TWO GREAT THINGS!

First of all, welcome to Planet Earth,  O  Anonymous Baby Boy born to William and Kate! May you be physically and morally strong, a wise leader to your people, and  a fit successor to the Queen Mum, and may you NEVER do a reality show! (Especially for Ryan Seacrest Productions!)

Secondly,Welkom, Belgie! Bienvenue en Belgique! Yes, friends, the newest Steve's Blog country is Belgium, the land of a brand new king and the home of a certain tribe of 100 little blue elves, only three apples tall. If you guessed the Snorks, sorry, bud, you're all wet! (Come to think of it, so were the Snorks, since they lived underwater.) If you guessed the Smurfs,you are correct, O Great One! (Since AMC is  now  rerunning Carson, I figured now would be the perfect time to pull my Ed McMahon impression out of mothballs. I know, you can't hear it, but I'm just sayin'!)

Their last live-action movie, THE SMURFS,  debuted to a chorus of disapproval.  I was one of those movie goers who did his  best Grouchy Smurf, standing outside the theatre arms akimbo and a scowl on my face and shouting, "I HATE this movie!"

This year, to mark the Smurfs' 55th anniversary, (I celebrated MY 55th anniversary two months ago! What a coinkydink!) THE SMURFS 2 is being released with the voices of Katy Perry (Smurfette) George Lopez (Grouchy) Fred Armisen (Brainy),Alan  Cumming (Gutsy),and Anton  Yelchin (Clumsy) reprising their roles,
along with the late great Jonathan Winters performing Papa Smurf for, unfortunately, the last time, along with a tribe of Bizarro Smurfs unleashed upon an unsuspecting world by the Smurfs' deadliest foe, the evil, gold-craving,  Smurf-soup-wanting GARGAMEL (Hank Azaria) called the Naughties, led by an Anti-Smurfette called Vexy, voiced by Christina Ricci. The last time many of us saw Christina Ricci, she could have easily been mistaken for a Smurfette as she wore the world famous blue stewardess uniform of Pan American World Airways on the tragically shortlived TV show PAN AM. I was hoping Christina would reprise her role as Maggie, the Bohemian who once said she identified more with Gatsby than with Daisy,by somehow slipping the CGI Smurfs into a recreation of the Belgian Village at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair
and having them hide from Gargamel inside the pages of  "Spirou," the Belgian comics weekly that introduced them to the world, BUT, to paraphrase Dick Cheney, you see the movie you've got, not the movie you want. Once I see the Smurf movie "we've got," I promise a full review.

Anyway, welcome aboard, Belgium! I think this is the beginning of a smurfy friendship!

Smurf you later!
Steve