Smurfs Up...where are they now?

Who could ever forget the smurfs?

First coined at the dinner table by a friend asking creator Peyo if he could "passe-moi le schtroumpf", in english "pass me the smurf". He was actually asking for salt but he and many million others got a lot more than that!

Born in 1958 the smurfs were originally secondary characters in a story about Johan & Peewit published in "Le Journal de Spirou", but just as with The Simpsons first appearing in the Tracey Ullman Show, the smurfs became stars in their own right.

In case you had a deprived childhood:

• The Smurfs live in mushroom houses somewhere in the forests of medieval Europe
• They are 3 apples tall and love to eat smurfberries
• They live in harmony with mother nature and every smurf has their own individual task to help the community. Here is a list of smurf characters and the role they played in the community
• Papa Smurf, 542 years old, is their leader and looks after the communities welfare

The best thing about the smurfs was their own unique language, just as many people in our world use swear words in every sentence the Smurfs used the word "smurf" extensively. How funny it would be if humans said the word "human" in place of swear words, "human off", "human you" or "human yeah"!

The smurf language has become pop culture and has not seen it's day. Family Guy featured an episode of the Smurfs on The Griffins TV -

Smurf 1: Hey did you have a good time last night?

Smurf 2: Smurf-tacular!

Smurf 1: Yeah, I saw you leave with Smurfette

Smurf 2: Oh man, as soon as we got out of the bar she started smurfing me

Smurf 1: Shut the Smurf up. Right in the smurfing car-park?

Smurf 2: Smurf yeah

Smurf 1: Oh that is freaking Smurf!

So apart from the smurf language, where are The Smurfs now?

The 256 episodes of the smurfs are still being watched in over 30 million countries, over 10 million copies of the Smurfs CD's have been sold in the last 3 years "and with the new style and the increasing range of Smurfimedia coming out, the little blue men are sure to have plenty of surprises for fans in the years to come". The biggest surprise...a 3 part Smurfology coming to cinemas near you in 2008! Paramount and Nickelodean will be putting on the show with a script from Herb Ratner and producer Jordan Kerner. The 2008 release will commemorate 50 years of smurfing around!

Would you like to go 'up' to dinner with me?

The dictionary definition of Ex-treme: the furthest or utmost length beyond the ordinary or average.

Benji Fun definition of Ex-treme: Dinner in the sky, Car Bungee, Toilet Racers and many more seemingly ridiculous definitions including "death riding".

Dinner in the sky is my favourite and probably the most 'practical'. It shows us that with the technology that surround us today and manifests itself as the tools of creativity the sky is the limit...or is it?



I do wonder though what would happen if you dropped your fork or needed to go to the toilet!

Benji Fun have also given me a great marketing idea that would work well locally - Segways with advertising on them. If you think about local scooter advertising campaigns and the costs involved the segway could be a good alternative; being much cheaper, better for the environment and standing out as much if not more than scooter ads. The only real question is could they reach as much of an audience as the scooter ads?

We may see this trend over the next few years!

Computer Music From The Jazz Diaries

An interesting post by my friend at The Jazz Diaries - The first ever compilation made solely on a computer, which was later sampled by Radiohead in "Idioteque". Look out for there new album which is "scarier than OK Computer"

It's never too late to start playing an instrument

Many people I speak to wish they had started playing an instrument when they were young.

It's never too late to start playing an instrument!

ChangeThis Manifesto: How To Be Creative

"ChangeThis is aiming to disrupt the media pattern with powerful, rational arguments from leading thinkers"

And they have done it again with a "How to be creative" manifesto by Hugh Macleod.

Killer Innovations

Killer Innovations is "a podcast with tools, tricks and lessons about creativity and innovation, with a goal to show the listeners that being creative and innovative is a skill that can be learned."

Run by Phil McKinney, CTO of Hewlett-Packard and a true innovator, it has a huge backcatalogue of insightful episodes.

Manworks Design is..."the right idea and perfect realisation"

Manworks Design a.k.a Studio MWD wad founded in 2006 and has all the freshness of a one year old bundle of joy.

The sole parents Sergey & Yaroslav have strong beliefs about what creativity is... "Industrial design for us is the right idea and perfect realisation".

They also follow simple steps throughout the creative process to collaborate effectively.

Interview With Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

This one is a little bit off topic but extremely interesting all the same. iinovate - a podcast ran by Stanford business school students - has just recently done an interview with Eric Schmidt, CEO of the Google monster, and it is extremely inspirational & intellectually stimulating for anyone.

Anyway, I'll just let Eric do the talking...here it is!