La la la la la la, sing a happy song. La la la la la la, smurf your whole day long

That's right my friends. We're going to talk about The Smurfs.

I'm 31 years old and so when I was growing up, The Smurfs was THE show. OK, it wasn't the ONLY show, but it was a smurfing good show! I don't remember many details about the show itself...I mean, as far as dialog is concerned. I remember Gargamel and his cat. I remember Papa Smurf and Smurfette. I don't think that the biggest reason I remember Grouchy Smurf is because I too am grouchy. That cannot be it!

But what I remember most is loving that show. Last week at the library one my kids (I have so many I can't remember which one) picked out Season 1 of The Smurfs. As a mother and faithful Smurf lover (not in a weird creepy way either), it made my heart happy!

Boy was I surprised when I started listening to The Smurfs while the kids were watching. Thankfully I didn't have to shield little ears from some of the words we heard on E.T. and The Goonies that shocked me when we re-watched those with the kids! However, what I did hear surprised me. And made me laugh. I never realized how many words they substituted with SMURF or a form of it. Nouns, verbs, adjectives...nothing is safe! For instance:

Hefty Smurf: See a grandfather anywhere, Brainy?

Brainy Smurf: Absosmurfly not, Hefty.

Or how about these?

After Smurfette's pet dies, Papa Smurf says "Let us have a smurf of silence for our dearly departed friend."

Other conversations I overheard:

"Are you sure you know what you're smurfing?"

"At last, I finally smurfed my error!"

"Hooray I'm not a dog anymore! Thank Smurfness!"

What was the most interesting to me was the fact that I actually understood what they were trying to say. Even though every other word was "smurf" or "smurfing" or "smurfy", I was able to EASILY follow the conversation!

I'm probably the only one amused by this. So much so that I decided that I would bring "Smufy" back. Not really...but since my husband isn't too fond of swear words (NOT that I am known for swearing), I told him that I was going to just start inserting "smurf" or another appropriate form of the word whenever I had an urge to say something that he didn't approve of. We've had quite a few laughs lately. He was freaking out about something (I don't even remember what and I exaggerate when I say freaking out) and I told him to "Calm the SMURF down!"

Find The Smurfs on YouTube or at your local library and see if I am exaggerating. I'm not. They seriously over-use that word!

Oh and while I was home over the weekend, Katherine found our old Smurf figurines in the play closet. I took a few pictures of the ones we could find.

Does anyone else still have any of these figurines?