I live in the midwest United States.....the Smurf scare of the early 1980's was HUGE in my congregation.
People were freaking out - throwing them away, telling tall tales of evil things that happen to those in possesion of Smurfs, etc.
Our family scoffed at it since we had family in Europe, and they had been over there for years before the Smurfs invaded the USA.
The European continent was still standing, so we figured there was nothing to worry about.
I remember around the same time, the whole "backmasking" of records scare was going on, along with the extreme fear of any hard rock band.
My friend, who was like an older brother to me, bought Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil" around the height of the SMURF scare - I remember people freaking out. He ended up getting DF'ed a few weeks later for messing around with a girl at the hall. Of course, people blamed the CRUE (and probably the SMURFS for possessing him to SMURF around with that girl at the hall)........