The Pez Outlaw Trailer: Learn About The International Smuggling Of Plastic Candy Dispensers

"Wecome to the wonderful world of Pez collecting. You're hooked now..." or about to be, anyway, after you watch the trailer for "The Pez Outlaw."

Forget your new-fangled NFTs; rare and hard-to-find Pez candy dispensers are where it's at. They once prompted a man, machinist, and Michigander named Steve Glew to fly to Europe so he could stock up on factory prototypes from Pez International (a separate entity from Pez USA) and then smuggle them back through U.S. customs, taking advantage of their unregistered trademarks to sell them for top dollar. It was all well and good until Brew's exploits got him into trouble with the president — or "Pezident," as he was known, of the Pez Company — who started having this Pez pirate followed, as any reasonable Pezident would.

That's the story behind the "The Pez Outlaw," a new documentary from directors Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel that is coming to VOD in October. Our review of "The Pez Outlaw" calls it "a refreshingly low-stakes heist/caper flick, with cinematic re-enactments that have Steve Glew playing himself as he treks across the globe building his Pez empire." The movie premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year, and you can see the official trailer for it below.

Who knew there was such a lucrative black market for Pez dispensers, so much so that it could compel a woman in a "Got Pez?" shirt to pay $11,000 for one? Brew was an OCD collector, as was I in my teens and 20s, and his story takes me back to my days as an eBay PowerSeller, auctioning off old comics and toys, such as vintage "Star Wars" action figures, to middle-aged men in Florida. I could have made a killing on Pez dispensers, if only I'd had the foresight to grow an impressive beard, fly to a secret international Pez factory, and bring one or more duffel bags full of dispensers back into the Pez-crazy U.S.

"He was just some hillbilly from Michigan who got on a plane and then just landed somewhere." Aren't we all? Here's the synopsis for "The Pez Outlaw:"

This incredible fish-out-of-water story follows the adventures of Steve Glew, a small-town Michigan man, who boards a plane for Eastern Europe soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His mission is to locate a secret factory that holds the key to the most desired and valuable Pez dispensers. If he succeeds, he will pull his family out of debt and finally be able to quit his job of 25 years. Steve becomes the hero of his own adventure, smuggling the rarest of goods into the U.S. and making millions in the process. It was all magical, until his arch-nemesis, the Pezident decided to destroy him.

"The Pez Outlaw" is coming to VOD on October 21, 2022.