Smurfs mark 50th birthday

The Smurfs -- led by Papa Smurf and Smurfette -- kicked off a year of 50th-birthday celebrations Monday with Smurfberry cake and sarsaparilla juice at an event in Brussels.

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.

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.

To mark 50 years of Smurfdom, organizers are planning a 3-D animation feature film, new comic book collections and a release of the popular 1980s animated TV series, Peyo’s family said.

From the Associated Press