The Smurfs

Belgium is known for two main things.  Waffles and the Smurfs.  Created in 1958 by the Belgian cartoonist (yes) Peyo, the Smurfs swiftly became the toast of Europe and much like happened with the Beatles (citation needed), it was only a matter of time before they took America by storm as well.  The year was 1981.  The Iran Hostage Crisis had come and gone, and people were ready for something new.

The Smurfs, as seen above, are little blue imps that stand "three apples tall" and live in a secret mushroom village in the woods.  Each Smurf has a specialized skill or trait, and the village is commonly owned without the need for money or a class system.  Gee I wonder where Peyo got THAT idea?

Anyway for them, it worked.  The Smurfs are assigned names based on their individual role in the Smurf community.  (Farmer Smurf, Painter Smurf, etc.)  At least that's the general idea.  Most of the time it doesn't exactly prove to be true.  For example, Greedy Smurf wears a chef's hat and cooks and bakes all the time.  The idea is that he does so because he really likes eating, which is not greed.  He is actually quite generous, baking cakes and Smurfberry pies for everybody all the time.  So why not "Hungry Smurf?"  I guess the only person who will ever know for sure is Peyo, and it is unfortunately one of the many secrets he took to the grave.

"Clumsy" Smurf is more of an idiot in general than accident-prone.  "Brainy" Smurf is really just an asshole.  "Vanity" Smurf is a closeted homosexual.  and then there's "Jokey" Smurf, whose primary characteristic seems to be that he thinks it's hilarious to mail bomb people.

PAPA Smurf is another odd case.  Besides being the de facto leader of the Smurfs, he is also some kind of amateur wizard that lives in what appears to be a makeshift meth lab.

(Look at how happy he is.)

He also dresses in all red instead of white, I guess to help him stand out in a crowd.  (Why not just look for the guy with the beard?  Again, R.I.P. Peyo.)

Smurfette (or "Smyrfette," as hardcore feminists spell it) is the only female Smurf, which has been the topic of a lot of obvious and often CRUDE jokes.  Well you won't read anything like that here because I am SENSITIVE.  I am, however, working on a bit of Smurfette fan-fiction in which she yearns for and eventually receives true acceptance.  The ending is sort of like Grease.  Also, like a lot of young girls, she is a "carver" in it.

Finally, there is Gargamel, the evil wizard whose life's ambition is to capture the Smurfs, but he can never find their village.  He either wants to turn the Smurfs into gold using magic, or else EAT them, depending how hungry he is on a given day.  Gargamel can also apparently use his magic to CREATE Smurfs, and would do so whenever a new character needed to be introduced.  He would conjur up a new Smurf and then send it out to infiltrate the village and do bad things, but the plan never worked because the other Smurfs would just talk the evil Smurf into being good.  (There's 101 of them, that's significant peer pressure.)  I gotta ask though, did he ever create Smurfs just for himself because he got the munchies late at night?  and the other Smurfs never knew about it?  He was pretty hell-bent on catching the lot of them so he must know them to be tasty.

Some Smurfily Scrumptious Belgian Waffles:

Click HERE.