Happy Birthday, Smurfs!

Today kicked off a year of 50th anniversary celebrations for the little blue creatures called Smurfs. The Smurfs originated in Brussels, Belgium.

The late cartoonist Pierre Culliford, best known by his pen name, “Peyo,” first introduced the tiny blue figures in a comic strip in October 1958. He called them Schtroumpf and they became known worldwide as the Smurfs.

The Smurfs, forest dwellers who live in little white-capped mushroom homes, developed their own “Smurf” language in which nouns and verbs were interchanged.

Their debut on U.S. television in 1981 launched their global rise to stardom and made the Smurfs a household name. A Smurf is a Pitufo in Spanish, a Schlumpf in German, Nam Ching Ling to the Chinese, a Sumafa in Japan and Dardassim in Hebrew.

You can expect a year of re-released Smurf entertainment and merchandise, plus a new feature film planned for next year. Link -via Fark