Dupuis Smurfs, history of the very first Smurf figurines

Dupuis, the editor of the Smurf comics and of the Spirou magazine, where the stories of Johan and Peewit and of the Smurfs first appeared in, started making vinyl and latex puppets of its most popular heroes in 1957. That first one was the Marsupilami.

In November 1958, a few more Marsupilamis were added, and a Peewit. At this time, the Smurfs had already appeared for some two months in the comics of Johan and Peewit, but they weren't yet very popular, and Peewit was a favourite of the young readers. In the following decade, a whole bunch of figures were made in different sizes, from 5 cm to a whopping 80 cm.

With the Peyo figurines, one year later, in December 1959, the first three small (5 cm) Latex Smurfs were made: Papa, Normal and Angry. At the time, they weren't available as keychains yet. These were the first Smurfs in the format and approximately the material as they have later become world renowned from Schleich and Bully.

By 1963, they were joined by a Johan and a Benoit Brisefer (another hero of Peyo, but he doesn't figure in the Smurf comics).

In the summer of 1964, the life-size (three apples high, or 15 cm) Normal Smurf is for the first time for sale, at the time for the price of a new comic (45 Belgian Francs, about 1.1 Euro). The small Smurfs were 28 Francs (0.7 Euro), Peewit 65 Francs (1.6 Euro), and Johan 89 Francs (2.2 Euro).

In the summer of the year after, the Giant Smurf (a normal Smurf, 30 cm high) became available as well, giving all three ranges of the Dupuis Smurfs for the first time. A few months later, near the end of 1965, arrived the life size Angry Smurf and Papa Smurf, giving us 3 small Smurfs, 3 life size Smurfs, and the Giant Smurf.

Those were joined by the life size King Smurf (with cape!) in the spring of 1966.

Finally, at the end of 1966, five keychains were made: the three small Smurfs already available, plus Prisoner Smurf and Golden Smurf. It is unclear though if the last two ones were also available as normal figurines instead of as keychains.

At this time, all previously issued figurines were still available, so quite a wide range was available in the shops (these were sold in libraries and basically in every shop that sold comics in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and probably some parts of Switzerland and Canada as well). At the same time, the first Smurfs from Schleich were available as well (since 1965, although at the time probably only in Germany)
These are the last new figurines made by Dupuis, and by the early 1970's, no trace of them can be found anymore in the magazines or catalogues.

Text kindly supplied by Fram