Where did the Smurfs get their hats (2018)

148 pointsposted 5 months ago
by andsoitis
(pipelinecomics.com)

71 Comments

fvdessen

5 months ago

This is almost certainly completely wrong, the smurfs get their hat designs from the type of hats that gnomes and dwarves and goblins usually wear in germanic folklore, the most well known of all being the garden dwarves, whose design also inspired the dwarves in snow white. The design of garden dwarves is quite recent and apparently come from miners. The hats were filled with straw to protect the miner's head from the ceiling.

amiga386

5 months ago

But the article does cover that. German gnomes (Kobolde, especially Hödekin) are usually depicted with pointy hats, or at least ones that curl backwards. The smurf hats are clearly wearing Phrygian caps.

cubefox

5 months ago

A quick Google image search for "garden gnome" and "gartenzwerg" shows that both types are quite common. But they originally didn't necessarily have the hats common today. These are the oldest surviving garden gnomes according to [1]:

Schloss Mirabell: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mirabellgarten_%E7%B... (1690-1695)

Schloss Greillenstein: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schloss_Greillenstei... (around 1700)

1: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartenzwerg

Cerium

5 months ago

A simple thanks for sharing these images. I had no idea that garden gnomes could be so artful, interesting, or powerful as those in these two images.

fvdessen

5 months ago

the first smurf drawings had pointy hats, the curve is most likely a stylistic evolution.

https://www.lm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/schtr...

larsiusprime

5 months ago

That’s still arguably a classic Phrygian cap design. Whatever or not that was the intention/inspiration, it does resemble them - the hats you just showed are not perfectly conical, there’s a flip at the top.

adfm

5 months ago

The article does state that the Smurfs and the French got the wrong hat and that it's supposed to be a conical pileus rather than the crooked phrygian.

"In Rome, a freed slave had his head shaved. Then, they would wear a pileus, in part to keep their head warm. The hat was a sign of the slave’s freedom/liberty.

Somewhere along the line in the French Revolution, they adopted the freed slaves’ head gear as their own symbol of freedom, but picked the wrong one."

Fun fact: You can see a pileus on the Ides of March coin reverse from 43 BC, minted by Brutus to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March_coin

People have been using silly hats for political purposes for millennia.

dankwizard

5 months ago

[flagged]

pgsandstrom

5 months ago

What, you think the article was written by AI? Why?

Cthulhu_

5 months ago

It's 2025, you can flip a coin and be correct half the time, and no consequences if you're wrong.

jama211

5 months ago

Looks like there are consequences, they’re being called out, which is good

fkyoureadthedoc

5 months ago

Being called out anonymously and never thinking about it again, that's gotta sting

quietbritishjim

5 months ago

I guess because it is full of guesswork and devoid of real factual research (at least for the main headline question). But it turns out that bloggers looking for content and lacking any skill are also capable of writing plausible-sounding slop.

jama211

5 months ago

I wouldn’t call this article slop

dagmx

5 months ago

Fun random fact, the tool used to animate the smurfs hats in 3 out of 4 CG smurfs films, was actually created for Doctor Manhattan’s junk for the original Watchmen film.

thirtygeo

5 months ago

My wife did not appreciate this fun fact but I did

user____name

5 months ago

Sounds like a joke. Spring rigs and soft body physics have been included in various cg animation software for decades at this point.

kjs3

5 months ago

I feel like there's more entertaining detail you're leaving out here.

dagmx

5 months ago

Not much else tbh. It was just originally made to simulate a thing with an attachment at one point and that flaps around on the other.

So his junk was the original because animators didn’t want to spend time animating it, but it naturally extends to floppy Smurf hats.

kjs3

5 months ago

That's totally OK, because "some slacker animators figured out how to use the same tool that animated Dr. Manhattans giant blue cock for the Smurf hats in that insipid Smurf movie" is maybe the best bit of useless information I've been gifted in YEARS. I told my wife and she looked at me for probably 45 seconds before saying "what is wrong with you?". Perfect.

kabes

5 months ago

Dutch catoonist Dirkjan revealed the real answer already years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/dirkjan/s/zszexnXLRu

ezequiel-garzon

5 months ago

ChatGPT's translation:

Panel 1 Waiter: "Sir, I’d like to ask you to take off your cap in this restaurant." Smurf: "Take off my cap? You’re not asking me to take off my pants, are you?!"

Panel 2 Waiter: "That’s not the same." Smurf: "That is the same."

Panel 3 Cook (to waiter): "Let him put his cap back on." Waiter: "That’s maybe better."

Vinnl

5 months ago

I'll do a manual one that's more correct and captures the spirit better:

Panel 1

Waiter: "Sir, please take your hat off in this restaurant."

Smurf: "Take off my hat? You wouldn't ask me to take off my trousers either, would you!"

Panel 2

Waiter: "That’s not the same at all."

Smurf: "Yes it is!"

Panel 3

Cook (to waiter): "Let's let him put his hat back on."

Waiter: "Yes, let's."

ragebol

5 months ago

+1 for Dirkjan, always. Another classic https://dirkjan.nl/cartoon/20231004_3677623503/

And this one always gets me too: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fw... with the "Jesmurfa's witness"

Vinnl

5 months ago

I don't get that first one :(

bzzzt

5 months ago

The smurf's being asked to remove his hat since wearing it in a restaurant is considered impolite. When being pressed the smurf says 'I don't ask you to remove your pants'. When it's revealed the smurfs genitals are under his hat Dirkjan's mate says 'maybe we should let hem keep his hat on'.

user

5 months ago

[deleted]

user

5 months ago

[deleted]

thedailymail

5 months ago

Or maybe the artist was inspired by the connection of the Phrygian cap with psychedelic "liberty cap" mushrooms (Psilocybe semilanceata), which are distributed widely across Europe and associated with elves, fairies and various other wee folk?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybe_semilanceata

pier25

5 months ago

I don't know but their houses are definitely amanita muscaria.

Tade0

5 months ago

Which makes sense as you want your house to be as inedible as possible.

I assume they have some method of keeping snails, woodpeckers and other animals resistant to the poison at bay.

cluckindan

5 months ago

Amanita muscaria is not inedible, it just needs to be processed correctly.

Tade0

5 months ago

I happen to know a person who experimented with eating dried caps and I don't think there exists a process that actually makes them harmless. Unless of course you're isolating muscimol, but I don't think that should count as eating the fungus.

While liver damage is mitigated by the fact that the organ in question regenerates, nerves don't.

ratelimitsteve

5 months ago

I happen to be a person who ate the dried caps directly and experienced not only no ill effects but no effects whatsoever several times.

IAmBroom

5 months ago

Which is why I carry around a pocketful of snails.

jansan

5 months ago

Smurfs are most probably bald, as discussed in this thread on a good old fashioned forum:

https://bluebuddies.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/1/1485....

And my unopular opinion is that Smurfette is most probably wearing a wig.

variaga

5 months ago

Smurfette isn't an actual Smurf, she's a construct made by Gargamel (yes, this is actual Smurf canon), so presumably her hair is also some sort of construct.

Jean-Papoulos

5 months ago

I can't believe they re-colored the entire first comic to make the Smurfs purple and not black. That's hilarious

jesperwe

5 months ago

Maybe the white on top of their heads IS their hair? And Papa smurf was old and bald and used a hat to blend in.

bingo-bongo

5 months ago

From a drawing perspective the hat is fairly simple (3-4 lines), looks good and quick to sketch - speed mattered when drawing lots of Smurf’s.

alex_young

5 months ago

Idk about all that, but the Smurfs are probably commies right?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jun/06/smurfs-accused...

29athrowaway

5 months ago

The conspiracy theories I have heard:

- Gargamel is a priest, the smurfs are prosecuted by the church

- Papa smurf wears red and has a beard because of ideological reasons, the smurfs political and economic system resembles communism

- Smurfs represent the seven deadly sins/seven capital vices

    Lust: Enamored smurf
    Gluttony: Baker smurf
    Avarice: Greedy smurf
    Sloth: Lazy smurf
    Wrath: Grouchy smurf
    Envy: Brainy smurf
    Pride: Vanity smurf

itintheory

5 months ago

SMURF - Socialist Men Under Red Father

kergonath

5 months ago

Much harder to do with the original name in French (schtroumpf).

sentinelsignal

5 months ago

Actually happy to see something very niche that i was taught in school.

eadmund

5 months ago

> Somewhere along the line in the French Revolution, they adopted the freed slaves’ head gear as their own symbol of freedom, but picked the wrong one.

That’s just so typical of the French Revolution.

animal531

5 months ago

I have bigger questions about their long-johns than the hats.

- Why long pants instead of shorts? It does make them look more dignified, I suppose.

- Why white, you know that's just going to stain the feet something terrible.

user

5 months ago

[deleted]