Sunday 14 November 2010

#318 of 365 Smurfs Papa Smurfs

One more themed week for this month, but before we get there, let's just walk down Nostalgia lane with a few interesting properties.  Today will see the start of the Smurfs, and the paternal Papa Smurf will lead the way here.


My card is very faded, but most of the details are there including the nice logo on the front and back and the illustration of Smurfette, Vanity and Brainy Smurfs on the front.  There's no illustration of Papa Smurf on the card, which is a pity as it would definitely have set the card apart.  Instead, there's text here and there and a sticker...


...that says "I'm Papa Smurf".  It's small and is not immediately obvious.  Out of the package, there are three accessories with the figure - a table with a plate of fish painted on, a plate of popcorn and a cover for the plate of popcorn.  The table is sculpted with a wood grain finish from brown plastic, and the fish and plate is painted onto the sculpt of the table so that they appear separate.  The plate with the popcorn can be placed over the fish to completely cover it, and the silver cover can be placed on top of that, or alternatively over the fish.  The popcorn piece and the cover are moulded from a very shiny silver plastic.  The popcorn is painted on with weird yellow dots which makes it looks more like a plate of daisies than popcorn.


The figure itself has five points of articulation - hips, shoulders and head, although the shoulder articulations are limited by the "waving arm" action feature.  The sculpt is simple, with the most complicated part being the face sculpt, and even that seems relatively simple.  The paintwork is good, particularly on the face, but the painted on pants seems a bit weird on the figure.


The smurfs aren't really tall, but Papa Smurf stands taller than MotUC Orko and the Lego Toy Story alien.  When placed side by side with these two though, his simplicity shows up and it is immediately obvious that this toy is from a different era than the other two.  For its era, it was probably a solid toy, and the fact that it was a runaway hit probably helped it a lot more.

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