The Smurfs Are 50
Even though the Smurfs really didn't hit it big until their television debut in 1981, they are actually turning 50 this year, and the celebration kicked off today.
The late cartoonist Pierre Culliford -- best known by his pen name, "Peyo" -- first introduced the tiny blue figures in a comic strip in October 1958. He called them Schtroumpf; they became known worldwide as the Smurfs. The Smurfs, forest dwellers who live in little white-capped mushroom homes, developed their own "Smurf" language in which nouns and verbs were interchanged. A Smurf is a Pitufo in Spanish, a Schlumpf in German, Nam Ching Ling to the Chinese, a Sumafa in Japan and Dardassim in Hebrew.
A Smurf to me is just a really good excuse to get wasted. With the exception of Fraggle Rock, there has never been a finer show to watch while totally plastered. This of course is not the show to watch in order to get plastered. The show to get plastered while watching is the Bob Newhart Show. I was really sad to see that Suzanne Pleshette passed away over the weekend, but every time she or any other person the show says "Bob," then everyone drinks a shot. Guaranteed to get you drunk. I loved when Suzanne made an appearance on the last Newhart show like the entire show had been a dream. That was classic.
Anyway, back to the Smurfs. To mark 50 years of Smurfdom, organizers are planning everything from a 3-D animation feature film expected to be released next year to new comic book collections and a remastered release of the popular 1980s television animated series, Peyo's family said.
Did they ever make Smurf cereal because I bet some kind of blue marshmallow thing would be good. Something to turn the milk blue. They seem like a marshmallow cereal rather than a chocolate cereal.
I beleive it was Smurfberry Crunch or something and it turned pink from the red smurf berries.
ReplyDeletei am QUEEN of smurf knowledge
..trust me.
EL you are my hero.
I still have all the damn figurines AND yes i had the mushroom house..lol. and no i dont play with them.
anymore.
I am sure there is a way to have a Smurfs drinking game. I mean, if you drank every time they used the word "smurf", you would have cirrhosis byt he end of the week, but what about every time they substituted "smurfing" for "motherfucking" (I seem to remember that or am I crazy) or like someone gave Smurfette horny eyes. I am sure there are a lot of ways to get drunk watching that show.
ReplyDeleteyou're not crazy..there was kid down the street who wasnt allowed to watch cuz his mom thought the intent to swear was just as bad as using the words.
ReplyDeleteya he still lives in the basement.
Go smurf yourself lady down the road.
LOL I mentioned the Smurfs a while back and my nine year old said "What's a Smurf?" I wanted to cry. Man, I'm old.
ReplyDeleteLOL Jax - do you have the Smurf that has a hockey stick? I think it has NHL on it somewhere as well - it's worth the most as they didn't get NHL permission and had to pull them right away. I only know this because I work for the company that distributes them in North America (Schleich).
ReplyDeleteI think the coolest ones were introduced a couple of years ago - the Halloween collection complete with Grim Reaper Smurf...lol
Smurfette has been the only one for a long time that had her own bedroom available to buy...LOL...although it's discontinued this year.
good god JLB! thanks for the tip..i beleive i do..ill have to check. most of mine were bought from 81-84..you know just before Cabbage Kids. (see ya Smurfette!i gots me a REAL babay)
ReplyDeletethat would be a cool job to have.
WOW if you do have one...I've yet to meet someone that does. The Canadian Toy Fair starts on the weekend - I'll have to ask to make sure that's still the rarest one...LOL Last year the new ones were all First Nations and the CEO kept getting ticked at me for telling everyone the peace pipe one was high.
ReplyDeletei havent gone through them in years...ill let you know. last i checked i had over 65. i know i got a few from relatives travelling and started a UN collection for myself..just cant remeber if the NHL player was my Canadian figure or not. makes sense,lol.
ReplyDeletethat would be so awesome if it were worth a lot.
I remember those little Smurf figures...I used to play with them with my Little People in the barn and in my Barbie Dreamhouse with the elevator. And I'm actually not joking or being facetious at all. I really did that. By the way, what color WOULD a Smurf turn if you choked it?
ReplyDeleteOh man... I went through a month of smurfathon when my kids were given 6 or 7 dvd's worth.
ReplyDeleteIt was good at first but then it drove me bonkers!!
C u all around
LOL at the hockey one being your Canadian - they should have put 99 on him. If they have any Smurf freebies or promos at the show I'll try and grab an extra couple to send out to you on the coast - you're in BC right? If you had a PO box Ent I'd send you one too!! LOL
ReplyDeletedon't yell at me, but the only way i could TOLERATE the smurfs was with bouts of binge drinking. i absolutely could not STAND the things! of course, it was probably because i was subjected to them as a parent instead of watching them as a kid, so maybe i can be forgiven for that.
ReplyDeleteoh, but i LOVED fraggle rock!! my kids did, too.
and, ent, couldn't have you given suzanne pleshette a better send off that that? i loved her! i didn't know she had lung cancer until i heard she died. RIP.
cool jlb!
ReplyDeleteFraggle rock was the shiznit..but i was getting older then.(although i did just say shiznit)
the doozers rocked.
"down at fraggle rock!!"
Their buildings were made of crack pipes that you could eat. (I mean the Doozers, not Fraggles)
ReplyDeletetoo old for smurfs or frazzles, more like a pitcher of gin gimlets for breakfast with Lancelot Link
ReplyDeleteNooo problem! I can't promise, but you never know - often they'll save all the good gimmies for New York Toy Fair in February and I'm not going to that one this year.
ReplyDeleteI was always more of a Muppets purist myself...lol...just a little too old for the Smurfs and Fraggle rock on TV ... My brother had a Smurf album that I ended up breaking I think after I heard "I'm a pink toothbrush you're a blue toothbrush won't you marry me one day" a thousand times.
jlb you should be shot- that was the Smurfs sing a long. and yes i had it as well. lol.
ReplyDeleteSmurfs for the memories!
I Loved Fraggle Rock. Especially when they were cutting to the Doozers!!!! Does anybody remember Emmit Otter's Jug Band Christmas? The River Bottom Nightmare Band was awesome too!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry, the smurfs were the most annoying G-d critters ever conceived. I couldn't sit through a single episode. Those awful voices, yeesh!
ReplyDeleteMy sister (posts as Alpine Summer) has a great story about Schlumpf-flavored ice cream. At least part of it is on her blog, but her dramatic rendition includes mimicking the ice cream shop man's "Schlumpf is Schlumpf! Schlumpfe is Schlumpfe!"
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but just the idea is funny to me.