
You know?
There wasn't
any of that drama.
None of that ever existed.
Would Scott McWhinnie
have tried
to have people follow me?
Yeah, he would've done that.
In a heartbeat.
But if they were following me,
I did shake 'em.
Steve Glew
was standing here.
This was the place-- the place
Steve Glew was waiting for me.
I just decided
to go visit Johann.
I don't know
how I had his address,
where I got it,
I have no idea, but I did.
He came to me
without appointment.
He just was standing
in front of my door.
All of a sudden,
a guy pulls up on a, uh...
mo-- motorbike.
And I said, "You are lucky,
I am Johann Patek."
And he said,
"Oh, I am Steve Glew
from America
and I want to buy Pez."
I just wanted to buy Pez.
My answer was,
"Oh, yes, let's do."
Let's do some deals
and I will show you something.
I ask him to wait outside,
and then I went in
and brought him some Pez.
I had to sit on the curb
outside this house he owned.
While he went in
and got the product.
Johann Patek. Yes.
I do not know very much
about him that I would tell.
It's all very basic here.
Johann
is a collector in Austria.
You know,
is this off the record?
-Oh, okay.
"What's in there?"
I don't tell you.
I will tell you later.
There's not much
to tell there.
I mean, he's basically
just been a competitor of mine.
And now, something
dangerous will appear.
Let me see. Uh.
Hi, guys. Hands up,
or I shoot you.
It's a genuine Pez shooter.
Now, Zorro. Oho.
I am fighting for the poor.
I am taking
the money from the rich.
I am Zorro and I--
so everybody
could recognize me,
I have Zorro
written on my stem.
Otherwise, somebody would say,
"I am a bank robber."
He knows everybody.
But, yeah, he's a--
Um...
He was in the right
place at the right time.
Steve happened in and kind of
got in that territory.
Um, and I don't know
if they're friends.
Can we go up there and film?
-No.
-No?
-Okay, well, why not?
-No.
Because this will--
in-- affect my business.
Oh, I have to...
...be silent
because I'm on a tape.
I have no business.
I never was
a businessman.
I always wanted to be
part of the collectors game.
He just
didn't want me to see.
If people knew
how much he actually had,
like, if I had opened
my mouth to the world
that he had one bazillion...
uh, the value
would have plummeted.
Then, all of a sudden,
he wasn't interested anymore.
Because he thought
he-- he could get it
for an apple and an egg.
But this was not so,
and so we parted our ways.
He did not even know
what he was doing.
I mean,
every dedicated collector
is crazy a little bit
in his mind.
Because otherwise
he would not be a collector.
Collecting is, um,
more or less a-- a disease.
I think
my symptoms of anxiety,
depression,
the highs, the lows,
where you-- you-- the minute
you've-- you get high,
the immediate thought...
is what you know is coming.
The low.
So, you don't even
get to enjoy it.
In my brain,
I decided that
what was going on--
well,
I just made something up.
I have a very good...
imagination, and...
my heart is in creation.
Hah!
It's actually straight.
By that time,
I had my master's in business.
And I'd always envisioned,
you know,
coming and working
for my dad, uh, anyways.
He had the momentum,
he had the pockets,
he had the mechanism in place.
We had six employees,
Josh was on the team.
And I continued
my adventures as Pez Outlaw.
I enjoyed messing
with Scott McWhinnie.
He'd go
into boardrooms in Europe,
screaming and yelling
and calling everybody names.
Here he is,
some president
of an international
corporation.
-I am Pez USA! I am--
-And yet,
I'm the number one thing
on his mind?
Oh, my God,
I think I love you.
We could've, um, sued him.
Brought him to court.
The time, the money,
the frustration,
to sue this guy.
I have other ways I could
do it for a lot less money.
I doubt literally
that people were following me.
Yeah, the Shadow.
The Shadow was following him.
That's fun.
That's fun.
It ain't paranoid
if it turns out to be true.
Scott would call
his counterparts over in Europe
and discuss
these illegal dispensers
that Steve was importing
and selling,
and about having a stop put
to it, and the Europeans agreed
to hire a private investigator
to put an end to it.
I don't know who that was,
'cause they're private.
Did they find out anything?
It-- it seemed
like there was pieces
of the puzzle that
were hard to put together.
I mean, I have
my own personal theories...
that...
you know, I think
that maybe there was
some people with-- inside
the company at the time
that were doing things
they shouldn't have been doing.
Steve has told us that...
Gunther Leitner was actually
selling things
under the table to him.
No.
I mean,
my experience with Gunther,
he was always
an upstanding man.
Upstanding businessman.
Gunther was well-known
in the Pez organization
because he was in
charge of the factories.
You know, he was the--
the top guy, so...
that-- that would be
beneath him, to do that.
-Dog, come here.
David Welch?
Do you know that name?
Steve Glew
became so notorious...
that even over there,
they had pictures
of Steve Glew in the factory.
And Pez even decided,
let's put video cameras
here-- there-- there,
24/7 on the lines,
so if somebody came in at night
or whatever, we can see them.
It was definitely
a cat and mouse game
between McWhinnie and I.
-I was a threat.
So, yes,
there were meetings a-- amongst
myself and Scott and other
people within the company.
But he was passionate
about it.
And-- and passionate
that, you know,
that he wanted 'em stopped.
I had to be very careful.
Very careful.
Where I went,
how much exposure
I gave myself.
They just knew who I was.
Everybody knew who I was.
On one of the last trips
to Europe...
it's like visiting
this very special,
wonderful place.
And the door
to the factory offices
was wide open.
And Gunther...
...Gunther
happened to be there.
And he came running
out of the offices
into the parking lot,
and he just goes,
"You cannot be here!
You cannot be here!
I cannot be seen with you!
I don't know you!
I don't know you!"
After that,
I knew I was persona non grata.
And if I went near
the place--
I mean, poor Marcos saw me and,
you know, it's just,
big hearted wonderful Marcos,
who you love dearly.
Won't look at you,
won't say a word.
They were afraid of me
because I could get 'em fired.
Um, they were afraid
to lose their jobs.
Every one of 'em.
Even knowing me
or saying they liked me
could cost them
their job and their livelihood.
And eventually it did shut
their factories down.
Uh, Kolinska turned into a...
a ketchup factory, and soup.
Ormoz turned
into a dustpan factory.
And, uh,
I don't say it with a brag.
But I accept responsibility
for both being shut down
because of me.
It had nothing
to do with Steve Glew.
There wasn't
one decision made
regarding a factory that had
anything to do with Steve Glew.
Zero.
I could see
the writing on the wall.
I was headin'
down the tubes.
Scott McWhinnie was winning
at that point,
because when you make it
impossible for somebody
to buy the thing
that competes, you win.
Yeah,
it was deeply frustrating.
I got the hell
out of there and...
it was just sad.
Once I got home...
there really wasn't room
for old me anymore.
Kathy's hands
started twitching.
And, uh, the Parkinson's
started coming on.
I can't do that.
Not gonna do that.
Not doing that.
The whole story's about her.
I was busy.
Being what I call
Pez Outlaw,
and doing
what I needed to do
to earn what I thought
was being a man then.
But I knew
that I needed to be better.
It's okay, you'll be
all grown-up and spotted,
and we'll show
you these pictures.
As things became
more difficult for my mom...
he stepped up
to a new level of being
that I don't even think
the closest people,
you know, in our lives,
would've ever expected
to happen.
Um...
but that...
that's how much
he loves her.
My mom.
I used to think
I had to ride a horse...
to be the man
she could love.
She liked horses, so,
"Ooh, I gotta be a cowboy."
So, I tried to be a cow--
You ain't gotta be a cowboy.
Be useful. Be decent.
Be kind.
Tell her you love her.
I went out
and did this crazy thing
because this crazy thing
took care of my family.
But if I was gonna
continue with Pez,
I realized that
I had to take action.
We gotta find
other ways to do things.
And that is what led to...
the big decision.
Trying to find...
There we go.
After buying
all this product for so long,
i-- it finally occurred to me,
why don't I create my own?
Um, I had a lot of good ideas,
just like Marcos.
He's gonna hate me for this.
Steve was very creative.
He kept coming up with all
these different
interesting
color variations like, um,
crystal Pez
with see-through heads.
If the order was,
you know, large quantities,
anyone can get anything
directly from a factory.
I decided to create
my own designs.
I'd named 'em
the "Holiday Colors."
The half million-dollar order
was my attempt to come out
of the shadows,
and do business openly.
I was trying to go legit.
Yes, definitely
I was trying to go legit.
And not have to talk
in code.
And, uh, be able to say,
"Yes, this is my product."
I mortgaged my house.
I took out a line of credit.
-That got me 250 of it.
And then, believe it or not,
I had 250 cash.
You know,
we went from bringing it back
in, uh, duffle bags,
to importing it through
a broker in Grand Rapids.
And we were spending
huge amounts of money.
They created
all my product...
in the name that
it was going to, like, Taiwan.
And Taiwan packaging.
Rerouted it to me.
Legally. On paper, legally.
I laid out
the whole business plan, and...
I could afford to pay
just under five bucks
per to have them made.
And then sell 'em for 25
and be on a good profit margin.
And I'd been assured that
this was going to be
exclusive to me.
And I have faxes
of those assurances.
We were set.
Half a million dollars
was gonna turn into...
a minimum
of 2.5 million dollars.
And then Christmas time
rolls around,
and I was just so excited.
What is Christmas?
Christmas is for living
What is Christmas?
Christmas is for love
Christmas
is for taking dreams
And making
dreams come true...
Oh, my God.
Are you kiddin' me?
...everyone,
especially for you
Everything I wanted
was in front of me.
This is the stuff
people dream of.
Christmas is for everyone,
especially for you
The best thing in the world.
And Scott McWhinnie,
I'm not done yet.
We started selling
it at conventions,
I started
selling it at toy shows.
Everybody wanted his colors.
You know,
he had five different stems
of a yellow snowman
and of the red snowman.
You could only buy them
from Steve.
It was so different
than what Pez was putting out.
So, this is Pez's version
of the skull.
Right?
So, this is his variation.
You know, he did the black face
with the yellow eyes.
It just popped.
It looked cool.
Steve Glew had so many
color variations of things,
that I was in shock when I saw
those all out at one table.
They were
selling like a madman.
And it was more
than I could dream of.
To have my own product line
that I was proud of.
And I was,
I was extremely proud of it.
That was the year
that I did a million bucks.
It was magic.
Going legit had worked,
but it was the briefest
moment ever because,
oh, man,
did the shit hit the fan.
Steve and David Welch
and I were walking
from our rooms upstairs
down to the convention floor.
And we walked
through the door,
and the first thing we see
is this huge display.
I had a job to do,
and I executed the job.
And the job
was to help stop this.
This is what Pez did
with the Misfit.
This is how
they packaged it.
To them, it was misfit,
it was ugly.
The ones that Steve had done
were on Pez cards.
They were made
at the factory.
They were on the--
a stripe candy card.
But then when we walked
into the ballroom that day,
they were
on a completely different card,
and they were actually labeled
on that card as Misfits.
Scott came up
with the name Misfits
'cause they didn't fit into
the rest of the assortment.
The Misfits
were manufactured
as a way to put
him out of business.
Where he was selling them for,
say, 20, 25 dollars,
we're selling
them now for $1.99.
He sold for less
than I paid to have it made.
So, basically...
pulled the gas
right out of him.
Scott used the marketplace.
He used the market
to-- to kill him.
The Pez company decided
to put him out of business.
Steve and David
turned around
and they went back
to their room,
and they never came back
that day.
It was horrible.
It was just horrible.
They hurt him.
They hurt him financially,
really bad.
Yeah. Yeah.
A little--
a little satisfaction.
The man
was broken that day.
I dropped my prices,
pushed it out into the market
as cheap as I had to.
It didn't work.
Worthless.
I didn't realize
how devastating it was
to him,
though, initially.
This was right
around the time my wife
and I got married, and Steve
was supposed to drive up
from Michigan for our--
for our wedding.
And, uh, he just was a no-show,
and I didn't know why.
We lost contact after that,
and Steve stopped calling.
I think he-- I think
he stopped taking phone calls,
too, because of what--
of what happened to him.
That's when he went into his--
his period of seclusion.
Where he just, like,
dropped off of the,
uh, off of the map.
You know, he just
sort of went off the radar.
Which is exactly
what the plan was.
I lost all my money
and went
$250,000 in debt.
You know, you fight for--
to pay your bills.
You damn near lose your house
so many times it's tiresome.
Josh had to slowly let go
of all four of the employees,
including my son-in-law.
And his last job...
was he fired himself.
Yeah, I went through
some pretty bad years.
Financially and mentally.
But I think that...
the crash was
important to find me.
I had a decade
of what I call a primal scream.
Scott McWhinnie decided...
that he finally
had the way to kill me.
And he was right.
He did.
Okay.
After the crash,
the story was all I had left.
And that's when
I wrote my blog,
Pez Outlaw Diary.
You don't just
create a product.
You create a story.
When Steve
started writing his blogs...
nobody knew
any of that about him.
Steve feels
that this is his legacy now.
He wants people
to know what happened.
He wants
the story to be out.
It validates it.
It says, "Yes, this happened."
I think everyone
wants to be remembered in life.
They wanna make their mark.
And they wanna
get it right.
At least once.
Honest to God,
if it wasn't for Pez Outlaw,
nobody would remember
Scott McWhinnie.
He's a plot point
in my story.
If I can get this character
of Pez Outlaw...
deeply ingrained enough
into the history
of Pez, then...
that will be enough.
It's a good story.
It's a good story.
It was 20 years
before I saw Steve again.
And he swore he'd never go
to another convention.
I said, "Steve,
everybody wants to know
about you, Steve.
Everybody wants to hear
your story."
Nowadays,
I think that, you know,
with all the new collectors
coming into the hobby,
they-- they don't know
of the backstory.
They don't know-- they weren't
there when it happened, and...
For a guy like
me who wants to collect
everything Pez,
his history was--
was part of the influence
of-- of even why I collected.
Steve Glew
was a featured person
at the convention,
and he hadn't been
heard from for years.
And I mean,
there was many, many,
many people that
wanted his signature.
He definitely
has a great cult following.
He-- he was just this...
I don't know,
Pez God.
I mean, how--
how else do you say it?
I think everyone
wants someone just to say,
"I see
what happened to you
and it-- and it matters."
It's-- it's a huge thing
to find out
that you're not alone.
Everybody
wants their story told.
Everybody wants
to be remembered.
The story of Pez Outlaw
is an act out
of my mental issues.
Learning to cope
with anxiety, depression...
and...
the voices in your head,
so to speak.
And in some cases,
some of the things
that you have
are actually tools.
They are not burdens.
Honestly,
I think his story is good,
and it's fun,
but I think the human side
of Pez Outlaw
is way more valuable.
I can be who I am
and be miserable...
or I can be who I am...
and try
and find the good in it.
And if you're lucky,
like me,
you married your therapist.
She's been
everything to me.
Everything.
I hope you have success.
I wish-- I wish you-- because
you're very sympathetic man.
But I think
you picked the wrong topic.
That's my impression.
Let's see...
if you--
if you also have to take out
a mortgage for your house.
Then I-- I-- I--
I keep right.
You picked the wrong person.
Anyway.