Hello, fellow smurf friends,
my kindest greetings from Germany!
I like the early smurfs, because some classic comic books and early schleich & bully figurines are among my dearest childhood memories. Losing trumpeter in a sandpit, learning to dive diving for jungle.. or imagine to be four and find handstand as your easter bunny.
Schtroumpfissime and cosmoschtroumpf were among the few bedtime stories that my mummy read to me as much as my dad, because her French was so good. The smurf that was a mechanic somehow resembled my grandfather, a locksmith, who had built our house where we all lived together. I also remember that, for my forth or fifth birthday, my father drew and coloured all the inivtations for my kindergarden friends, each sporting a smurf, quickly sketched and scaled up from the b/w bully catalogue from those days. I let a couple of these slide behind a cupboard – because on that following morning I felt I was not ready for as many kids as were smurfs drawn!
Like most kids, we had lots of toy figurines old and new, but the smurfs stood out. It may be that you did sense the sculptors behind this, their adorable work, being a kid. I loved the size and the feel of smurfs, but those were but natural assets of their worked out personalities. So I loved smurfs. I felt the early smurf figurines were the real thing.
Suddenly, your life as a teenager is here, there and everywhere, and smurfs retain the tiniest spot, but that is okay.
The boom and the attitude of the producers of making whatever human pastime or profession into a smurf had only just started affecting and undermining the overall quality of my lot of smurfs, while, of course, at that time, I couldn’t put my finger on it. So I feel lucky now, that I was little when the smurfs were few. The smurfs started their career in advertising, but they could be themselves. Later, they were advertising the human way of life, and very much lost themselves. And this stands until now, I think. But here is room for argument, I guess, and many would beg to differ!
As for my smurf story, someday I found my old smurfs and fell in love again, bought missing and ruined and of course even smurfs unknown to me on ebay, spending only little for a lot of figurines, all in beautiful condition, picking up some oddities along the way, licensed, fan art or plagiarism, if they were about in spirit.
So, that's it for now, one more person, half man, half Schlumpf! :)
Blumen, Bäume und Stechwinden..
See you around, guys!
Kind regards, Till
