Some years back, a nameless TV exec said, “The golden age of television is eight.” (Good luck googling for a source for that quote, but it’s real. Trust me.) The current generation of thirty-somethings in the movie industry seem bent on proving the truth of that remark. Close on the heels of Fraggle Rock: The Movie comes news of another Eighties TV cartoon moving to the big screen in the form of a feature-length Smurf film. The film rights to the Smurfs have changed hands over the years, but Columbia and Sony seem determined to see this through. Witness this icky-sweet statement from Columbia’s president:

“The Smurfs are one of the best-known franchises and among the most beloved collection of characters in the world,” Columbia president Doug Belgrad said in a statement. “We’re very excited to introduce a new generation to Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the other Smurfs in all of their ‘three apple tall’ glory.”

Whatever. Unless Smurfette looks like the pic above, or at least like Mystique in the first two X-Men movies, I’ll probably sit this one out. Incidentally: I thought that Hello Kitty was “three apples tall,” although a quick google reveals she’s actually five apples tall and only weighs as much as three apples. (The little minx is probably bulimic.) Regardless, a brutal intellectual property battle between Hello Kitty and the Smurfs over the rights to the apple measurement system might be just what this project needs to liven it up.