LEWISTON – Ron Hood has PEZ underwear.

The framed boxers hang on a wall leading down to his basement, next to PEZ lapel pins, PEZ Valentine’s Day cards – only released overseas – and PEZ paper-doll costumes.

Hood has taken his mammoth collection out of storage and, over the last two months, lined the basement walls with row after row of packages of the little iconic candies.

It’s pretty sweet.

The air is sugar-scented and filled with the sounds of a single song on a looping CD: “You’re a Pezhead.” (“Collecting PEZ dispensers, any shape and any size, it’s a favorite pastime that you’re sure to recognize …”)

Nothing goes on his walls without being cataloged in his computer. By Hood’s count, he’s got 1,181 PEZ dispensers on their original cards, 388 in bags, 684 loose and another 133 candy packs.

Oh, and more than 740 pieces of PEZ merchandise: hand puppets, bubble gum, juice, Christmas ornaments, popcorn.

“Everyone says, What’s it worth?’ I’m not in PEZ for the money,” says Hood. “They always make people smile – you give them a PEZ and they can’t help it.”

Part of his collection is on display now at the Lewiston Public Library, with factoids about the product. While he was setting up, Hood, 40, said someone walking behind him called PEZ a “happy knickknack.” That’s just what he thinks.

He started collecting with his son. They went full-tilt when Auburn landed Wal-Mart in 1992, opening a new world of PEZ availability.

Hood’s son, Justin, goes to the University of Maine. Hood has sort of taken over the collection.

He has arranged the walls by origin: one is U.S.-released PEZ dispensers, two are foreign-released, one is strictly Japanese.

There are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Muppets, Star Wars characters, the Looney Tunes cast, circus animals, nurses and fire fighters. He’s even got accessory packs with arms, torsos and clothes that snap on. (“Most PEZ we buy are naked.”)

Hood says dispensers used to be released more sporadically, and they weren’t so trendy. It took Bart Simpson nine years to get his own PEZ. These days, “Shrek 2” has one, so does “Bob the Builder.”

Two years ago, Hood gave presentations on collecting and PEZ at McMahon Elementary School, where his daughter, Alexandra, was in third grade. Students were studying letters and writing and he made a deal with them: each could have a PEZ dispenser (minus the candy) that had been given to him by the mother of a fellow collector who’d passed away. But they had to write her a thank-you. Everyone took one.

“This woman got so many letters,” says Hood.

He buys some PEZ items on eBay, and trades with over 1,000 collectors around the world over the Web site pezlist.com. Peers there voted him PEZHead of the month in February 2002.

Hood’s already eyeing the other rooms in his home for space for his collection to expand.

He’d like to keep them mostly out of the living room.

“Some people get freaked out, and they know they’re not real, but look at all those eyes looking at you,” he says.

Know someone with a collection we ought to feature? Contact Kathryn Skelton at 689-2844 or [email protected]