Smurfocalypse now
 A still from a controversial new commercial created by UNICEF. |
THE 30-SECOND spot goes like this: All is peaceful in the cartoon village of the Smurfs, till warplanes roar overhead and bombs rain down, setting the little mushroom homes ablaze. Papa Smurf leads the evacuation, but casualties-Brainy? Hefty? Lazy?-litter the ground. Baby Smurf, rattle broken, wails near the lifeless form of Smurfette. Then a message appears, in Flemish: ''Don't let war destroy the children's world."
The ad, which as of this writing was scheduled to air last Friday night in Belgium, was created not by mean-spirited satirists but by the Belgian office of UNICEF to raise money for its programs to aid former child soldiers in Burundi, Congo, and Sudan. Though the popular Hanna & Barbera TV series ceased production in 1990, it's still in syndication around the world-which is why many Belgian viewers, who last week were given a preview of the slaughter of the blue innocents, complained that children might be traumatized by the ad.
This is precisely the reaction that Philippe Henon, a spokesman for the Belgian office of UNICEF, was hoping for. Because ''the public is not easily motivated to do things for humanitarian causes and certainly not when it involves Africa or children in war," he told European newspapers, the Smurf spot is intended to demonstrate that ''war can happen in the most innocent of places." He pointed out, however, that the family of Peyo, the Belgian cartoonist who dreamed up the Smurfs in 1958, has stipulated that the ad run only after 9 p.m.
Still, at least one of the Smurfs themselves feels it would be OK if kids saw the ad. In a letter last week to The Ottawa Citizen, Alan Oppenheimer, who in the '80s was the voice of Vanity Smurf, opined that if ''Smurfs can reach the children with the message about war's horror, it might just seep up to adults and give them pause."
Joshua Glenn is the associate editor of Ideas. E-mail jglenn@globe.com.
