Unicef bombs the smurfs!

In the land where the smurfs were actually born, Belgium, Unicef has just run an ad that depicts the poor little blue men only three apples high being bombed. The Telegraph reports that the Belgian audience was in shock after the ad aired on the evening news last week, and while some people approved of the tactic little children who saw the ad by mistake were wailing in terror. In the video the normally idyllic smurf-village is attacked and the smurfs take cover from whistling bombs as their little mushroom houses explode all around.

Philippe Henon, a spokesman for Unicef Belgium, said his agency had set out to shock, after concluding that traditional images of suffering in Third World war zones had lost their power to move television viewers. "It's controversial," he said. "We have never done something like this before but we've learned over the years that the reaction to the more normal type of campaign is very limited."

You can see the Video of the bombed smurfs here (.wmv file) courtesy VRT news. The Smurf-bombing is about 40 seconds into the clip as this is a snippet from the actual newscast. Peyo's family, the smurfs original creator, agreed to let the smurf be bombed.