While this story’s been making its way around the blogs for days now, I can’t help but propagate it a bit further. The opening says it all:

Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign for ex-child soldiers

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters’ village is annihilated by warplanes…

What could be crazier than this? As it turns out, the idea that was left on the cutting-room floor:

Julie Lamoureux, account director at Publicis for the campaign, said the agency’s original plans were toned down. “We wanted something that was real war—Smurfs losing arms, or a Smurf losing a head—but they said no.“

Thankfully, the spot will only be shown late at night, when the kids are (hopefully) asleep, and when the only victims of this ad will be adults. Let’s see how much money it raises for the Smurf-killers at the UN…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 25th, 2005 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Culture, Europe, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.