Between January to April 1980 the Monte Carlo International Circus Spectacular toured Australia. Recently I was able to come across an advertisement by BP Australia that appeared in the Monte Carlo’s Circus programme guide. On the bottom of the picture it has the mark: (c) Peyo BP Australia 1979.

 

 

On the other side of this promotion piece was advertisement for Peter’s Ice-cream. What is interesting about this, is that Peters Ice-cream were the ones responsible for the Smurfee Ice-cream released in late 1979. I love this kind of nostalgic stuff.

Upon this discovery I decided to look for some information about the Clown figurine (Ref# 20033) released by Schleich back in around 1978. It was one of a number of smurfs that was made both in Germany (known then as West Germany) and Hong Kong around 1978. The Clown Smurf wears yellow pants with suspenders, a red bow tie and big floppy shoes.

As there is little documentation out there about when BP Australia released certain smurf figurines, from my knowledge  Clown Smurf was released in 1980. It was like many smurfs produced out of Hong Kong that had their eyes and mouth spray painted and their blue skin hand painted.

The Clown Smurf was sold between 1978 to 1986 and then again from 1991 to 2000. Not only was it was made in West Germany and Hong Kong but also in Portugal, Sri Lanka and then later on in China. This means that there are plenty of different shades of yellow pants, stripes and bow ties.

It is also not unusual for Clown Smurf to be confused with Jester Smurf (Ref#20090) even though they look nothing a like. Jester Smurf wears a bright green outfit with yellow pom poms on it and a white ruffle around the neck. Jester Smurf also has a red nose and holds a candy cane in his hand.

The Clown Smurf can still be easily found today and like a lot of early smurfs released by BP Australia brings back fond  childhood memories for many collectors. These were the days when you could buy a smurf for only 85 cents.

Keep on Smurfin

Kath B