The Black Smurfs

“This is the story of the day the Smurfs became terrorists.”

Actually this isn’t, but I think that may be the greatest opening statement ever.

(&, if true, might even explain why they got carpet bombed)

Over at the Savage Critics, Jog reviews King Smurf, to-date the only Smurf comics album translated and released in English, despite the Smurfs’ raging 80’s childhood fanbase.

Within that excellent & well-worth your time review is this jewel, on the origin of Grouchy Smurf:

“…Grouchy Smurf, who boasts one of the more iconographically questionable origins in comics history, having been a sunny Smurf who was bitten by a bug that turned his skin black and made him violent and sour; more and more Smurfs were bitten and made black, until Papa managed to expunge the blackness from Smurf society, although Grouchy was still grouchy afterwards. This all went down in 1963’s The Black Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs Noirs), not available in English.”

If you follow that wiki link you will be reminded that this plot also occurred in an episode of the TV series, but in that episode, “to soften any racist connotation”, the bitten smurfs were ” whitewashed” purple.  (“purplewashed?”).

Anyway, I don’t know if, as a young black child I would’ve been offended or totally thrilled to see some black smurfs on TV. 

The Smurfs were kinda dodgy on “blackness” anyway, particularly in that great bit of misogyny, the TV origin of Smurfette:

“The Hanna-Barbera cartoon series of the Smurfs, made in 1981, had her as an actual Gargamel spy and saboteur who intentionally tries to disrupt life in the village. She was magically created from blue clay, sugar and spice but nothing nice, crocodile tears, half a pack of lies, a chatter of a magpie, and the hardest stone for her heart…”

“…[Smurfette] admitted her slavery to Gargamel, and begged Papa Smurf to make her a real Smurf. Papa Smurf undid some of Gargamel’s spells, consequently turning Smurfette into a more beautiful creature. Her hair grew, becoming blond and more voluptuous. Her dress became more frilly. As a final touch, her shoes turned into high-heel pumps.”