First Peeps store is a mecca for all their 'peeple'

[Liberal_in_LA]

First Peeps store is a mecca for all their 'peeple'
The marshmallow candy has inspired quite a following, as seen at the Maryland shop.

Reporting from Oxon Hill, Md. - Eight miles south of the White House, a crowd gathered under a giant inflatable yellow chick Thursday to welcome the nation's first emporium devoted to Peeps, a fluffy marshmallow candy that has attained cult-like status.

Most of the store's Peeps-branded products were inedible. So is the candy, critics would say.

"There's something mystical about Peeps," said Matthew Beals, a New York filmmaker who has shot a 45-minute documentary about people obsessed with the spongy bunnies and chicks. "They really inspire a passion. People either love them or hate them."

Fans of the pastel-colored, sugar-coated confections have compiled a "Lord of the Peeps" trilogy, filmed "Star Wars Peeps" and sent them into space on a high-altitude NASA weather balloon.

Scientists, or at least graduate students with too much time, have conducted numerous experiments. One shows what happens if a Peep is submerged in liquid nitrogen, at minus 346 degrees Fahrenheit, and then hit with a hammer. It shatters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-peeps11-2009dec11,0,1091234.story
More than 100,000 people belong to a Peeps fan club, and websites and YouTube videos abound.