M&M's Store London - Part 3 - History?

Although not a "British" designed sweet, M&M's are very popular in the UK.  They're so popular that Mars decided to build a giant M&M's store in downtown London called M&M's World.  It's absolutely gigantic, and full of everything M&M's.  For the next few days, I'm going to post some of the highlights from my trip to this crazy candy mecca, this final post is all about the wall depicting the history of the "Ms".

As the sign says in this photo, the M&M store is 4 levels tall.  That's pretty impressive for a candy store that only sells one kind of candy.  This store is also very well decorated, and even offers a glimpse into the history of those M&M's characters.

As you walk down the stairs (the store is actually in the basement mostly) there's a continuing history of the M&M's guys painted on the walls.  I think I remember seeing a similar mural at the M&M's store in Vegas as well.

It starts off with the first version of the M&M's guys, and continues all the way to the present day incarnations of these crispy on the outside, melty on the inside characters.  It's pretty amazing to see the evolution.  The thing is, after seeing a few of these versions, I was left with some questions.  

First of all, why is the 1967 version so dam creepy.  Who thought it was a good idea to have a character remove his head to reveal his chocolate center.  The modern version of these characters still creep me out at the idea that they're filled with chocolate, but at least I'm not reminded of it.

The other question comes from this group of M&M's guys from 1976.  Who's the tall guy with the yellow M&M's overalls?  Was there a human component to this team at one point? If so, where did he go?

CC