Where did the Smurfs get their hats (2018)

Posted by andsoitis 2 days ago

Where did the Smurfs get their hats (2018)(www.pipelinecomics.com)

146 points | 64 comments

fvdessen 2 days 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 2 days 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 2 days 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 2 days 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 2 days 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 2 days 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 12 hours 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 2 days ago||

[flagged]

sbierwagen 2 days ago|||

Not AI. Indexed in 2020 by the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20201001000000*/https://www.pipe...

Why GPT writing sounds like the median lazy blog post of five years ago is left as an exercise for the reader.

jama211 2 days ago|||

But facts? That goes against the hive mind

pgsandstrom 2 days ago|||

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

Cthulhu_ 2 days ago|||

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

jama211 2 days ago||

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

fkyoureadthedoc 2 days ago||

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

quietbritishjim 2 days 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 2 days ago||

I wouldn’t call this article slop

autoexec 2 days ago||

I just assumed that Tailor Smurf (https://smurfs.fandom.com/wiki/Tailor_Smurf) made them

dagmx 2 days 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.

user____name 9 hours ago||

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

thirtygeo 2 days ago|||

My wife did not appreciate this fun fact but I did

kjs3 2 days ago|||

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

dagmx 1 day 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.

cluckindan 2 days ago||

Yeah right.

duxup 2 days ago||

I'm proud that I managed to guess it, it's a Phrygian cap.

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

ggm 2 days ago|

does the bashed forage cap of the civil war era also pay dues to this?

kabes 2 days ago||

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

ezequiel-garzon 2 days 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."

billbrown 23 hours ago|||

I feel like Kagi's version is better.

https://translate.kagi.com/?from=nl&to=en&text=MiJNHEER%2C+i...

Vinnl 2 days 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 2 days 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 2 days ago||

I don't get that first one :(

bzzzt 2 days 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'.

Vinnl 2 days ago||

Oh no I meant the Pranfeuri one.

Edit: Typing that out me realise that I could just search for that word. Apparently it's just absurdist: https://www.reddit.com/r/learndutch/comments/17nvt4g/pranfeu...

stronglikedan 2 days ago||

So it's a plumbus!

ragebol 1 day ago||

Yes, a pranfeuri is like a plumbus indeed! Curious how pranfeuri's are made though. Probably smurfs are involved

thedailymail 2 days 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 2 days ago|

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

Tade0 2 days 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 2 days ago||

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

Tade0 2 days 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.

cluckindan 1 day ago|||

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria#Culinary

ratelimitsteve 1 day 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 2 days ago|||

Which is why I carry around a pocketful of snails.

jansan 2 days 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 2 days 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.

ivape 2 days ago||

Why is that website?

whycombyourhair 2 days ago|||

The world would be so much better if there were only facebook, instagram and youtube apps. But then again I'm a Grouchy Smurf.

https://bluebuddies.com/smurf_fun/smurf_personality_test/smu...

jansan 2 days ago|||

Because that's where I found that discussion. Is there a problem with that website?

Jean-Papoulos 2 days ago||

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

jesperwe 2 days 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 2 days 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.

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