Smurfs are back — with attitude
By Christine Rook
Gannett News Service
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| Show Off Smurf
Gannett News Service |
For 2003, there's Techno Smurf, Hip Hop Smurf, video-game-playing Smurf and Smurf with a laptop.
Oh, it's a Smurfy day in retail-land.
The reincarnation was inevitable. Marketers have burped up happy retreads of Strawberry Shortcake and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So it's not surprising that the Smurf play figures — credited with launching the '80s cartoon series — have awoke from hibernation to peer from their teensy mushroom houses and demand a market share.
To be fair, though, the Smurfs officially never went away.
Smurf maker Schleich North America in Ontario and its German counterpart have been churning out eight new Smurfs every year.
It's only been since November, though, that companies such as Diamond Comic Distributors in Maryland began making Smurfs available to comic-book shops around the country.
For those who were preoccupied in the '80s trying to figure out that whole Devo new-wave music thing, the Smurfs were blue troll-like critters who supposedly stood three apples high.
At the peak of Smurf mania, American Gen-Xers could watch the Smurf cartoon in their Smurf pajamas while hugging a Smurf plush toy.
Smurfs, however, were not universally loved in the United States. Like Barney, the Smurfs had their detractors.
"Whenever something is too sweet, it's almost too much to handle," says Gary Hoppenstand, a professor of American thought and language at Michigan State University.
In American pop culture, what is too puerile and too saccharine always is despised by some.
"It must be human nature," Hoppenstand says, because there's Smurf loathing in Britain as well.
The Web is loaded with Smurf-hater lyrics and the writings and artwork of people with Smurficidal tendencies.
"Smurfs in general seem to be — I don't know what the word would be," says Dean Hanton, 37, of Lansing, Mich. "They're nice to each other. They're pleasant. They're kind. They're just a little too shallow for me."
Hanton once owned a Smurf, but he swears it wasn't his fault.
"I know I didn't buy it," he says. "I can guarantee that."
His Smurf was the beer-drinker — one of the few doe-eyed critters with a vice.
There aren't any alcohol-toting Smurfs in the 2003 collection, although Workaholic Smurf is sipping something. ...
The new collection, in fact has been funkified.
Smurfette, for example, shows Smurf skin with a midriff-bearing shirt that would get any high schooler sent home. And what's that gold dot on her belly button? Hey! Smurfette has a piercing.
That's nothing, though. Another Smurf has a spiked bracelet and a hoop earring, and another has a tattoo. A third has "Hip Hop" stamped on his shirt.
These are Smurfs that Gen Y just might be able to identify with.
The new Smurfs were created mainly for collectors, and they're apparently selling well enough.
The Diamond distributing company decided to carry Smurf items again this year, says marketing spokesman Barry Lyga. Along with the eight figurines (about $3 each), Diamond sells a Smurf farmhouse and a Smurfette bedroom set with a nightstand and mirror.
You can thank or curse Europe for the Smurfs. That's where they debuted in 1958 and where you can find Smurf-based theater, according to the official Smurf Web site www.schlumpf.com.
