IF YOU'RE in the Comunidad Valenciana any time between now and the early hours of March 20, you may notice an awful lot of noise and colour on the streets. It's the season for the region's biggest festival,...
Feeling blue? Take a trip to Spain's Smurf village
04/03/2022
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.
And 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.
Júzcar, a Smurfer's paradise
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 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.
Bend 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.
And 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.
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.
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. Bring your sunglasses, whatever time of the year you visit.
How Júzcar got the blues
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 1981 and 1989; 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'.
But 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, 2013 and 2017, and a musical version is due for launch via Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon in 2024.
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.
And Júzcar stood to benefit very handsomely from this perfect cinema storm. Madrid-based advertising agency Bungalow25, working with Sony Pictures ahead of the first film's launch, was influential in the Málaga village's being the chosen location for the world première on June 16, 2011.
Bungalow25's ingenious idea of painting every building in Júzcar an eye-catching shade of 'Smurf-blue' for the film's airing, in order to add to the desired atmosphere for the multi-national and celebrity audience, was welcomed by the local council and met with great enthusiasm by the owners of said buildings.
The idea was to repaint all the houses in their original white, at the production company's cost, once the première was over, but a widespread clamouring by villagers for them to be left in the new shade led to a referendum being called six months after the credits rolled.
So it came to pass that the public voted overwhelmingly to stay blue – not just because they liked the colour, but because in that time, the influx of tourists and the global fame Júzcar had attracted had proven an excellent boost for the local economy.
Before that, they had mainly been relying on visitors stopping by to see the Santa Catalina de Siena church and the historical tin factory.
Fittingly, one of Júzcar's top local attractions before its repaint was its Mushroom Museum, as its surrounding countryside is an abundant source of this universal food item and, in bygone times, if you didn't work in the tin factory you probably made your living through mushroom-picking.
And if you were a genuine super-fan and SmurfHead in your early life, you'll remember that the 'blue brigade' lived in a village of mushroom houses.
Fun fact: What's the Spanish word for 'Smurf'?
Smurfs first appeared in Spain when the original comic strips were published in the magazine Strong, and its editor, Miguel Agustí, was reportedly wandering around Barcelona racking his brains to try to think of a suitable, pronounceable and memorable translation of their species' name.
After his eyes fell on the sculpture of the legendary Catalunya folklore figure Patufet – a distant 'relative' of Tom Thumb – the miniature mythical creature's name stuck in his head, and started to morph.
Distorted in his mind's ear after constant repetition over the course of the day, 'Patufet' started to sound like Pitufo – which became the Spanish translation for 'Smurf'.
Since then, and to this day, 'Smurf' as a noun has been Pitufo, and 'Smurf' as a verb – often used in the series and films, with no specific grammatical rules; 'off Smurfing to the shops', 'been busy Smurfing at my desk all day', or 'you've totally Smurfed that', for example – is pitufear.
Smurfs, when first sketched and coloured in by Belgian-born 'Peyo', were called Les Schtroumpfs, pronounced the same as the German word for 'sock', which is Strumpf, but not related to smelly footwear. Peyo was dining out with a colleague one day when he forgot the word for 'salt' (sel, in French) and asked André Franquin to 'pass the schtroumpf' – rather like you might ask your table-mate, in a similar situation, to 'pass the doo-dah' or 'pass the oojimaflip', or similar.
The pair of them spent the weekend joking around and using schtroumpf throughout their conversations, as nouns and verbs, which somehow ended up being converted into the Dutch equivalent, smurf (in the plural, De Smurfen).
It stuck, and although Smurfs sometimes have different names in different languages, the most common ones are smurf, schtroumpf or a variation on either.
The height of the Smurf Age in Júzcar
Meanwhile, back in the province of Málaga, Smurf-fever didn't stop at changing colour. Júzcar, understandably, sought to milk its blueness to the last drop, and shops selling Smurfy souvenirs popped up everywhere, as did statues of as many of the 100-plus characters in Smurfville as they could cram into their streets.
Towering above their human counterparts and nearly equalling them in number (the headcount in Júzcar was 235 as at last year's census), and joined by non-Smurfs such as Gargamel and Azrael the cat, the majority had to be taken down for legal reasons after the film showings, leaving only three still in residence – Smurfette (that's right, Katy Perry's character), Papa Smurf and Student Smurf.
These, the souvenir shops, the blue buildings and the global fame meant Júzcar was welcoming, on average, around 50,000 visitors a year – more than 2,000% of its year-round residents.
After the 2017 film release, it was announced publicly in June that year – by the town hall and IMPS, the company which managed the Smurfs' 'image rights' – that a deal had been reached between Júzcar and the beneficiaries of the original creator, 'Peyo'.
It was said at the time that Júzcar could continue selling official Smurf memorabilia, keep Papa, Student and Smurfette, and continue referring to itself in promotional material as 'The Smurf Village'.
In return, Peyo's inheritors would receive 12% of the profits of any Smurf-related activity in Júzcar or its local area.
But on August 2 that year, a municipal bann appeared on Júzcar town hall's website stating that the two parties had been unable to reach a deal; Peyo's beneficiaries wanted Júzcar to pay royalties for use of the Smurf brand, and Júzcar had said, no, sorry.
Referred to in the media at the time as 'Smurficide' or 'Smurder', the deadlock meant Papa's, Student's and Smurfette's visas had expired and they had to be deported, no more merchandise sold, and no reference whatsoever made publicly that could link Júzcar with the Smurfs, starting August 15, 2017.
It would have been an infringement of copyright law to continue to promote itself as 'Spain's Smurf Village', or the Pueblo Pitufo.
But Júzcar was still allowed to keep its buildings in a fetching shade of 'Smurf-blue', and it's unlikely residents will ever decide to go back to white.
And there is no legal instrument preventing ordinary residents from referring to their town as the 'Smurf Village' in ordinary conversation, or ordinary tourists taking ordinary selfies and captioning them 'Smurf Village' on their personal social media sites.
Neither is there any rule banning 'bring-your-own-Smurf' visits. If you're a complete Smurf-nerd and want to wear your favourite Smurf T-shirt, Smurf handbag and scarf, Smurf earrings, flat white cap and white shorts and dye your hair Smurf-blue when taking a trip to Júzcar, just as any self-respecting Smurf-geek would do, nobody will sue you for it.
And tourism articles and guide-book entries still refer to it as 'Júzcar, formerly known as the Smurf Village', or simply recount its Smurfy past in the description.
Beautiful in blue, and up there with Popeye and Frozen
Proclaiming to the four winds that you're not allowed to call yourself X means everyone will automatically know you're X, or once were and are still proud of the fact – and just being X-coloured is enough to bring visitors in and stamp your name all over the internet.
US-based travel magazine Road Affair listed Júzcar among its top 25 most beautiful municipalities on earth in a recent article – a list topped by Malta's 'Popeye Village', dedicated to the cartoon sailor whose biceps grew when he guzzled spinach and to his long-suffering companion 'Aaah-live' – and tells the tale of its Smurfish past.
Second in the top 25 is Hallstatt, the oldest and most-photographed in Austria due to the fact it looks so much like Ella and co's town that it's known widely as 'The Frozen Village'.
The top five is completed by Simiane La Rotonde in the south of France, Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera, and Ortahisar in the Cappadocia (Kapadokya) area of eastern Turkey, the bit with those fascinating natural sand-rock chimneys.
Júzcar comes 11th, so still considered more beautiful than over half the world's top 25 most-beautiful.
Even if decided to follow the trend set by the rest of Spain's 'White Village' network and become white, it would still be beautiful, but for residents and tourists, a pale repaint would be crossing a (thin blue) line.
Although maybe Júzcar would try to rebrand itself as the 'Snow White Village' instead, and replace the ghosts of its Smurf statues with sculptures of the Seven Dwarves.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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.
And 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.
Júzcar, a Smurfer's paradise
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 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.
Bend 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.
And 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.
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.
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. Bring your sunglasses, whatever time of the year you visit.
How Júzcar got the blues
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 1981 and 1989; 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'.
But 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, 2013 and 2017, and a musical version is due for launch via Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon in 2024.
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.
And Júzcar stood to benefit very handsomely from this perfect cinema storm. Madrid-based advertising agency Bungalow25, working with Sony Pictures ahead of the first film's launch, was influential in the Málaga village's being the chosen location for the world première on June 16, 2011.
Bungalow25's ingenious idea of painting every building in Júzcar an eye-catching shade of 'Smurf-blue' for the film's airing, in order to add to the desired atmosphere for the multi-national and celebrity audience, was welcomed by the local council and met with great enthusiasm by the owners of said buildings.
The idea was to repaint all the houses in their original white, at the production company's cost, once the première was over, but a widespread clamouring by villagers for them to be left in the new shade led to a referendum being called six months after the credits rolled.
So it came to pass that the public voted overwhelmingly to stay blue – not just because they liked the colour, but because in that time, the influx of tourists and the global fame Júzcar had attracted had proven an excellent boost for the local economy.
Before that, they had mainly been relying on visitors stopping by to see the Santa Catalina de Siena church and the historical tin factory.
Fittingly, one of Júzcar's top local attractions before its repaint was its Mushroom Museum, as its surrounding countryside is an abundant source of this universal food item and, in bygone times, if you didn't work in the tin factory you probably made your living through mushroom-picking.
And if you were a genuine super-fan and SmurfHead in your early life, you'll remember that the 'blue brigade' lived in a village of mushroom houses.
Fun fact: What's the Spanish word for 'Smurf'?
Smurfs first appeared in Spain when the original comic strips were published in the magazine Strong, and its editor, Miguel Agustí, was reportedly wandering around Barcelona racking his brains to try to think of a suitable, pronounceable and memorable translation of their species' name.
After his eyes fell on the sculpture of the legendary Catalunya folklore figure Patufet – a distant 'relative' of Tom Thumb – the miniature mythical creature's name stuck in his head, and started to morph.
Distorted in his mind's ear after constant repetition over the course of the day, 'Patufet' started to sound like Pitufo – which became the Spanish translation for 'Smurf'.
Since then, and to this day, 'Smurf' as a noun has been Pitufo, and 'Smurf' as a verb – often used in the series and films, with no specific grammatical rules; 'off Smurfing to the shops', 'been busy Smurfing at my desk all day', or 'you've totally Smurfed that', for example – is pitufear.
Smurfs, when first sketched and coloured in by Belgian-born 'Peyo', were called Les Schtroumpfs, pronounced the same as the German word for 'sock', which is Strumpf, but not related to smelly footwear. Peyo was dining out with a colleague one day when he forgot the word for 'salt' (sel, in French) and asked André Franquin to 'pass the schtroumpf' – rather like you might ask your table-mate, in a similar situation, to 'pass the doo-dah' or 'pass the oojimaflip', or similar.
The pair of them spent the weekend joking around and using schtroumpf throughout their conversations, as nouns and verbs, which somehow ended up being converted into the Dutch equivalent, smurf (in the plural, De Smurfen).
It stuck, and although Smurfs sometimes have different names in different languages, the most common ones are smurf, schtroumpf or a variation on either.
The height of the Smurf Age in Júzcar
Meanwhile, back in the province of Málaga, Smurf-fever didn't stop at changing colour. Júzcar, understandably, sought to milk its blueness to the last drop, and shops selling Smurfy souvenirs popped up everywhere, as did statues of as many of the 100-plus characters in Smurfville as they could cram into their streets.
Towering above their human counterparts and nearly equalling them in number (the headcount in Júzcar was 235 as at last year's census), and joined by non-Smurfs such as Gargamel and Azrael the cat, the majority had to be taken down for legal reasons after the film showings, leaving only three still in residence – Smurfette (that's right, Katy Perry's character), Papa Smurf and Student Smurf.
These, the souvenir shops, the blue buildings and the global fame meant Júzcar was welcoming, on average, around 50,000 visitors a year – more than 2,000% of its year-round residents.
After the 2017 film release, it was announced publicly in June that year – by the town hall and IMPS, the company which managed the Smurfs' 'image rights' – that a deal had been reached between Júzcar and the beneficiaries of the original creator, 'Peyo'.
It was said at the time that Júzcar could continue selling official Smurf memorabilia, keep Papa, Student and Smurfette, and continue referring to itself in promotional material as 'The Smurf Village'.
In return, Peyo's inheritors would receive 12% of the profits of any Smurf-related activity in Júzcar or its local area.
But on August 2 that year, a municipal bann appeared on Júzcar town hall's website stating that the two parties had been unable to reach a deal; Peyo's beneficiaries wanted Júzcar to pay royalties for use of the Smurf brand, and Júzcar had said, no, sorry.
Referred to in the media at the time as 'Smurficide' or 'Smurder', the deadlock meant Papa's, Student's and Smurfette's visas had expired and they had to be deported, no more merchandise sold, and no reference whatsoever made publicly that could link Júzcar with the Smurfs, starting August 15, 2017.
It would have been an infringement of copyright law to continue to promote itself as 'Spain's Smurf Village', or the Pueblo Pitufo.
But Júzcar was still allowed to keep its buildings in a fetching shade of 'Smurf-blue', and it's unlikely residents will ever decide to go back to white.
And there is no legal instrument preventing ordinary residents from referring to their town as the 'Smurf Village' in ordinary conversation, or ordinary tourists taking ordinary selfies and captioning them 'Smurf Village' on their personal social media sites.
Neither is there any rule banning 'bring-your-own-Smurf' visits. If you're a complete Smurf-nerd and want to wear your favourite Smurf T-shirt, Smurf handbag and scarf, Smurf earrings, flat white cap and white shorts and dye your hair Smurf-blue when taking a trip to Júzcar, just as any self-respecting Smurf-geek would do, nobody will sue you for it.
And tourism articles and guide-book entries still refer to it as 'Júzcar, formerly known as the Smurf Village', or simply recount its Smurfy past in the description.
Beautiful in blue, and up there with Popeye and Frozen
Proclaiming to the four winds that you're not allowed to call yourself X means everyone will automatically know you're X, or once were and are still proud of the fact – and just being X-coloured is enough to bring visitors in and stamp your name all over the internet.
US-based travel magazine Road Affair listed Júzcar among its top 25 most beautiful municipalities on earth in a recent article – a list topped by Malta's 'Popeye Village', dedicated to the cartoon sailor whose biceps grew when he guzzled spinach and to his long-suffering companion 'Aaah-live' – and tells the tale of its Smurfish past.
Second in the top 25 is Hallstatt, the oldest and most-photographed in Austria due to the fact it looks so much like Ella and co's town that it's known widely as 'The Frozen Village'.
The top five is completed by Simiane La Rotonde in the south of France, Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera, and Ortahisar in the Cappadocia (Kapadokya) area of eastern Turkey, the bit with those fascinating natural sand-rock chimneys.
Júzcar comes 11th, so still considered more beautiful than over half the world's top 25 most-beautiful.
Even if decided to follow the trend set by the rest of Spain's 'White Village' network and become white, it would still be beautiful, but for residents and tourists, a pale repaint would be crossing a (thin blue) line.
Although maybe Júzcar would try to rebrand itself as the 'Snow White Village' instead, and replace the ghosts of its Smurf statues with sculptures of the Seven Dwarves.
Related Topics
You may also be interested in ...
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