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I'm not the biggest Smurf fan on the planet, and either are you -- but we all like 'em. The Smurfs were always there for us when our other animated heroes weren't. I mean that literally: You'd be searching for Autobots and Joes, but if they weren't on, Papa's merry cult of blue-skinned happy gnomes took the kapow out of the punch. The show was light on the comedy and high on the moral lessons and mythology, something fans never really considered until they grew up, because when you were a kid and the Smurfs were on television, all you thought about was how blue they were or which Smurf you would've been. Earlier episodes can be divided simply into two categories: episodes where Gargamel wanted to turn the Smurfs into gold, and episodes where Gargamel wanted to turn the Smurfs into good eating. Later in the series, new perils, new friends and foes, and best of all, new Smurfs would enter the arena. Who could forget Grandpa Smurf's sudden appearance and subsequent establishment as Village Wiseman, even though damn Clumsy had been around the place longer? Who could forget Sassy Smurf's turn from would-be herald of Gargamel to the second ever Smurf who could conceivably market her crotch out for big bank? Who could forget that neat little rip in Azrael's ear? Course, the completely unconnected bunch of thoughts in the preceding paragraph begs the biggest question of all things Smurf-related: Who was the best Smurf? I've always been partial to Brainy, partly for his great glasses, but mostly because he wrote books. I'm sure plenty of people would pick Papa Smurf, but I dunno...he never looked like he had any fun in his life. Sure, he'd talk about all the fun times he had several millennia ago with folks we've never seen or heard from, but when push came to shove, Papa was a total worrywarting downer. Hefty Smurf might be a top candidate, successfully canceling out his annoying voice by being the only Smurf tough enough to don a tattoo. Smurfette would've been a heck of a lot cooler if she gave a shit about anything besides those three piddly flowers hanging from her windowsill. Being what they were, whom they were for and when they were seen, the Smurfs were merchandising no-brainers. I will say it, and say it again: There is no one on the planet, even three-year-olds or people killing white bears in the arctic, who have never owned a piece of Smurf merchandise. No one. Nobody. You've been told otherwise? They lied. You're telling me otherwise? You're lying. Still, the retail goods that poured forth from the Smurfs phenomenon weren't at all typical...which brings me to today's stupid article. The people behind the Smurfs (as in, the people who stood to make money on 'em) never really found a merchandising niche. There was a lot of Smurfy stuff out there, but no one subgroup of items captured the hearts of Young America in the same way, say, the Transformers figures from Hasbro or Mattel's scented Strawberry Shortcake dolls did. The closest the Smurfs got were those tiny PVC-ish figurines, but even those can't be considered classic pop toys of any era. What this means: We've seen a lot of weird Smurf items over the past few decades. The companies holding licenses just threw a ton of shit out there to see what might stick, and even if nothing particularly succeeded, the all-encompassing Smurfness of the lot managed to touch the hearts and wallets of everyone I've ever known. Hopefully, I'm making sense. To give some example of the wealth of Smurf goodness that once took residence over our fair retail market, here's a look back at Ten Random Smurfy Things. They'll make you blue in the face.  #1 - Smurf Scratch 'N Sniff Stickers: The Smurfs rose to power pretty much at the exact same time that scratch 'n sniff stickers became the coolest little paper mofos on the planet, so it's only natural that these two behemoths would band together, seeking to expand their scope of influence by inviting peanut butter into their kingdom. Smurfs, stickers and peanut butter -- I believe the phrase "fuck yeah" was coined in direct reaction to this superhero team-up. For the two of you by which the powers of scratch 'n sniff stickers were never known, it goes a little something like this: you stick, you scratch, you sniff, you cheer. I've smelled my share of scratch 'n sniff stickers, and must now christen a new champion. These peanut butter stickers have the most distinctive "real life" smell of all the many varieties of scratch 'n sniff, and this combined with the images of Smurfs mounting peanuts, Smurfs murdering peanuts and Smurfette with a gigantic-to-her-but-still-small-to-us bread accessory make them the best s 'n s'ers of all time. Even the package's fine print is Smurfing on you, declaring these not only as stickers but as "Smurfy stickers." I haven't grasped the symbolism or throw-to-show provided by the cornucopia scene on the header, but maybe I just missed a stretch of episodes where it factored in hardcore.  #2 - Ceramic Driver Smurf Bank: Little is known about the elusive "Driver Smurf," who better not live anywhere near Smurf Village because I can think of at least four dozen times that his skills and car would've provided an easier escape for captured groups of Smurfs. If Driver Smurf lives just behind Greedy's house, where the crops smell the sweetest, he'd have some serious s'plaining to do. Driver Smurf wore racing goggles, his car bearing some resemblance to a shrinking ray's opus hope shot on a Volkswagen Bug. The perfect candidate for a Smurf immortalized as a ceramic bank? No, but the ones people actually knew were too busy to pose. Made by Wallace Berrie in 1983, it's an officially licensed bank complete with a rubber stopper underneath, serving your nickels and dimes with due protection throughout their stay at this most unusual financial institution. It's about two apples high and thus not a perfect recreation of the real Driver Smurf, but I'm willing to overlook that since whatever blue they used for his skin has finally ended any internal debates I was having over what color to paint the lounge.  #3 - Smurf Supercards: A conceptually justified decision gone horribly wrong, "Smurf Supercards" were an attempt from Topps to give Smurfs the added benefit of having a trading card set like none other. Rectangular, a wee bit shorter than most trading cards but way wider, the series was uncontrollably shaken by two things. One, the cards would never fit in any standard album, thus ruining the attraction for anyone who didn't just keep their fun cards in a dusty shoebox. Two, they were too god damned preachy. Nobody wanted trading cards that echoed the sentiments of the many kitten-fueled good student posters at school. We wanted blood, guts and backs that could be fitted together and arranged into miniature posters. Topps, you were usually so good at this. :( "Neatness counts?!" This is what kind of crap? Consider Smurf Supercards the "easy readers" of the trading card world -- a way for youngins too stupid to have real trading cards to get in on the action. There were 56 total in the set, with each pack containing seven cards and one of modern history's largest pieces of rock-stale bubblegum.  #4 - Miniature Smurfs Frisbee: This is interesting. For years I've been typing the word "frisbee" into my many articles, always having to lower the case when my spellcheck suggests "Frisbee." I stubbornly refused to research the reason why. Only now do I see the truth: It's not a word, it's a trademarked product name from Wham-O. I feel so bad about mine brain. Anyway, this isn't a full-sized Frisbee™, it's a miniature version that serves no purpose out on the grassy fields. Mini-Frisbees always go too far, and if you skirt tradition by only throwing it the distance needed, the person charged with catching it always misses because it's too damn small to see or understand. It's why most miniature Frisbees are only used to prop up fritzy video game systems. Anyways, Wham-O says that Smurfette was a cheerleader, and I guess that makes enough sense. Depending on what the "S" stands for, she's either a wonderful team player or one big louse of an egotist. I'm not voting for the latter until she puts down those two papery things that may be weapons. Her hair, it's purdy.  #5 - Smurfs Drinkware: Don't get me wrong, a lot of cartoons were immortalized as drinkware sets. Still, I think Smurfs had a bit more of it going on that any other toon -- the two exhibits shown above are barely a percent of the total number of Smurfs cups, glasses, tumblers and pitchers that held our holy drink for the better part of a decade. It's fathomable, but if I find just a few more, it'll be completely unfathomable. On the left, a tall drinking cup, featuring a parade of Smurfs each holding something completely goofy and irrelevant: Waffles, banjos and pails of pure oxygen lead the pack. The plastic mug has even weirder character art, including a nameless Smurf wearing diving equipment seen swimming in a large cooking pot. I guess the craftsmen behind these figured, "Hey, they'll be too thirsty to notice anything...let's get batshit!"  #6 - Smurfs Colorforms Playset: Colorforms are still around today, though more and more kids are passing on its dated gimmick in favor of thing that beep and are powered by batteries. The sets were simple, but offered their owners a chance to fully realize the powers of thine their imaginations -- each contained a slick, colorful cardboard backdrop and several paper-thin plastic characters that could be placed in different spots of the scene over and over again. They're sort of like pre-made, customizable coloring books. Only you don't color anything, and they're not books. I still think they're like coloring books, though. This Smurfs set is from 1981, and rather generic in its setup -- most of the included plastic characters aren't even A-level Smurfs, but rather the bit players that remained unseen until Papa Smurf called for another one of his press conferences. They managed to squeeze in a few of the old faithfuls, but there just isn't enough here to make this Smurfs Colorforms playset the best of its kind. There were like eighty Smurfs Colorforms sets. Some even had Puppy. You remember Puppy, right? Random dog? Yeah.  #7 - Smurfs Coloring Books: Obviously, the Smurfs were graced with plenty of coloring books. Perhaps too many, as by the time the ones pictured above were produced, the makers were really stretching for theme ideas. There's "A Smurf For All Seasons," with pages full of Smurfs enjoying the many activities of the four seasons. "Papa Smurf does some fancy figure skating" is the best of the pages. Next is "Great Moments In Smurf History," an altogether wrong coloring book title that replaces historical figures with Smurfs and retells our coming of age. The pictures of sheriffs extending their hand to feather-clad Smurfs is particularly whosawhatsit. Thirdly, "Smurf's Up," a collection of ready-to-color drawings featuring the Smurfs boxing, swimming, playing baseball and shooting arrows. Finally, "The Smurf Learn-To-Read Coloring Book," which lacks a slapped-together theme but does include a stern warning to any Smurf desiring to "sail in a pail." Frankly, there's only thirty words total in the four books, and even still, they've managed to drive me insane. Papa Smurf's demeanor seen on the cover of the Smurf History book makes me think less of him.  #8 - Smurfs Rub-Downs Set: You're probably more familiar with Presto Magix kits, but Ideal's "Rub-Downs" were the same exact thing. Like Colorforms, you get a neat, colorful backdrop scene. While Colorforms' plastic characters could be placed, lifted and refitted over and over again, the Rub-Downs sets trade that glory in for another. The characters can only go onto the background once, but you get to do it in the coolest of fashions: By penciling over a transfer sheet. There are few activities more gleeful than taking eight ounces of lead to one of those transfer sheets, deciding which character would go into their two-dimensional universe without a head, left arm or legs. It was completely up to you. The great thing about these sets were their price and omnipresence. They were cheap, and they were everywhere. Tagging along for one of the elder's grocery shopping trips, many kids' only hope for salvation was the fact that even supermarkets carried Rub-Downs or Presto Magix kits. Oftentimes sold for less than a buck a pop, they were the ultimate quick fix for boredom and suitable for framing to boot. This particular set features the Smurfs attending a Smurf-run carnival, complete with a "Smurfing Booth" made more interesting by the sight of Smurfette puckering up near the entrance. There's even a "Smurfballs" stand, where Smurfs apparently pay a buck to hurl three Smurfballs at one of their neighbors. A bunch of other sick shit, too.  #9 - Smurf Punchballs: Okay, it's tough to convey the majesty of these because punchballs aren't very interesting in description, but take me to Hell if they weren't the most fun anyone ever had. Essentially, they're big, extra-thick balloons tied to big, extra-thick rubber bands, affording you the chance to dribble 'em at lightning speeds in any direction for as long as your hand can stand it. The sound a punchball made as it reflected off of one's palm was more enticing than any country song. Smurf Punchballs were no different from any of the ones you've played with, save for the fact that they've got Smurfs painted on 'em that become progressively more disfigured as you blew up the balloons.  #10 - Smurfberry Crunch Cereal: Haha, I did done fool you. The entire reason you sat through #s 1-9 and all of that introductory bullshit was because I've been wanting to write about this empty box of Smurfberry Crunch for months. You bought it. I wasn't even paying attention to what I was typing until now. Smurf that. Yes, Smurfberry Crunch, one of the holiest breakfast items of our time. Made by Post in 1983, the cereal is legendary for having been literally yanked from grocery store shelves after complaints poured in that it...turned its consumers' excrement weird colors. For serious. Few cereals have such history. The unfortunate downfall of Smurfberry Crunch is only punctuated by how popular the cereal was. Advertised in a custom animated spot where the Smurfs shared a picnic and ate lots of cereal, Smurfberry Crunch had another advantage over its Aisle 11 competitors. Kids always wanted to know what Smurfberries tasted like. I mean, we really wanted to know. We wondered if they were like raspberries, or maybe blueberries, or maybe a bit of both, which would make them a lot like boysenberries. We wondered this aloud, sometimes. Well, with Smurfberry Crunch, now we knew what they tasted like. Corn, oats and wheat. But it really was good, and the taste was an absolute breakfast cereal uniquity, much like the yellow banana pieces in Donkey Kong Junior Cereal, or the tiny, irrelevant mini-flake trapped in the pyramidmic enslave of a piece of Crispix. Post let the smoke clear for several years following the infamous Blue Shit Incident, finally unveiling a new Smurf-themed cereal in 1987: Smurf Magic Berries. Here, the once-loved blue Smurfberries were replaced with lousy chalky stupid marshmallows. The original was more preferred, especially by little kids who got a big kick out of crapping blue. Smurf you later. -- Matt
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