Schtroumpfs

My absolute favorite gummi candy here is a Haribo product called "Les Schtroumpfs", because they're shaped like Smurfs. At first, I thought, "why have they distorted the Smurfs' name so?" It turns out, actually, that 'Smurfs' is the mutation, since the cartoon originated in Belgium. Reading up, I found that a rather huge debate amongst the die-hard fans was whether or not the Smurfs had hair, since they so rarely remove their Phrygian Caps in the cartoon.

They kind of got a little desperate for characters after awhile, methinks. There's innovations such as Finance Smurf, Stinky Smurf, Tailor Smurf, and Weakling Smurf.

Did anyone know the story of Smurfette? It's pretty wild. Gargamel created her out of clay to wreak havoc in the Smurf village, but it didn't work since she had black hair and pretty much looked like a dude smurf with a wig. When she tried to be all flirty, they just thought she was annoying because of how ugly she was. Then Papa Smurf rolls around and gives her plastic smurfery (I kid you not) and lo and behold, the Smurfs fell in love with her. However, she convinced Poet Smurf to open the dam, thereby flooding the village. She was put on trial, found not guilty, but ran away into the forest only to return on occasion. That is pure tragedy.

Few languages like the word 'smurf. Hebrew = dardas. Catalan = barrufet. Italian = puffo. Why so weird? Because the word for smurf in Italian was dangerously close to the word for a piece of excrement.

Then that reminded me of the Snorks, which was a sad spin-off. I remember watching it a lot during the summer of fourth grade. They did have better names, though: Allstar Seaworthy, Casey Kelp, Tooter Shellby.

I'm all over the cartoon nostalgia recently. I just found out that Gummi Bears is being released on DVD in three days. Also, David the Gnome was voiced by Tom Bosley.

Now I'm onto Rocko's Modern Life. I remember not really enjoying it too much in the olden days, but it seems that it was funnier than I gave it credit for. Example: Rocko worked at Kind of a Lot O'Comics, Filbert was born on the Kerplop-it-goes Island (a play on the Galapagos island), and Uncle Gib worked on the Lazy I Ranch.