No, it's not a typo or a headline in the Onion. In Belgium, home of the Smurfs if you didn't know, UNICEF has released a
short anti-war cartoon that basically annihilates the little blue guys (not to mention Smurfette):
The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.
Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.
The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children."
The film is part of UNICEF Belgium's fundraising campaign to help the
former child soldiers of Burundi. (
Burundi is a former Belgian colony.)
The advertising agency behind the campaign, Publicis, decided the best way to convey the impact of war on children was to tap into the earliest, happiest memories of Belgian television viewers. They chose the Smurfs, who first appeared in a Belgian comic in 1958.
Julie Lamoureux, account director at Publicis for the campaign, said the agency's original plans were toned down.
"We wanted something that was real war - Smurfs losing arms, or a Smurf losing a head -but they said no."
The film has won tentative approval from the official Smurf fan club. A spokesman said: "I think it will wake up some people. It is so un-Smurf-like, it might get people to think."
Hendrik Coysman, managing director of IMPS [the company that owns the rights to the Smurfs], said: "That crying baby really goes to your bones."
Maybe it says something about us (or at least the Belgians, but I think it applies to us too) that it takes a cartoon baby wailing in the rubble to shock us. Haven't we seen enough real babies dead, dying and wailing in the rubble in the last century? Or is that the problem?