The Smurfs

The Smurfs
Genre	Animation Fantasy Comedy
Created by	Peyo (characters)
Creative director(s)	Various
Starring	Don Messick Frank Welker Lucille Bliss Danny Goldman Michael Bell Hamilton Camp William Callaway June Foray Alan Oppenheimer Paul Winchell
Country of origin	United States Belgium
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	9
No. of episodes	256 (418 segments) (List of The Smurfs episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera Freddy Monnickendam
Running time	22 minutes
Composer(s)	Hoyt Curtin
Production company(s)	Hanna-Barbera Productions SEPP International S.A. Lafig S.A.
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
First shown	September 12, 1981
Original run	September 12, 1981 – December 2, 1989

The Smurfs, also known simply as Smurfs and syndicated as Smurfs' Adventures, is an American-Belgian animated fantasy-comedy television series based on the characters created by Peyo from the comic series, Les Schtroumpfs.

The Smurfs aired on Boomerang from April 1, 2000, until February 5, 2017. However, it returned on July 30, 2018. The schedule was now left on April 7, 2023.

Premise

The storylines tend to be simple tales of bold adventure. The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike—mostly male (a few female Smurfs have appeared: Smurfette, Sassette, and Nanny Smurf), short (three apples high), with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and sometimes some additional accessory that identifies a personality (for example, "Handy Smurf" wears overalls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear). Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet. They love to eat sarsaparilla (a species of Smilax) leaves, whose berries the Smurfs naturally call "smurfberries" (the smurfberries appear only in the cartoon; in the original comics, the Smurfs only eat the leaves from the sarsaparilla).

The Smurfs fulfill simple archetypes of everyday people: "Lazy Smurf", "Grouchy Smurf", "Brainy Smurf", and so on. All Smurfs, with the exception of Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa, are said to be 100 years old. There were originally 99 Smurfs, but this number increased as new Smurf characters appeared, such as Sassette and Nanny. All of the original Smurfs were male; later female additions are Smurfette and Sassette—Smurfette being Gargamel's creation, while Sassette was created by the Smurflings.