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Posted by nicolas.b elsewhere.
46 years old!
The Smurfs are a fictional race of small blue creatures that live in a forest somewhere in Europe. They were created by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo, but are best-known to English-speaking audiences through the animated television series by Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Peyo was the creator of a comic strip serial in Le Journal de Spirou called "Johan & Pirlouit" (translated to English as "Johan and Peewit"). Set in the middle ages in Europe, Johan is a brave young page to the king, and Peewit (pronounced Pee-Wee) is his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick. Johan rides off to defend the meek on his trusty horse, while Peewit gallops sporadically behind on his goat, named Biquette. The pair are driven by duty to their king, and the courage to defend the underpowered.
On October 23, 1958, Peyo introduced a new set of characters to the "Johan & Pirlouit" story. This alone was nothing so exciting, as the brave duo were constantly running into strange new people and places. This time, they were charged with recovering a Magic Flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. And in this manner, they summoned a Schtroumpf!
"Schtroumpf" appears to be an invented word — it sounds like the German word "strumpf" ("sock"), but this might be a coincidence — and would later be translated to nearly 30 languages. One of those languages would be the English version, "Smurf". In any case, the tiny blue people were a sudden hit, commercially speaking. They quickly moved into their own series, which became a tremendous success...
the rest here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs
46 years old!
The Smurfs are a fictional race of small blue creatures that live in a forest somewhere in Europe. They were created by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo, but are best-known to English-speaking audiences through the animated television series by Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Peyo was the creator of a comic strip serial in Le Journal de Spirou called "Johan & Pirlouit" (translated to English as "Johan and Peewit"). Set in the middle ages in Europe, Johan is a brave young page to the king, and Peewit (pronounced Pee-Wee) is his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick. Johan rides off to defend the meek on his trusty horse, while Peewit gallops sporadically behind on his goat, named Biquette. The pair are driven by duty to their king, and the courage to defend the underpowered.
On October 23, 1958, Peyo introduced a new set of characters to the "Johan & Pirlouit" story. This alone was nothing so exciting, as the brave duo were constantly running into strange new people and places. This time, they were charged with recovering a Magic Flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. And in this manner, they summoned a Schtroumpf!
"Schtroumpf" appears to be an invented word — it sounds like the German word "strumpf" ("sock"), but this might be a coincidence — and would later be translated to nearly 30 languages. One of those languages would be the English version, "Smurf". In any case, the tiny blue people were a sudden hit, commercially speaking. They quickly moved into their own series, which became a tremendous success...
the rest here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs