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Unsettling Things You Didn’t Know About the Smurfs

You might think that Smurfs are just cute and lovable creatures living in a fantasy universe. They seem cheerful enough and they’ve been warming our hearts through comics, cartoons, films, and movies since the 1950s. Their popularity has been enduring for over half a century now.

You should probably prepare yourself to look at these pint-sized heroes with their iconic blueish hue in a whole new light. To the uninitiated, there is a lot to learn about the mushroom-house inhabiting gnomish arboreal creatures.

Smurfs are tiny, bipedal human-like creatures that aren’t lacking in the intelligence department. Even though they might look a little foreign with their blue skin and wonky morphology, there is something so familiar about your everyday smurf.

Nimble Dextrous Opposable Thumbs

They bless with cunning wit, nimble dexterous opposable thumbs, and the natural inclination to take on challenges as a collective as opposed to sticking exclusively to stubborn individualism. When we look into the eyes of a Smurf, what we are really looking at is a reflection of our human condition.

Smurf’s social life is relatively simplistic. Parallels make to medieval human settlements of centuries ago or to the early US colonies. Everyone had a role. There’s a baker, an artist, a craftsman, etc. Everyone has their own unique talent and with that skill comes a name to highlight their ability is disposition.

It says that the Smurfs operate under some kind of caste system. Community members unfortunate enough to label with names like Lazy, Dreamy, and Grumpy, destines to always be holding back by the confining nature of their identifying nomenclature.

One thing that we can be certain of is that our fascination with all things Smurf has the potential to reveal some markedly alarming revelations about the seemingly innocuous creatures who reside in the forest. Stick around to discover the shocking truth about The Smurfs.

Neuropathogens Can Spell Death To Our Petite Smurf Friends

Remember Gorgamel, the canescent, large-nosed wizard with questionable hygiene habits? Well, he had quite a negative influence on the Smurf’s livelihood. But even if he hadn’t had the tendency to view smurf-flesh as a delicacy, Smurf life wouldn’t have been as happy-go-lucky as you might have imagined.

Smurfs curse with a relatively compromised immune system. When an insect of indeterminate nature afflicted Lazy Smurf with a venomous sting, an awful endemic swept across the Smurf village in a matter of moments – infecting the inhabitants with a highly contagious neurotoxic malady.

The infected Smurfs suddenly turned bright purple and began to yell the phrase GNAP GNAP! Papa Smurf saved the village from certain doom when he came up with an antidote that reversed the awful effects of the pathogen. But even though inoculation was effective in this particular case, the incident raises some serious questions about Smurf’s views on medical ethics.

Smurfs tend to lead a rather carefree existence and their propensity to seek out unnecessary adventure exacerbates their risk of falling peril to pathogens, poisons, and pandemics of all varieties.

What About Gender?

There is something unsettling about Smurfette. She’s the lone female in a Smurf village full of boisterous and bumbling boys. She’s isn’t exactly what she seems either. Also, she’s like a sweetheart who derives pleasure and meaning from picking wildflowers but in fact, she’s a Golem, by Gargamel for the sole purpose of sowing the seeds of discord and division among the male, asexual, and perfectly healthy community.

Papa Smurf even had to resort to magic to transform Smurfette into the aesthetically agreeable feminine form that she later became. Why did she have to alter to fit the beauty standards of an asexual population in the first place?

There are so many other questions that raise by her existence! Are there other female Smurfs? And how are they born? What happens to them then? If the Smurfs aren’t, in fact, asexual as we suspect, then are they end to eventual extinction? Is the community suffering from some kind of fatal flaw of genetics that inhibits more females from entering into the tribal gene pool?

We may never know the truth.

Smurfs Are In Fact Biologically Unique

Okay, let’s just forget for a second that Smurfs are a purely fictional race of bantam beings. Assuming that they are real, then they must be biologically unique.

There are a few clues that lead to this conclusion as well. Take for example the fact that removing a Smurf’s hat seems to be quite taboo. But why is this?

Then theirs the fact that Gorgamel repeatedly attempted to breed Smurfs that he held captive for his research but failed repeatedly to achieve his goal.

Smurfs The Mycological In Nature

One theory is that Smurfs are actually mycological in nature. It could stand to reason that their hat isn’t a hat at all. Perhaps it is a mushroom-like cap of the psychedelic variety. If this theory holds any water, then perhaps the psychoactive secretions of their cap have some sort of direct biological connectivity to their frontal cortex. As such, removing of one’s hat wouldn’t just be a fashion faux pas, but it would be akin to performing a complete lobotomy.

If they are indeed biologically some kind of mushroom symbiotes, then it could be reasoned that Smurf’s are all one interconnected organism not unlike some kind of mycelia web. This might explain why they have an endless supply of mushrooms to live in, how they can evade danger in ingenious ways, or even explain their mysterious ability to reproduce without the necessity of engaging in copulation.

Maybe we’re thinking about this too much, but would that mean that Smurf-human hybrids are completely out of the realm of possibility?

Okay, we should probably take a step back and look at some more benign smurf facts for a second, but if you’re enjoying this video so far, make sure you give us a like and subscribe to our channel. Tap the bell icon to turn on notifications, and stick around to find out all about Smurf STD’s….yes you heard that correctly. How could you not be curious to learn about something as bizarre as that? Stay tuned.

Wartime Smurfs

There is a UNICEF ad that aired back in the day on Belgian TV that is absolutely shocking. It starts off with the all-too-catchy theme song that should be familiar to anyone that’s seen the series. We see dancing smurfs hand in hand, bunnies bounding through the tranquil forest, lush vegetation flourishing in the serenity of nature – then the unthinkable happens.

Bombs start falling from the air. The Smurf village is then seen in a frenzied panic. Smurfs are running around terrified for their lives as their friends and family are reduced to ashes. Their mushroom homes are burning as the remaining members of the community meet a violently brutal end. The only survivor of the tragic event is one small crying Smurf baby in the middle of the carnage.

The ad was supposed to help raise awareness and funds for the rehabilitation of child soldiers from the east African nation of Burundi following the devastating civil war and genocide that raged there for decades.

The commercial was never intended to be viewed by children but was aired only for adult audiences on late-night television.

Smurf Dots

There is an old urban legend that Smurf dolls that circulated in the UK back in the late 70s were tainted with lead paint.

It all started with a campaign by the gas company National Benzole that was giving away promotional Smurf figurines with the purchase of gasoline. They didn’t expect the promotion to be met with so much demand, but it quickly became a national sensation, and factories producing the collectibles were quickly overwhelmed.

To keep up with demand, The company outsourced production to Hong Kong and then the rumors started flying that the paint used to give the toys their blueish hue was hazardous to children’s health. Even though the UK Department of Health debunked these claims through lab testing, colored dots were added to the feet of the figurines to indicate where they were produced. Red dots came from Sri Lanka, yellow from Portugal, and so on and so forth.

To this day, collectors of the figurines keep their eyes out for specific colored dots that indicate the rarity of the figures.

Smurf STDs

A lot of cartoons and sitcoms over the years have pushed episodes with the agenda of telling some kind of thinly veiled moral tale. The Smurfs aren’t an exception to this trend either. In the episode Smurf The Other Cheek, kids are warned about the dangers of contracting contagious diseases through contact with a dirty woman. Yes – as absurd as that sounds, that’s the actual premise of the episode.

It all starts when Papa Smurf decrees that under no circumstances shall a Smurf kick another Smurf. Well, apparently Hefty Smurf didn’t get the memo because he was off in the woods at the time. While he’s adventuring in the forest, he comes across a witch with a massive red spot on her nose. She is sobbing and requests that Hefty kick her in the butt so she can be freed from her unsightly blemish.

The Little Angel And Devil

Suddenly the age-old motif of a little angel and devil appears on Hefty’s shoulders to help him deliberate the dilemma. The devil informs him that he should go ahead and do the deed because quote-end-quote ‘She’s asking for it”. That’s apparently all her needs to hear too because he goes for it. As soon as he does, however, the spot transfers from the witch’s nose to his.

Hefty runs back to the village and tries to get his buddy vanity to kick to get rid of it. Before you know it, all the Smurfs are bending over and passing around the blemish. In the end, Papa Smurf breaks his own rule and contracts the blemish. He goes back to the witch in the woods, kisses her nose and both of them are cured.

It doesn’t quite take a rocket scientist to decipher the underlying moral message behind this tale, but we’re not going to spell it out to you either. You get the gist.

Smurf Village. What a bizarre little world, right?

What do you think was the best incarnation of the Smurfs, the original Hanna-Barbera series, or the recent CGI films? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

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Written by Alex Carson

Alex Carson is a seasoned writer and cultural historian with a passion for the vibrant and transformative decades of the 1960s and 1970s. With a background in journalism and a deep love for music, film, and politics, Alex brings a unique perspective to the ever-evolving landscape of entertainment.

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