The much-anticipated first Smurf film, now nearly 11 years ago, had all the ingredients for being a box-office smasher: Screenwriters from Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third – curiously, Málaga-born Hollywood legend Antonio Banderas' highest-grossing films of his 30-plus-year career – chart-topping pop artiste Katy Perry voicing Smurfette, the first female Smurf, and Hank Azaria, better known as the voice of Homer Simpson, 'starring' as the human wizard Gargamel.Īnd Júzcar stood to benefit very handsomely from this perfect cinema storm. …like Smurfette, for example (photo: Sony)īut these little blue human-like characters with their white caps and shorts, funny walks, community spirit and boundless energy have stood the test of time, and Sony Pictures released a trilogy of live action computer-animated films of them in 2011, 20, and a musical version is due for launch via Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon in 2024.
THE SMURFS VILLAGE SERIES
If you were compelled to put every pressing childhood task on hold when the Smurfs came on TV in all their vibrant blueness, you would have been watching the series aired between 19 if you caught them in black and white in short films, you were watching in the early and mid-1960s – probably with subtitles unless you saw them in French, Dutch or German and were in Belgium and if you first remember them on paper, you'd have been reading the original comics by illustrator Pierre Culliford, who went by the nom de plume of 'Peyo'. Bring your sunglasses, whatever time of the year you visit. No, not pastel-blue, and not even Royal blue, but a blinding, psychedelic crayon-blue, several shades stronger than a cloudless summer sky and throbbing with colour.
Not even a pleasant-but-unremarkable powder-blue, either – outside of 'White Villages', residential buildings in Spain and some commercial blocks are often painted in pastel colours, giving them an uplifting, sunny and full-of-life appearance that comes as a refreshing change from those parts of the world where houses and apartments are all standard red-brick or a grim grey or brown. The boys in blue - although some of them are female…(photo: Myguí)Īnd anyway, Spain does not as yet have a 'Blue Villages' network, meaning if Júzcar started one, it'd be the founder, chairperson and entire membership. Júzcar was on Spain's famous, picturesque trail known as the 'White Villages' network – and, actually, it still is the job description for being a 'White Village' has not changed, but Júzcar has been allowed to bend the rules.īend them as close to snapping point as they'll go, in fact – rather like a blonde convention at which one attendant has dyed her hair jet black but insists she's naturally fair-headed. Really, you should have discovered Júzcar between 2011 and mid-August 2017, but this western Málaga-province village, 623 metres above sea-level, about 20 minutes north and inland from Estepona on the Costa del Sol, a similar distance from Ronda, and close to the Cádiz-province border retains its Smurfiest feature, its reputation and its fame. Júzcar - a must for anyone who grew up with the SmurfsĪnd if you always answered that vacuous and pointless question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” with, “a Smurf,” then, as well as having worked out you're roughly between 35 and 50, we've also nailed it as to where your next road-trip across Spain should take you. TELL US which on-screen characters kept you enthralled in childhood and we'll tell you how old we think you are – if you said Bill and Ben the Flowerpot men, you've just given away that you're a baby-boomer if it was the Telly Tubbies, you're probably in region of 30 He-Man and She-Ra would reveal you're somewhere in your 40s, and if you mentioned Ella and co from Frozen, then we'd take a guess you're not old enough to vote yet and ought to be doing your homework rather than reading this article.
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