On Monday, February 2, in an episode of The Smurfs, never before seen on TELETOON Retro, The Smurfs trick Gargamel into thinking he’s gone to Heaven to account for his past sins against them while Brainy grows a beard to be more like Papa. The Smurfs air everyday on TELETOON Retro at 8 am and 8 pm ET.

Wohoo!  I can’t wait!

A great commercial that uses the show’s original character voices and has a bit of a plot;

In the commercial, Gargamel decides to steal all the smurf’s food, which prompts Papa Smurf to create Smurf Pasta in four delicious flavors. Gargamel is foiled again.

http://www.smurf.com/peyo-en

Johan et Pirlouit

At the time, Peyo (original name Pierre Culliford) created a Franco-Belgian comics series in Le Journal de Spirou titled Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit), set in Europe during the Middle Ages. Johan serves as a brave young page to the king, and Peewit (Pirlouit, pronounced Peer-loo-ee) functions as his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick.

On October 23, 1958,^[2] Peyo introduced a new set of characters to the Johan et Pirlouit story La flûte à six trous.^[3] This alone caused no great excitement, as the brave duo constantly encountered strange new people and places. This time, they had the mission of recovering a magic flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. And in this manner, they met a tiny, blue-skinned humanoid creature in white clothing called a “Schtroumpf”, followed by his numerous peers who looked just like him, with an elderly leader who wore red clothing and had a white beard. The characters proved to be a huge success, and the first independent Smurf stories appeared in Spirou in 1959, together with the first merchandising.

With the commercial success of “The Smurf empire” came the merchandising empire of Smurf miniatures, models, games, and toys. Entire collecting clubs have devoted themselves to collecting PVC Smurfs.

from TV.Com

This is quite an attention grabber: a commercial developed by Unicef in Belgium (hence why the video is not in English).    This commercial was obviously not created for children.

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_28772.html

Aren’t these fun?  And just in time for the production of the new Smurfs Movie!

He is the third oldest of the Smurfs (after Grandpa and Nanny). Papa Smurf is 542 years old

Info from Wikipedia

Info from Smurfs.com

There are some toy stores that carry the newest releases.  My Husband just came back from LA and brought me a bag full of new ones (thanks hun!!)

Right now on Ebay there are over 2600 items that come up for sale when you search for “smurf”.  What I love about ebay is the variety of stuff you can buy, lots of old items like books, stickers, mugs, glasses etc.  In addition to the more popular 2″ figurines.

www.mushroomvillage.com is an online store that features Smurfs.  I haven’t tried them yet.