The Smurfs

**The Smurfs** (syndicated as **Smurfs' Adventures**) is an American-Belgian fantasy-comedy children's television series based on the Belgian comic series by the same name, created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo (who also served as story supervisor of this adaptation) that aired on NBC, premiering September 12, 1981.

## Premise

*The Smurfs* follows the titular Smurfs, tiny blue creatures named after their personalities, who inhabit a village of mushroom houses in an enchanted forest. These lovable creatures are led by Papa Smurf and live carefree... except for one major threat to their existance: Gargamel, an evil but inept wizard who lives in a stone-built house in the forest; and his feline companion, the equally nasty Azrael.

## Prodduction

### Development

The origin of the Smurfs came from an animated cartoon that Belgian cartoonist Peyo was working on whilst at a studio he formerly employed in the last 1940s' before its closing stopped production completely.

In 1976, Stuart R. Ross, an American media and entertainment entrepreneur who saw the Smurfs while traveling in Belgium, entered into an agreement with Editions Dupuis and Peyo, acquiring North American and other rights to the characters, whose original name was "les Schtroumpfs". Subsequently, Ross launched the Smurfs in the United States in association with a California company, Wallace Berrie and Co., whose figurines, dolls and other Smurf merchandise became a hugely popular success. NBC President Fred Silverman's daughter, Melissa, had a Smurf doll of her own that he had bought for her at a toy shop while they were visiting Aspen, Colorado. Silverman thought that a series based on the Smurfs might make a good addition to his Saturday-morning lineup.

### Release

The Saturday morning cartoon The Smurfs, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with SEPP International S.A. (from 1981 to 1987) and Lafig S.A. (in the years 1988 and 1989), debuted on NBC in 1981. The series became a major success for the network one of the few hits to emerge from the Fred Silverman era) and one of the most successful and longest running Saturday morning cartoons in television history, spawning seven spin-off television specials on an almost yearly basis. The characters included Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Brainy Smurf, the evil Gargamel, his cat Azrael, and Johan and his friend Peewit.

By 1989, the show was in its ninth season and had reached the 200-episode threshold, an extreme rarity when most cartoons were gone after two seasons and 22 episodes (it also far exceeded the typical 65-episode run of a first-run syndicated show of the era). In an effort to come up with new ideas to keep the show fresh, NBC changed the format of the show, removing some of the Smurfs from the forest and omitting the Smurf Village. These changes were adopted to a lost-in-time format similar to The Time Tunnel. The show continued through the end of the season, airing the last original episode December 2, 1989 on NBC.

The series ended after 256 aired episodes with a total of 418 stories, excluding three cliffhanger episodes and seven specials.

A half-hour version for syndication was broadcast under the title Smurfs' Adventures (this is the version usually seen on Cartoon Network and Boomerang). Although each season had its own unique opening song during the original broadcast, syndicated airings usually use a shortened version of the Season 4 opening.

### Awards

The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy Awards and won Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series in 1982–1983.

## Trivia

* Outsourced production work was done by Wang Film Productions/Cuckoo's Nest Studios and, only for Season 7, by Toei Animation.
* Warner Home Video (via Hanna-Barbera Productions and Warner Bros. Family Entertainment) released the complete first season on DVD in a two-volume set in 2008.
	+ Despite high sales of both sets, no further seasons have been released.
	+ Warner Home Video later released a series of three single-disc releases of The Smurfs in 2009, each containing five episodes from the second season