Today for some weird reason I was thinking about images of the Smurfs, or at least of
Papa Smurf anyway while at my Men's Breakfast at the Cathedral of Joy. I remember watching these guys in the early eighties along with all of the other cartoons I watched back then. Like all cartoon properties of the time they had their own movie.
Did you know that they are fifty two years of age, shouldn't Papa be gone by now and Brainy have his spot as leader of all of them by now? The Smurfs were created by a French man named Pierre Culliford who went by the pen name of "Peyo" because a family member could never recall his whole name. In "Peyo" storytelling he thought of these little people as Trolls of Nordic Fairy Tales, he introduced them Brussels type of comic magazine known as "Le Journal de spirou dated October 23,1958 the story that they were a part of was titled "Johan & Peewitt" and they were not known as Smurfs then they were named Schtroumpfs. He was adding them into the stories so much that they started having spin offs into their own separate tales, much like how Disney started with just a popular mouse named
"Mickey". Then came along a duck and so on, or like in our own comics here in the states happens, I'd just be guessing but that is how everything in it own way becomes a trend. Pierre Culliford was born in 1928 on June 5th, Surprisingly that was the same year Walt Disney made "Steamboat Willie" which first featured "Mickey Mouse". Peyo passed away in December of 1992 on Christmas eve he was sixty four years old.
How was it he came up with their skin color being Blue you're wanting to know right?, well Peyo decided by what colors do most children like of Red, he thought reminds him of Violence so that as these Schtroumpfs as he was calling them so that was out of the question. And the color Yellow reminded him of Illness so that to was out the equation. So he let it be Blue because it was a set color that children of all ages like most. In nineteen sixty five, the Schtroumpfs were all about marketing and one the things Peyo did was he had them made into very small little figurines,
among other forms of merchandising. Peyo may have had a cartoon series of the Schtroumpfs in his homeland of Brussels Belgium or at least through his own studio he had been running since nineteen fifty nine, I'm saying this because marketing them through comic books would have led to animation at some point. Wouldn't you think so as well. Those little figures of the Schtroumpfs made a big start around the whole world in nineteen sixty six, they even made it here to the states for a bit of time. Yes the Schtroumpfs did have a enemy of which they feared, I just went looking to see if Gargamel who is with his cat Azrael in the above image was spelled differently in the Belgium comic strips on the internet only to find out they only referred to him as the wizard or sorcerer in the Schtroumpfs stories from long ago. In nineteen seventy six when an American visitor to Belgium by the name of Stuart R. Ross who was an entertainment scouting entrepreneur entered an agreement with Dupuis who was the publishing company of the Belgium comics and Peyo to acquiring full North American lending rights of the Schtroumpfs. So now for sure someone had the rights here in North America to do things marketing wise with these little blue troll type of characters just in case back in nineteen sixty five was a fluke for them truly being worldwide, now these Smurfs WILL really make an impression in the world. When Ross got back home to the United States he contacted the Wallance and Berrie and company to make toys like these
or even stuff Smurf dolls like
these. NBC's then president Fred Silverman little daughter Melissa had a Smurf doll probably similar to those shown above. That he had gotten her on a trip to Bolder Colorado, and thought these little blue Smurfs as they were called would be great as a Saturday morning cartoon series on his network for children, so I'm guessing it was he who contacted the heads in charge of the animation division Warner Brothers entertainment which hooked him up with the Hanna-Barbera 
the company that has done cartoon Icons such as Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear and the Flintstones just to name a few to submit his "Smurf idea". On September twelfth, nineteen eighty one the Smurfs appeared on the peacock network, here is what a ad for Saturday mornings looked like in comic books
of that said time of when the Smurfs first appeared and you can also see a couple of famous Marvel comics that were animated around the same time that I loved and still do in a way. I'm also writing this for just the other day in a copy of the USA TODAY newspaper I saw a snip it on the hopes of an all new live action movie being made for the summer time of two thousand and eleven with 
this image. Pretty please tell me that there is something wrong here for are not the Smurfs or Schtroumpfs or whatever they are know as suppose to be able to fit in your hand and NOT BIG ENOUGH to crush the streets of New York city?
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