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Either way, The Smurfs were a blight on the cultural landscape, which will somehow be made even worse by the upcoming CGI movie travesty. After all, Smurfette was already annoying, but her voiced by Katy Perry should have you smurfing your eyes and ears out by the second smurfing act. But still, even the most boring, sappy properties usually have at least one or two interesting things hidden within their layers of horribleness. Here are the few we were able to dredge up from 52 years of Smurfs history. Read 'em and smurf!
8) The Smurfs Started the Zombie Genre
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7) The Smurf Village Was Once Bombed into Extinction
Most people would agree that war crimes and genocide are kinda bad. But just in case there were people on the fence, UNICEF created a series of anti-genocide commercials featuring a happy Smurf village that got bombed back into the stone age (which to be honest, wasn't too far back). While you can debate the effectiveness of the message, it certainly didn't pull any punches with it's final shot of a crying baby smurf surrounded by dead Smurfs and the mangled body of Smurfette. Although we have to say it didn't make us any more against war crimes... it just made us want to see more dead Smurfs.
6) There Was a "Poison Smurf" Scare in Britian During the '70s
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5) Smurfs Creator Peyo Hates Smurfette
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4) The Smurfs Were a Spin-Off from a Less Successful Comic Strip
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3) Celebrities Were Voicing Smurfs Well Before the New Movie
Considering the huge number of Smurf crowd scenes, it makes sense that the Smurfs TV series needed huge numbers of voice actors. Now, like every Saturday morning cartoon series, you had a few of the legendary professional voice actors who dominated '80s cartoons like Don Messick (Papa Smurf, Scooby Doo, Muttley), Michael Bell (Handy Smurf, G.I. Joe's Duke, Voltron's Lance) and Frank Welker (Hefty Smurf, Megatron, Scooby Doo's Fred). But a lot of others were well-known actors that did small parts on the show under the head of "additional voices." These include Ed Begley, Jr., Sorrell Booke (The Dukes Of Hazzard's Boss Hogg), Rene Auberjonois (Star Trek DS9's Odo), Edie McClurg (the secretary from Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and Ray Walston. And yes, legendary SNL comedian Phil Hartman pitched in some various voices for different episodes, although we haven't waded through all the episodes to pick out his voice. We don't hate ourselves that much.
2) The Smurf Village iPhone App Cost Some People Thousands of Bucks
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1) Smurfberry Crunch Cereal Turned Your Crap Blue
If you're going to have a cereal called Smurfberry Crunch, you'd expect it to be kind of blue, right? So, even though smurfberries in the cartoon were red, Post added a bunch of blue berries into the mix. Unfortunately, the blue food coloring wasn't absorbed by the human body, leading to a bunch of scared mothers worried about their kids' blue poop. It was taken off the market and replaced with a different version, which is a shame because it undoubtedly gave kids the ultimate Smurfs experience. After all, when a Smurf smurfs in the woods... we're betting it's blue, too.
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141 comments
i smurf love it i smurf love it i smurf love it i smurf love it i smurf love it i smurf love it
not trying to be a dick to you jon but the smurfs did not create the zombie gender the first zombie movie came out in 1932 and it was called white zombie just thought you would like to know
Being first doesn't necessarily mean you create a genre, much like the guy who posted "FIRST!!" in comments sections don't exactly offer any valuable insight to anyone.
i get what your saying but i was pretty much using the same logic jon was with the whole black smurf thing is seem like to me that john thought the smurf book was the first appearance of zombies when all i was saying was there was a movie that pre dates it by a long shot
wish i also knew how to edit my post because i was also going to say 6 years is a big ass gap between smurf zombie and the dead films considering the fact as soon as romero film cam out 6 other zombie movies came out after that
That purple Smurf episode of the cartoon was one the most memorable episodes of anything I watched as a kid. Probably one of the more disturbing, too.
The snurf with all Smurfing smurfers, the show(cartoon) was cool when I was a kid, so glad they didn't try to make it into a smurfing Sitcom(can you imagine how Smurfing crazy & annoying that would have been?) but, I don't think Ill Smurf my money watching this, I'll Smurf 'till it plays on Cable, then I might just get the bootleg dvd.
1. Peyo called them les Schtroumpfs. This is because he heard the term for Austrian knee-high socks (Strumpfen) one day and thought it was the funniest-sounding word in existence.
There is no 2. That is the only interesting fact about the Smurfs.
Vile smarmy a-hole article written by a vile smarmy a-hole douche-bag.
The Smurfs was a great cartoon for kids. Maybe it was "sappy" and "boring" for self-important 30+ year olds who think they're being cool and hip by attacking old childhood shows, but they were good for kids.
The monkey who wrote this represents the lowest form of organism, the anti-hipster: the dickwad who thinks he's clever and cool by NOT liking old things.-"Keeping in mind that the '70s was not the best time for feminists, it's still fair to say that Peyo was not the most... um... pro-woman person." How do you know? Were you a feminist in the 70's?
Peyo said nothing wrong, he meant for Smurfette to be a trouble-maker. He wrote back in a time when women can still be written as less-than-perfect without offending whiny feminists and sissy manginas like you.--"Or it might be that their cartoons and comics relied on paper-thin storylines that were shallow even for '80s Saturday morning cartoons, which is really saying something. "
Again, they were for kids.
Oh but wait, I know, Hanna-Barbera should have created a cartoon not for their own time's kids, but for future cynical ironic adults 25 years ahead.
Please Mr.Gutierrez, go watch "Mind of Mencia" reruns, and die.
The irony being that someone would probably make a textwall defending Mind of Mencia from your own statements.
Topless Robot: "Nerd news, humor and self-loathing." Relax, mind the mission statement, and try not to get your smurfs in a bunch.
PFFFHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!! Oh my god, I remembered about the whole "Blue Poop" insanity! Happened to my neighbor once, and hit our neighborhood so bad that my parents even banned me from ever touching Capn Crunch's Crunchberries due to it being bright red in color. I guess "Red Poop" would've been more frightening for my folks, huh? XD
Also, hey man, shut up! "Johan & Pirlouit" was a hit in my neck of the woods, and is in no way inferior to the smurfing smurfs! I think the duo's odd-couple dynamics are much more interesting to watch than see Smurfette manipulate Brainy Smurf for the umpteenth time for whatever it was she fancy for that episode. Plus, Peewit's songs are hilarious!
wow, wtf is up with the woman hate in smurfette? its smufed up, man must have had some issues.
you think that toxic smurf it´s something weird?. in the 80´s, in my country (Argentina) a kid died in a misterious way, he was a smurf fan an had lot´s of toys and smurf stuff; this fact created some sort of urban legend that something weird was going on with the smurf. some time later, lots of rumors start to spread about kid´s being sofocated by smurf shits and other weird histories and one day a woman report that she actually saw a smurf coming to life from a promotional smurf cristal glass and attack her daughter; this lead to a massive destruction of smurf merchandise from fearfull fathers.
I'm surprised you didn't include the biggest secret of the Smurfs. The one that was downplayed and rewritten in the American version so that not a vestige of it remained in the dialogue or plot. The secret that could have KILLED any chance the Smurfs had of finding a niche in American pop culture. What is this dread secret, you may ask?Well......THE SMURFS ARE COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA!
It's true. Peyo was an avowed communist and used the Smurfs as a way to indoctrinate Belgian kids in the concepts of collectivism and cooperative economy.Don't believe me? Well, did you ever notice that, with the exception of Papa Smurf (who is a caricature of Karl Marx), the Smurfs own no individual property, save their little white pants and hats (which all look alike, again for the purpose of downplaying individuality and emphasizing community). Each Smurf also has one role, and one role only, to play in the Smurf society (the "handy" Smurf, the "painter" Smurf, etc). Their role is chosen or them by Papa Smurf (who represents the paternal and all-wise State), and they are not permitted to choose their own careers.Papa Smurf is also the only Smurf who wears a RED hat. Red is a color frequently associated with communist insurrections (i.e., "Red" China, Better Red than Dead, the flag of the USSR).The Smurfs fulfill thier roles and, in return, are provided for out of the collective resources. They have no money, but exchange work for food and shelter. Rejection of the intelligensia: straight out of "The Communist Manifesto". Brainy Smurf, the only Smurf (other than Papa Smurf, of course) with the barest hint of an education, is depicted as the town square: a tight-assed, prissy, know-it-all with few social skills who is constantly spouting pedantic gibberish. Since communism stresses unity through equality, anyone with arcane knowledge of matters which are beyond the comprehension of the village idiot must be classified as a misfit in a collectivist social order.Smurfette: the only Smurf not defined by either a character trait or a profession. She is also the only one who doesn't have the surname "Smurf". The suffix on her name "ette" means "little", implying that she is something less than the other Smurfs and will never be their equal. She is the only truly unique specimen of the Smurf species and, predictably, is an outsider who was not so much invited into the commune as stolen from her creator (Gargamel, in a metaphor of the proletariat seizing the means of production - in this case, procreation - from the bourgiosie). Since there are 100 Smurfs and only one Smurfette, I can't help but wonder if she is as much communal property as their little mushroom houses. Gargamel: a caricature of the soulless, greedy, single-minded (Jewish?) capitalist. His goal is to capture the Smurfs. Why? Because if you boil them in a magic potion, they TURN INTO GOLD. Gargamel represents the worst excesses of capitalism: acquiring wealth by exploiting the masses, even to the point of committing murder.How this show ever got on the air during the Reagan administration is a mystery to me.
awesome. but i never really hated communism. its easier to corrupt communism, but if you may be the only creatures like you on earth battling against a harsh nature its a good safe option. i mean its not as if they have time to develop complex personalities when everyday is life or death.
always thought Gargamel was eating some shrooms & started to imagine smurfs coming out of mushroom houses... So basically it is about an old bum that does shrooms & imagine little blue creatures living in his drugs, that's why he fails at finding them later! also he named his cat after the angel of death 'azrael'...show how high he was!
My dad smurfed me sixty dollars once to smurf the TV episode with the purple smurfs. The funny thing was, I actually did want to smurf it. I was just smurfing out for money. Ahh, those were some smurfing smurf times. :D
And with that being said, smurfity smurf smurf smurf!
What THE FUCK is up with that Unicef video?? I've never really been a genocide supporter, but I sure as hell can't imagine the practicaly application of something like that. I think I was most disappointed that it just stopped right there and we're just supposed to take the message that wanton slaughter is bad instead of learning more about the Smurf haters.
Also, those mushrooms are either resilient as hell or the bombs are really smaller than smurfs. But really, I want to know who green lit the smurf slaughter. It has me intrigued and I suspect that was not it's intention, even though I can't understand French.
We need a list of stuff that made kids poop change color. Smurfberry Cereal, Oops, All Berries Cereal, Boo-Berry Cereal, Beets, Red Velvet Cake are a few I can think of
I want to take MY smurf, and smurf the living the smurf out of Katy Perry's smurf.
If you know what I mean. :D
What about the whole... 'Peyo was a Satanist' thing? Or was that just an urban legend?
Yet another urban legend, just like Carlos Mencia being Mexican,not a bit of truth to it.
Wasn't smurfette some like a transexual? a surf with a sex change? created my gargamel an all?
Nope. She was female from the beginning (at least in the cartoon) Gargamel created her as an evil female smurf in order to destroy all the male smurfs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
That UNICEF commercial was a good example of the trope 'Truffaut Was Right'. In trying to make an anti-war statement, they instead managed to make people love the idea of bombing the hell out of Smurfs.
interesting ariticle never knew that smurfette smurfed the smurfs own creator the wrong way that he hated her very own smurfing existance. plus that grouchy smurf is the way he is due to the old story where the smurfs get bitten by a bug and become zombies. and who did the smurfs at unicef to make them decide oh lets get the message about bombs being evil by having the smurfs attacked and wiped out in an ad. plus remember the up roar over smurf berry crunch turning one 's poop blue. was wondering if it would make the list.
Just so you know, I read the Purple Smurf story as a kid and it gave me NIGHTMARES. That shit was scary.
Hey what happened to the Lick a Smurp song link? That was fantastic.
EDIT: last.fm, dear boy: http://www.last.fm/music/Fathe...
Enjoy!
Ok, while not really the inspiration for the Zombie genre, I'm pretty sure the black smurf epidemic was the first Zombie story that I ever saw. Scared the hell outta me and basically turned a happy-go-lucky afternoon into a cry-fest. I was six. :(
Today, however, it's become kinda fascinating to me.
I'm pretty sure that Jon's assertion that the Black Smurf story originated the zombie genre was intended to be tongue-in-cheek.
He's certainly not the first person to suggest it. There's a strip about that exact thing over at Menage A 3 webcomic. http://www.menagea3.net/strips... And I doubt they're the first ones to point it out either.
Richard Matheson created the modern zombie genre with his 1954 novella I Am Legend. Yes, it was about vampires, but the vamps in that book have all the traits of the ghouls in Romero's flicks, and Romero openly admits that Matheson's book was his inspiration.
So Richard Matheson beat Peyo by about a decade.
The movie White Zombie came out in the '30s, the zombie genre has been around for over 100 years.
Except they were smart...and could talk...and had all those vampire weaknesses like garlic and sun...I don't really buy it. They never struck me as zombie-like at all, just science-borne vampires. Of course I believe that it was an inspiration to Romero, but not so much in that he more-or-less lifted the monsters from it. The tone and "house under siege" aspects seemed to have carried over much more strongly into NotLD than the creatures themselves. I'll gladly grant you that I Am Legend influenced Romero much more than The Smurfs did, though.
