Smurfs

Hello and welcome to Tooncast episode 12. Brought

to you by GeekCast Radio Network. I am TFG1 Mike

and as usual I am joined by Kevin, Professor

Boss K Dog. Hello. Hello. How are you? I am good.

Yes. You have heathens to deal with next week,

don't you? I got heathens to deal with tomorrow.

Yeah, exactly. Which actually will be two days

ago. Yeah, yeah It should be noted. We are recording

this Sunday Yeah, okay, so I will I will sound

sane at the moment, but when you're listening

to this I am currently insane Episode 13 Kevin

will be off his rocker next week Everything's

going fairly well for me. I guess is nothing

really New to really report I've pretty much

gotten all of my eBay items except for two. One

where a buddy of mine, I bought some green arrow

black canary comics off of him. And apparently

the package got shipped, got sent back to him.

It didn't even, the post office didn't even take

it out. They said it could not be sent or whatever

and he said that had happened in the past. So,

okay, it's no big deal. He'll get them for me

eventually and of course... I'm still waiting

on DarkwingDuck101 in fucking China. On a more

positive note, we actually have two reviews in

iTunes. AmishPlayer4 has done a review saying,

very nostalgic, brings back great memories as

a kid, keep up the good work. Ken Curry's review

says Taking it back to old school an excellent

show that takes you back to the time when cartoons

slash animation was done, right? Agreed I do

agree with that, but there are some good cartoons

that came out You know Well, I'm mainly referring

to Justice League and Justice League unlimited

so You're biased because you're in the midst

of watching all of them. Shut the hell up. I'm

biased because I love that show. Actually, honestly,

since I've been watching it over the last 12

hours today, probably sometime middle of next

year, I will be starting a Justice League Review

podcast. Nice. Also, I should mention that my...

I guess he's a buddy of mine. I don't know, I

started listening to, well, it was one of my

Twitter followers on Tooncast, Chicken Pop Pod.

His name is Chris. Their podcast is Chicken Pop

Podcast, and it's basically all pop culture stuff

and cartoons and stuff like that. He's really

big in the 80s. I had him on MWIRE episode 6

last week, the Mission Impossible films review,

because Steve couldn't make it. He had mentioned

to me that he has a certain Thundercats email

address. I asked him for it, shot it off an email.

Maybe Tooncast could get a review, not a review,

an interview at some point. I'm not going to

reveal which voice actor it is to anyone at this

point until I get a reply either way. But yeah.

Although I have a very good guess, but I won't

say it. Yeah, just don't even say anything. I'm

not even, and even if you did guess, I'm not

saying anything anyway, so it doesn't really

matter. We all know it's not Lynn Lipton. You

never know. Oh my gosh, if you brought her along

at some point, that may be done. So yeah, that's

pretty much all that's been going on with me

this past week. For those of you who may listen

to any of our other shows, Actually our flagship

show geek cast radio has kind of seen a lack

in releases only because I have been mainly focused

on on this show and M wire and I wanted to have

geek cast radios Well the geek cast radio podcast

be whenever Steve and I can actually sit down

or Either he and I separately with other people

can sit down and actually discuss a topic and

not just have it be this rush thing I know that

a lot of people in the past that have listened

to all things transformers some of those episodes

That we've recorded in the past have been five

six o 'clock in the morning episodes And they've

been like between 20 minutes in an hour and a

half, but you know ranging But I wanted geek

cast radio to be something special and something

that has actual discussion and not just Oh, well,

I guess it's, you know, 20 -25 minutes. Really

don't have much else to say, you know, but I

didn't want it to be this rambling on type of

show, so that's one of the reasons why the Geekcast

Radio podcast has not seen a lot of releases.

We do have a lot of great ideas for it, and as

soon as Steve gets some more free time, we will

be doing more of those. What's been going on

with you this past week? My life is just getting

out of control busy. Let's see. Obviously, I

started work back last week. Students start tomorrow.

So from here on out, it's going to be crazy busy,

although I don't start coaching until October.

So at least I have a little time here. Let's

see. Closing on my house in about 10 days. So

time that well so that I can do that at the same

time the school year starts. I was talking off

the air. Today was interesting as I try to plan

everything and get everything ready for the first

day of school tomorrow. I realized that about

two hours ago that all my dress clothes, because

I wear a dress pants or shirt and a tie every

day to work. I realized that all that stuff except

for the ties was about 45 minutes away at my

mom's house because I left it there over the

summer. I went home and did all the laundry there.

Ironing whatnot and I left it there since I didn't

need them over the summer and forgot that they

were there until two hours ago So either say

I've been running around Trying to get out that

stuff. Yeah Yeah, you know You know, that's fine.

It's it's more than fine I'm more than capable

of running the show myself as far as like getting

being for my only issue and I you know And we've

talked about it off air with some of the shows

is actually especially when I look for Smurfs

on Wikipedia for this topic. The information

that I found, I looked up the Smurfs, I looked

up just Smurfs, you know, it had more to do with

the musical aspects of the show than anything

else, than the actual show premise, you know.

So maybe I wasn't searching the right word or

whatever. That's where I come in. So, you know,

that was my only issue with the scripts. So,

yeah, I mean... It'll all work out though. Oh

yeah, normally I can just get the information

and just put it in there. I'm just along to get

yelled at and to provide comedy. Yes, exactly.

Luckily, you are very flexible so that this will

work now that school starts. Oh, I don't care.

I mean, like I told you, what was it, a while

ago, you know, the way I would do it is... If

it was me getting the information for next week's

show, I would do it as soon as I get off that

week's show. Hell, I've already gone through

over the last two weeks. I think one morning

I sat here from 9 .30 in the morning until about

four in the afternoon just grabbing information

for each MWIRE episode. We don't have a specific

script format like we do on that show like we

do for this show. It's just the information movie

like when we eventually get to do the Marvel

spotlight, like the X -Men films and the Spider

-Man films. Those are three films that we're

going to be talking about in one episode. So

I just get all the information for the first

movie, second movie, third movie, and I just

leave it. the way it is and I have the intro

and the closing and all that stuff, I don't actually

have an actual format. I'm sure I could probably

try to come up with one, but... There reminds

me of where all my free time went this week when

we were talking about going from 9 to 4 with

the scripts. You know, I have to do it every

episode, so I have been obsessed right now with

trying to complete Frank Welker's page. over

at BehindTheVoiceActors .com you go to Frank

Welker's page it currently has 169 of his roles

credited pictures and everything of those characters

and I think I still have a couple hundred to

go. Well let's see 169 characters out of ten

million two hundred and fifty thousand three

hundred and thirty five i didn't realize and

i i'll admit that i mean i mean i knew he was

a voice acting god and i knew his credits were

super extensive with cartoon work i did not realize

he had done so many roles in movies and mainly

you think of any disney movie he did something

about and i did not know that you mean live action

animation beauty and the beast uh... aladdin

little mermaid uh... all of us probably a pool

in uh... i mean he's he's the animals and all

of that stuff i think you know if you need you

know in it's not us saying this and it's not

everybody else is saying this but it is a known

fact union animal done in animation you calls

you know call contact email text whatever frank

wilker That's just the way it's always been for

years. Oh yeah, exactly. I guess I just didn't

realize his Disney connection. It seems like

from the 80s to currently, if there was a Disney

movie out there that had animals in it, he is

in it. He's the tiger in Aladdin, Raja or whatever

you call it. He's a little bug in Tarzan. He's

a little cricket and a horse in Pocahontas, or

I mean Mulan. He's in Rescuers Down Under. He's

just everywhere. You know I was looking at the

schedule for this show and for Mwire and you

know because these are weekly shows they seem

to be flying by for me. Oh yeah. I mean we're

already you know this is episode 12 for 10cast

we just finished episode 6 for Mwire and just

the content that we've already covered it's just

amazing. Now that we have iTunes feedback, I'm

even more excited about it. Yes, we need more

iTunes feedback, really, people. Go there now,

even though you haven't heard this episode. Yes,

exactly. Go there now while you're listening

to the multitask. Have we even said what we're

talking about today yet? Yes, Smurfs. Okay. Sorry.

Don't say it. I was gonna say, which I'm probably

not gonna be too enthused about. You can grunt

all you want, I'm the boss over here dammit.

What the smurf is wrong with you? I have reasons

that I'll get to later. Prepare, like always,

for another battle. Wait, you mean why the Smurf?

There's something wrong with me? Yes, yes. Okay.

Alright, well, I think we're going to the history

lesson. This is a new segment for Tooncast. I

don't know how often this is going to be. But

this is the Tooncast DVD news segment. Some news

last week came to my attention from TV shows

on DVD .com. As everybody knows, the DC Animated

Universe along with Batman the Animated Series,

Superman the Animated Series, Justice League,

Batman Beyond, all that stuff is one of my favorite

shows. And Batman the Animated Series saw a complete

series release last November, sometime last year

or earlier this year, I forget. And I must bring

up the TV shows on DVD news items for Superman

the Animated Series, a look at the box art for

the complete animated series. A week ago, Warner

Brothers Home Video announced their November

24th release of Superman the Animated Series.

the complete animated series a seven dvd set

with all 54 episodes package art wasn't available

at the time but today we got our first look at

it thanks to an e -announcement the studio sent

out to retailers we've gotten a look at the announcement

graphic below and we also uh cropped out the

box from the big picture straightened it out

and enlarged it a bit for you we'll show you

the first and then launch your announcement check

it out uh and if you want to go over to this

page It's TV shows on DVD comm slash news slash

Superman dash animated dash series Dash the complete

dash series To go over TV shows on DVD. It's

like the first TV shows on DVD comm it's like

the first couple of latest news items As I said

a seven disc sec it's gonna retail for fifty

three eighty two There is gonna be a few new

features it comes out November 24th there is

one new feature the despot dark side a villain

worthy of Superman in over 25 over 20 hours of

content I love the BTAS complete series set and

I'm glad they're doing this with this one as

well The only complaint that I have with this

though, it doesn't other than that one new feature

It doesn't seem like they are doing anything

different from the volume sets. They're on The

the third disc of each volume set is a dual sided

disc It doesn't seem like they're doing anything

different other than just putting them all together

in one collection But I am glad that they're

doing it The other announcement that I wanted

to read was the fact that one, I believe it's

either one week, it's like two weeks before that,

they're going to be releasing Justice League,

the complete series. According to TV shows on

DVD, similar to the recently revealed set for

Superman the Animated Series and last year's

release of Batman the Animated Series, one home

video, has today, which was this past Friday,

so it's going to be a week ago when this aired,

or once it eventually airs, has announced that

on November 10th they will be putting out a 15

DVD collection of Justice League the complete

series. Priced at $99 .98, this comes with all

91 episodes of the animated series produced and

aired under the title Justice League for the

first two seasons. and then as Justice League

Unlimited for the remaining three seasons. The

collection includes new bonus discs with brand

new feature at titled Unlimited Reserve Exploring

the Depths of the DC Universe and it all comes

bundled in a collectable packaging with special

episode guide booklet enclosed. And as of right

now, there is a controversy between Justice League

seasons because I believe it was in Season 2

they started using the widescreen format on Cartoon

Network and that's what the Season 2 and Beyond

DVDs are but as of right now the complete series

is said to be a full screen video showing instead

of widescreen so I'm not sure and neither of

the... neither of the TV shows and DVDs what

it's actually going to be when it finally gets

released I cannot wait for this I have all four

DVD sets for Justice League and I have all three

Williams of Superman and I am actually selling

them on eBay if anyone wants to buy them it's

160 bucks plus free shipping because I want to

get this set I don't I'm hoping all the features

that are on the individual season sets are on

this but yeah this is gonna be awesome I've got

a couple other, kind of on a different note,

other release news that I'd like to bring up.

They're cartoon -related, go ahead. Oh yeah,

they are. One, just because I just did all these

over the shows, over behind The Voice Actors,

and The World's Greatest Super Friends. There

was a set of episodes that never had aired originally

on TV, and last week, you know, Tuesdays are

always DVD release dates, and last Tuesday, not

yesterday, when this airs but a week ago from

that the lost episodes what which is what they've

been called of the world's greatest super friends

was released on dvd so you can pick those up

and see them because you didn't see them originally

kind of goes along with today's topic when this

airs this will have come out yesterday the smurfs

volume two smurfy tales is coming out which is

just a little collection of five shows so if

you are interested in what the smurfs look like

and you don't have boomerang you probably get

that pretty cheap probably only like 10 $12 or

something like that, but it has five episodes

on there, so that's being released a day before

this airs. And the only other thing I have, which

I may be interested in, I can't decide yet, is

they've also announced a complete series release

of, what's it called, Savor Rider and the Star

Sheriffs. I've never seen that show, so I have

no idea. It's another animated 80s movie, or

80s series, so those are my three notes for TV

shows being released here. Yes, and this segment

may or may not become regular. I actually still

am trying to work out a way to get around that

as far as getting cartoon releases. I'm not really

sure. This is kind of like the movie segment

that Steve and I did in episode three of MWIRE,

the movie news segment. So I'm not really sure

how we're going to incorporate it, if we will

incorporate it at all in future episodes of Tooncast.

I think once I... Finalize an actual idea of

how it's gonna run and where it's gonna run It'll

probably run after general chat before we start

the show topic But at the same time, I don't

know how often it's gonna be I just had to throw

it in here on this episode because I'm sorry.

I almost fell out of my chair and basically just

exploded myself because of just seeing those

two news items I mean Superman is great. That's

fine. The one out was mainly Excited about was

the Justice League because I love that show.

That's right I did the same thing when they announced

that they were doing a whole series of Transformers

and G .I. Joe Well, I did well Transformers.

Yeah, yeah So yeah, this has been toon casts

toon TV DVD news. We are gonna get into the show

today It is now time for the history lesson take

it away professor hello Smurflings it is the

professor boss K dog and it is Definitely a time

or time for another history lesson and for this

episode episode 12. We're going way back to 1981

For the Smurfs the Smurfs are a fictional group

of small sky -blue creatures in case you have

been living in the cave for your entire life

Who live in Smurf village somewhere in the woods?

the Belgian cartoonist Pierre Colford often referred

to as introduced Smurfs to the world in a series

of comic strips, making their first appearance

in 1958. The English -speaking world, which we

are all part of, perhaps knows them best through

the popular 1980s television series, which is

what the topic of episode 12 is for today. Like

I said, it's an American cartoon series that

aired on NBC from September 1981 to December

1989. with three runs going until about 1990

so it's almost on air for about an entire decade.

Made by Hannah Barbera it is based obviously

on that comic series and aired for 256 episodes

with a total of 421 stories which puts it basically

at the top whether you go by 256 or you go by

421 it doesn't matter it's still more episodes

than just about any other cartoon series of that

decade. And that does it for the history lesson.

Let's move on to the rest of the episode. For

now, this is the professor and class is dismissed.

Okay, it is now time for the general memories

recollections. And before we do that, of course,

this being the Smurfs episode, I must play one

of my favorite jokes from Jeff. If you choke

a Smurf, what color does it turn? Choke a Smurf.

Right. Is that what they're calling it now? What

the hell happened to the chicken? Oh, he is pretty

funny. Oh yes, very much so. There will probably

be a cast radio episode talking about his stuff

at some point. I don't know when. Um, all right.

Well, I guess I'll start for negativity over

here. I will I Don't know if it was the fact

that I didn't I Don't know what to say about

this show honestly, I watch it now and I cringe.

Oh No, see I'll be quiet. I'll be you know, I'm

29. I'll be 30 next year, you know You're old.

I know, exactly. You know, I honestly have the

only memory that I really have of this show is

hoping Smurfette was taller and wore less clothes.

Uh -oh. This podcast has become rated. It was

rated X. It doesn't matter. Now it's like whatever

is after that. mc -17 you know I can say you

know without actually having to go an actual

show which I know we will do eventually anyway

today but I can sum up this show in probably

four sentences you know four different lines

little people living in the forest giant human

trying to eat them and his cat always getting

thrown somewhere from some smurf doing something

with some trap That's pretty much the premise

of the whole friggin' show. Well, at the same

time, since I'm Mr. Positivity, most cartoons

have the same premise done over and over and

over again to a point. Look at Transformers,

Megatron's trying to do something, Autobot stop

him, Megatron gets away, tries again the next

day, Cobra, He -Man, they're all the same. I

agree with that point, but just... I don't see

where the... I just don't see where this was

supposed to appeal to kids. You know, first of

all, you know... I know it's a kid's cartoon,

and that's why I'm... What the hell? Yes, I'm

talking in the mic the whole time. Oh, okay.

Sounds like you're on a rollercoaster. You may

have to redo this clip. Is that any better? Yeah

Sorry, it sounds like you're like it sounds like

you're holding the mic and like Like one of those

people that talks and then like turns away from

the mic and then comes back to it And then I

know that's not what you're doing. No, I'm just

sitting here Christ I don't know we'll just go

on with this that you know I understand the premise

of this is is to appeal to kids, but and i understand

cartoons are all make believe in everything else

believe me i get that but what in what realm

of of a kitty cartoon are you gonna have to use

magic and basically the smurfs are ants that's

what they are they're they're fucking blue ants

never thought of them like that but okay if you

look at it gargamel is a human he's regular size

he might be a little demean diminutive with other

humans around. He has a cat named Asriel. You

know, the Smurfs technically could either be

little blue ants or little blue mice. For Asriel,

I just, I don't know. I really don't like this

show at all. I can't believe I'm hearing this.

I really don't. Oh my god. The show on a whole,

if... If we had a grading scale of like 1 to

10 like we do on MWIRE here on Tunecast, it would

get a zero from me. I'm banging my head on a

wall. I'm sorry, I just, I really don't remember

anything good about this show. Let's rather sit

through Silverhawks than sit through this. Okay,

well I would too, but Silverhawks rule, but anyway.

This this show for me. I don't know my memories.

I've never been alive without the Smurfs Smurfs

debuted two months before I was born So my entire

I mean and it was on like we said for nine ten

years So I mean it was on my entire Youth yes,

I mean my entire time growing up and being little

smurfs is on TV, and I remember watching it consistently

I don't remember exactly. It was usually Saturday

morning I think that I was watching it. Over

the years it's played on different times but

originally it was a Saturday morning cartoon

and I remember specifically getting up and that

was the thing that I watched. That was the first

thing that was on TV when I got up and I would

watch that every day and I did not grow out of

it for a long time. I mean, eventually, yeah,

Transformers, et cetera, comes out and I shifted

over to that. But I still had an occasional Smurf

viewing. And I just loved it. I had board games

that the Smurfs were on. And I remember playing

those with all the collecting the fruit and stuff

like that. This is part of my childhood. I own

at least one of the DVDs. We won't say which

one because it doesn't make any sense, but anyway.

Season one, volume two. Is it the best cartoon

ever? Obviously not. We'll get into more of this

at the end of the show, but it is one of the

most important cartoons ever, and I'll give you

a variety of reasons why. But I like it. I think

it has a lot to appeal to kids. I think the the

music in it appeals to kids more a lot like Looney

Tunes and the like the merry melodies type version

of that had You know it has some very classical

music, but it keeps the kids into it I think

the the personalities which we'll get into in

the character section Kind of attracts people

like kind of like Snow White and the seven dwarves

did where you have like the different Personalities

of all the dwarfs and stuff like that And I don't

think the little ant thing is that much of an

issue for me because a lot of shows You know

in the 80s etc were like that it didn't bother

it to bother me with last week's episode You

know Chippendales were you know basically the

yeah You know running around like that and a

lot of other shows are similar so that didn't

really bother me but I Don't know it just it

just holds a special part with me. You know just

because I grew up on it You know and I mean I

agree with some of your points I'm talking about

the show on a whole. The actual premise of the

show, what each episode was about, for me, completely

sucked. I do like a lot of the characters. I'm

not going to deny that. I do like a lot of the

different differentiating characters, but just...

But I think that I think the fact I mean I understand

what you're saying and I think you can say that

about a ton of cartoons I think the fact that

it lasted for as long as it didn't had as many

episodes as it did without necessarily just Reverting

to let's just do reruns over and over and over

again I mean this was on for like nine years,

but it continuously produced new stuff, and I

and I think I got to give it credit for For having

the amount of content that it does whether you

know a lot of its repetitious or not It still

came up with basically new stories somewhat You

know even if it's just deep on the surface even

if it's the same plot over and over and over

again Well, I mean, I'm not I'm not saying that

the longevity of the show didn't Didn't hurt

it or you know what you know I understand it

was a long -running show and that and that and

that's great just for me and I think it's more

of me now looking at it and not ten -year -old

me inside looking. I think it's you know the

quote -unquote adult looking at it now not the

kid because honestly I remember watching Scooby

-Doo more than I remember watching the Smurfs.

Just I don't know I wish this Was I mean it's

not for it wasn't for kids, you know after a

certain age is as much more of a Preschool kindergarten

age type cartoon. Yeah, but it's it and three

and six right and I think Unfortunately, this

is the type of stuff that's missing for kids

these days You know, would you rather, if you

were to have kids, would you rather them watch

Smurfs or, you know, like Barney's, Teletubby,

you know, that bullshit. I mean, if Smurfs is

good or bad, I'd still rather sit down with my

kids and watch it than any of the crap that's

been out for kids, with the exception of maybe

LazyTown and some of the Wiggles episodes. Just

said the the stuff that's out there for preschool

kindergarten first grade kids these days sucks

Well, and this did that well for us when we're

in the right along with some other stuff, you

know, Sesame Street said to me street. Mr. Rogers,

right? You know and if I ever have kids they

will never Watch Barney never never never. Thank

you Blues Clues, maybe Blues Clues is it's okay

I'm not really sure about Dora. I don't know

if I want my kid learning how to speak. Unless

you want him to speak Spanish and Chinese. Well,

I love LazyTown, but that's a whole different

topic. Yeah. So I think we've run the general

memories into the ground here, so move on to

the characters and voice actors. All right, getting

into the characters and voice actors. There were

a lot of characters in this show. Yeah, and I

think this kind of goes hand -in -hand. You're

gonna hear me reference one of my favorite books

here, Hal Erickson's television cartoon show

and illustrated encyclopedia a little bit today

because normally for a show he gives it about

a paragraph, maybe a column. For this show it

has four pages. Oh my God. At least tell me you're

gonna read all four pages. No, no, no, no. I

just have little snippets here and there, but

he made a good point when it comes to both characters

and voice actors. Hanna -Barbera was very good

at this because they figured out that it was

it was less expensive to hire a Big cast a big

variety of voice actors to differentiate the

characters than it was to create new character

designs for each character and they did this

a lot with Smurfs I mean obviously most of the

Smurfs look alike which saves them tons of money

when it comes to drawing you know etc and the

way that they differentiated the characters was

by giving them these big personalities and by

bringing in a phenomenal phenomenal voice cast

oh yeah I mean you know I'm I'm just looking

at it now you got Frank Welker Charles Adler

Don Messick Michael Bell You know Susan blue,

yeah, June for a Lucille bliss who played smurfette.

Yeah, Ellen Oppenheimer. Yeah, Ellen Oppenheimer,

which it's very hard I want to see somebody put

a comparison audio back together with with Vanity

Smurf coming out of the left speaker and Skeletor

coming out of the right speaker. Again, like

we said in episode 10 for He -Man, you just don't

get, or even last episode with Chippendales,

you don't get that two or three of these voices

are the same people. Oh, no. I mean, the voice

cast, I mean, I'll just keep going, piggyback

on what you were saying, a couple other ones.

I'm going to butcher his name, but Renee Obrejonas,

the guy from Star Trek, I don't remember how

to say his name. You know, my boy Rob Paulson.

What? Yeah, Alan Young, Jack Angel. Hold on,

Jim Cummings, Ed Gilbert, John Stevenson, Cass

Susie, Trace McNeil, Ed Bigley Jr., Greg Berger,

Greg Burson, Roger Carmel, Dick Gadier, Vic Perrin.

I mean, it's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous

the number of people and I mean just take some

of them I mean Don Messick is doing one two three

four at least five rolls Frank Welker is doing

one two three four five six at least seven rolls

and A lot of the time you could not tell no,

no, no I mean, this is a who's who and if you

were I mean we're talking about early 80s This

is this is everybody. Yep You know, I I'm not

gonna I don't think we should the there are way

too many characters to read through them all

especially with the Smurfs Yeah, I think there's

about three or four that we should mention. Yeah,

there's a yeah, there's about like four or five

that I actually Let's just go through the ones

that we we think are important and we'll skip

the rest Papa Smurf Papa Smurf is the leader

of the Smurfs voiced by Don Messick It can be

easily distinguished from the other Smurfs by

his red clothes and bushy white mustache and

beard. Everyone in the Smurf village turns to

Papa Smurf when things go awry. Papa Smurf is

very skillful in making magical spells and potions.

Let it be known right now the script that Kevin

put together the for the voice actors It has

the original comics name, and we're not reading

that I'm not no that's all right because they

it's in French Yeah, I mean Papa Smurfs easily

the most famous Smurf out of all of them between

him and Smurfette Yes, very much. I'd say Smurfette's

probably number two Who was originally created

by Gargamel actually in the cartoon? She originally

had black hair though this turned blonde when

she became good And until the creation of Seth

set later on she was the only female smurf which

always kind of was interesting Yes, and she was

a voice by Lucille police Smurfette was you know

she was the the affection of Everybody everybody

wanted to get in smurfettes pants You got hefty,

hefty Smurf is the incredible strength and often

is seen as doing a lot of the heavy work in the

village. Frank Walker. Yeah, he's voiced by Frank

Walker. Brainy, I could not stand. No, I didn't

like Brainy very much. I mean, we have to mention

him because he is one of the main ones that you

will see all the time. Oh yeah. But I could not

stand Brainy. Brainy Smurf fancies himself as

an all -around brain of the village and an expert

on everything. Although he is usually wrong,

he sometimes thinks that because he is supposedly

smarter than anyone else, that makes him second

in command behind Papa Smurf, and can do things

better than the other Smurfs. He can be distinguished

from the others by the thick glasses he wears,

and he is extremely short sighted. In the comics,

during the Olympic games, he can call himself

whatever. referee which is apparently a re a

referee and hand out yellow cards everyone the

smurfs usually respond to his self -righteous

preaching by hitting him over the head with a

mallet or throwing him out of the village um

brainy you know again was the annoying one yeah

brainy was the annoying one but again he to me

is a Starscream archetype because You know, obviously

he thinks of himself as second in command. You

know, he's always trying to prove everybody right

and whatever else. Right. The next one's one

of my favorites. Jokey? Yeah, I love Jokey. I

did not know until I looked at that. I did not

know that was June 4A, but now that I think about

it and I can hear the voice in my head, I'm like,

holy crap. Yeah. Jokey was the cheerful smurf

who enjoys playing tricks on the other smurfs,

almost always uses the same joke trick like a

yellow and red wrapped present that he offers

to his victims saying it is a gift or a surprise

and actually holds a firecracker which is only

a hypothesis. The inside of a pre -exploding

present is never seen that explodes when the

receiver opens it. Puffing out a lot of fire

that blackens the bear's face or entire body

depending on the explosion size, Jokey briefly

abandoned the exploding present schtick and embarked

on a secret career as the mass pie smurfer, a

cloaked figure known for sneaking up on other

smurfs and throwing cakes at them. Now that was

a funny that was a funny episode I do remember

that and I said that was hilarious as hell yeah

um those are my main ones I mean you can touch

on any of the other ones if you want but I think

Grouchy needs to be talked about just because...

Only because Michael Bell voiced it. And just

because it's just so funny. Grouchy Smurf is

the misanthropic grouch of the Smurf Village.

His catchphrase is, I hate something somebody

else mentions, whatever. Usually, Grouchy usually

has a skull on his face. He was originally a

normal Smurf, changed only when bitten by a bzzz

fly in the Dark Smurfs. Despite his grouchiness,

he has a soft spot for Baby Smurf. He's like

Grouchy from Sesame Street, or whatever the dude's

name was. You mean Oscar? Yeah, that's Oscar

the Grouch, excuse me. Well, in a way. Yeah,

he could be, but I don't think Oscar was voiced

by Michael Bell. No, no, no. Um, you know, and

again, it just goes, you know, the greatest thing

about this podcast is all of the voice actors

we've discussed in just 12 episodes, and the

majority of them being the same voice actor.

Yeah. And what I mean by that is, like, you take

Michael Bell, you got Lance from Voltron, you

got Prowl from Transformers, even though we don't.

Duke from... You know, Duke from G .I. Joe. I

mean, even though we haven't gotten to G .I.

Joe, and even though we don't do Transformers

on this podcast, but, you know, all the other,

you know, all the other voices that he's done

is just amazing to me. What was the other one?

Give me two seconds, and I'll give it to you.

Using a pup named Scooby Doo, he was stink weed.

Stink weed, that's what it was, yeah. If we ever

do Darkwing Duck, he's in that. We'll be doing

Darkwing Duck next. You know, he's on the Super

Friends, which we won't touch. Well, not yet.

Down the line, we will. Probably somewhere in

2011. Yeah. The only other one I really want

to bring up as far as the Smurfs is Handy only

because for some odd reason I always thought

Handy was like the Like brainy thinks he's the

second -in -command. I always thought Handy was

the one I always saw Every time I would turn

the show on Now half the time when I turn them

on it's in the middle of an episode Handy's right

there. Handy Smurf wears He wears overalls and

a visor catcher the front of his cap with a pencil

above his ear and his handyman of the smurfs

he helps fix things in the village and is known

for his amazing technological inventions he is

the inventor of clockwork smurf and then clockwork

smurfette a friend of hefty smurf handy rescues

a mermaid marina and her ailing father in the

cartoon and marina is handy's love interest um

and also again michael bell that's the uh you

know yeah it just amazes me what what these voice

actors can do. It's just... It's amazing. Just

to give you a rundown of some of the other names,

just in case you're familiar with them, we got

Dreamy, Smurf, Clumsy, Greedy, Vanity, Scaredy,

Tracker, Sloppy, Harmony, Painter, Poet, Baby

Smurf was kind of a pretty special character

for a little while. The Smurf Wings, Grandpa

Smurf, Farmer Smurf, etc. I guess... Wait, there

was a Baker smurf. I thought that was supposed

to be This one's always eating No, that's greedy.

Okay Going into the villains Gargamel is the

main villains in the or the main villain in the

comics and the cartoon He's voiced by Paul Winchell

Gargamel is a sorceress sworn enemy of the Smurfs.

He is an evil wizard, though with very limited

powers. He actually seems to be more of an alchemist.

Gargamel is absolutely obsessed with the Smurfs,

and his main goal is to try to eat the Smurfs

and try to capture them to use in potion to make

gold. His robe is worn, his patched teeth are

rotten, and he lives in a run -down bubble with

his flea -bitten cat, Asriel. I gotta tell you,

Asriel... Know we're talking about Gargamel kind

of but Azrael has got to be one of the coolest

names for a bad character and oh Yeah, I just

love it. I just love Azrael. It's just like You

know, you know, I mean Gargamel he as I said

again, he's basically eating mice It's what he's

eating mice ants what you know, whatever analogy,

you know mini sized thing compared to a human

you can you can you can think of Well, I didn't

like some him sometimes I liked him more going

up against other villains Chasing the smurfs

down because I thought it was pretty cool Excuse

me going on to Asriel Gargamel's pet cat although

Gargamel never treats him. Well as real manages

to put up With his master, he tends to realize

beforehand that Gargamel's schemes will go awry,

but reluctantly goes along with them, anyway

in hopes of possibly capturing a Smurf. Ezreal

shares Gargamel's distinctive laugh. And that's

the other thing. I remember Ezreal's laugh more

than I did Gargamel's. And how about Ezreal and

Papa Smurf being the same voice actor? Yup. Don

Messick. I think the only other necessary ones,

the characters to mention, are a couple of the

other characters. Obviously... Originally, the

main stars of the show in the comics, even though

they're not quite as seen as often in the TV

show, are the two human characters. I'm going

to say it wrong because it's French, but Puyet

and Johan, I don't know. Those were supposed

to be the main characters until the Smurfs basically

took over and kind of had a life of their own.

They're voiced by Michael Bell and Frank Welker,

of course. Johan is a young human squire and

page boy of the kingdom somewhere in Europe in

the Middle Ages. He defends his king fiercely

and goes on errands to help him or simply to

help some people. He meets the dwarf Pee -Wit

or Pee -Wee as they become best friends. It was

in a Johan and Pee -Wee adventure published in

1958 that the Smurfs were first introduced. The

Smurfs obviously would take on a life of their

own, like I said before. Yes, and the last one

that we need to mention is puppy. Puppy is a

magical creature which is designed to look like

a dog. He was offered as a gift to Papa Smurf

by... Omnibus. It was Baby Smurf, however, who

opened the entrance and locked it around Puppy's

neck and became the dog's true master. Puppy

is a good friend to the Smurflings and protects

the Smurfs from Gargamel's cat Asriel. I thought

that was just awesome seeing the smurflings on

on on puppy you know running around or you know

running out of danger or into danger or whatever

i thought that was a really cool way so then

we travel around and for the viewers out there

who do you guess does the voice of puppy he does

all dogs i don't we don't even have to say it

anymore frank welker the voice acting god we

know um you know overall a lot of these characters

are really cool um I think this is one of the

highlights of the whole show is the amount of

characters so you don't never get tired of them

because they could always kind of feature a new

one. It's kind of like Transformers. There's

so many characters that there's always new stuff

for you to see and kind of like or dislike. You

don't have to necessarily like them. When you

have a small cast, you risk the fact that if

they don't like your characters, they're not

going to like your show. In this cast, if you

don't like a character, there's 20 others to

like. And the voice casting, like we said, the

voice acting made this show. Yeah, very very

much so otherwise you wouldn't you'd be confused

you wouldn't know which smurf was which you'd

get them all confused They'd all blend into the

same one, but the voice acting in this show separated

them all and made them all distinct characters

So I think we're gonna move on I really don't

hear anything else to say about the voice actors

of the characters I mean there really isn't so

much more we we can say that we haven't already

said in the past 12 episodes Yes, they're they're

gods. We know that's why that's why Lynn Lipton

wasn't in the show Horrible horrible image. Okay.

No, I'm not going there Okay, up next is the

creators, writers, producers, behind -the -scenes

segment. Take it away. I will go back to my book

a little bit for a couple of behind -the -scenes

things because I found it interesting when I

was reading through it. I must point this out

to you in this information I guess you got from

IMDB because that's what it looked like. None

of these listings of any of the creators or writers

list more than 256 episodes. So it was 256 episodes

brought from 421 stories. Oh, I agree. It's not

421 episodes of the show. I know, but that's

what they all say. Going into a little bit behind

the scenes information, going kind of straight

from the creator, their collective name in the

original language, even though I have no idea

how to say it, is slang for the word, whatchamacallit.

So he basically originally named them for his

languages slang word for a watchma caller. What's

in a watchma caller? That's probably blue stuff.

A couple other things just going into the creation

of the Smurfs. He explains in different books

and interviews how he chose blue as the color

of their skin. I'm kind of playing around with

some different colors. He vetoed yellow, because

he thought that would make kids think of illness

or that they didn't feel good, sickness, stuff

like that. So yellow was out. He vetoed red,

because he said that represented war and death.

I mean, obviously, Papa Smurf is red. But that's

why he vetoed that for the skin color. And eventually,

he just figured this light blue color was, quote

unquote, a child's color. So that's why they

ended up blue rather than yellow or red. Oh,

crap. I should have got another Jeff Dunham quote.

Oh my... And, uh, just... I gotta say this whole

thing about it. In the Spark of Insanity DVD,

Jeff, in his intro, he's like, we have a Prius.

It's not a black Prius, it's not a red Prius,

it's a blue Prius. And it's not a blue Prius,

it's a powder blue Prius. Yes, it's a kid's color.

Yes. That's why it shouldn't be the color of

your car. And just to give you a few little tidbits,

if you want to know what they are referred to

around the world, in Brazil, they call them struts.

In China, they call them lashinglings. And sometimes

in other English -speaking countries, they are

called smurfies. And according to Peo, he was

inclined to dismiss his creation saying, quote

unquote, Three years from now, no one will think

of them anymore. 25 some odd years. We're doing

a podcast about them. Oh, you are. And even going

past Payo into the NBC network, since this is

still kind of behind the scenes, network headman

Fred Silverman became interested when he saw

his daughter playing with Smurf dolls in 1979.

And that is what they were toys before they were

a show. He saw his daughter playing with one

in 1979. Two years later, it's a cartoon. So

he had basically the best instincts in the world

when it came sometimes to which shows he put

on. Other than that, I mean, series directed

by a ton of people. I mean, when you have something

that lasts 256 episodes, you're going to have

a godawful amount of directors, writers, et cetera.

But the ones that did the most, I'll just give

the names even though I don't necessarily, I'm

not familiar with these guys. George Gordon,

Don Lusk, Rudy Zamora, and Carl Urbano. Adi Stipeo

is the biggest writer, having written at least

parts of basically all the episodes. I'm not

familiar with any of the other main writers.

I don't know if you are. The only one I really

recognize, I believe, is Michael Reeves. That's

what I was going to say. I think he wrote some

Transformers episodes. Yes, that sounds right.

Are you talking just the writers? Yeah, just

the writers. We have a couple names. I was going

to say there are two names right here, except

three, that I really remember. Obviously, it's

produced by Barbera and William Hanna. And I'll

let you say who the casting director was. The

casting director was Andrea Romano, which, again,

wow. Exactly. We have tracked her voice. Directing

credits all the way back to 1981. That's right.

Holy crap. She has done a lot of voice directing

Exactly casting or whatever, right? You know

Honestly, I mean, I know we're not into the actual

show yet Even and I don't know what special features

are on on the DVDs. I'm sure we'll get to that

I don't even know if we've even listed special

features in the listing But yes For me, I'm not

trying to be a downer, this is not a show I would

even try to watch a DVD of. I mean, I barely,

you know, last weekend, or last Sunday, a week

ago this evening, after we finished Chippendales,

I actually went on my DVR, on my guide, on my

cable box, and tried to find an episode of the

Smurfs and the Snarks. Because I thought originally

this episode was going to be Smurfs versus the

Snarks. and The only time I could find one was

yesterday morning and this morning And I was

not gonna go to YouTube and try to find stuff

because I already knew it was gonna be on TV

at some point Apparently boomerang has and I

know this is kind of away from the behind the

segment. This is more of the actual show but

Apparently boomerang has cut it down so much

because they're infusing Cartoon Network apparently

is infusing boomerang with a lot of their older

shows like Dexter Powerpuff Girls Johnny Bravo

crap like that You know, but overall, you know

Again phenomenal voice cast phenomenal phenomenal

it excellent Casting director in Andrea Romano

and then obviously Hannah in in Barbera who as

we all know have done thousands and thousands

of cartoons. I'd like to see you put there behind,

even though they're not voice actors, I'd like

to see you put a page of their stuff together.

It'd take you forever, too. Do we have any final

thoughts or anything else we want to mention

before we get into the actual show? Nope, I'm

ready to move on. We are moving on. It is now

time for the actual show, and yay, I actually

remembered it this week. I know. It's epic. It's

awesome. I like the show. Oh, I thought you were

talking about the show. I thought you'd come

around finally. Oh, no, no, no. Hell no. The

Smurfs, as far as the actual show, a couple of

tidbits here. The male Smurfs almost never appear

without their hats, which leaves a mystery among

the fans as to whether they have hair. The animated

series can say that they may be bald. One episode

of the Hannah Barbera cartoon has Greedy Smurf

removing his chef's hat to give Papa Smurf a

pie, he had concealed under it, revealing a bald

head. Another episode, Saint Smurf and the Dragon,

shows Hefty Smurf's hat rising up off his bald

head briefly as he and the others slide to a

stop. Both Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf have

full beards and hair visibly coming from under

their hats above the ear line. In the Smurfs

and the Magic Flute, a Smurf took off his hat

briefly for a polite gesture. That, you know,

they're meant to be children, I believe, for

the most part. Outside of Grampy Smurf and Papa

Smurf, they're not meant to be adults. Now, granted,

all children, for the most part, and I don't

mean to sound negative unless somebody has cancer

or something, most children have hair. I would

say that the Smurfs in general, like Smurfette,

Handy, Hefty, all those ones. I would say that

they are between maybe 8 and 10 years of age

and I would say the Smurflings are maybe between

5 and 7. See I would differ a little bit. I picture

most of the regular Smurfs being somewhere between

the ages of 10 and like 19. I picture I picture

him being a little bit older and then the Smurflings

being like the five six -year -olds and then

they got the of course baby Smurf being the youngest

one but I think you're right that I don't picture

him as being an actual adult. I picture him as

teenagers or young adolescent type age group

most of the time. The Smurfs fulfill a 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 Sisette

and Nanny Smurfette, is not one of the original

Smurfs because she was created by Gargamel, the

evil wizard. Some of you know, maybe some of

you don't know, but Smurfs often move by skipping

on both feet, even though they could walk or

run. And they love to eat Sarsaparilla, which

isn't actually Sarsaparilla, spelled a little

bit different, whose berries the Smurfs naturally

call Smurf Berries, even though they only appear

in the cartoon, not the comics. But a lot of

times they're after those Smurf Berries. I don't

think I've ever seen a Smurf's comic. Don't think

I even want to see one. So if anyone wants to

email in please don't Not about that subject

anyway, but anyway The Smurfs community generally

takes the form of a cooperative sharing and kind

environment based on the principle that each

Smurf has something he or she is good at and

thus contributes to a Smurfs Smurfs society as

he or she can in return each Smurf appears to

be given their necessities of life from housing

and clothes to food. Some have argued that the

foundation of the summer society resembles the

basic principles of communism, although Peo's

son, something, they don't even know how to pronounce

his name, has stated in an interview that his

father wasn't interested in politics at all.

Yeah, and I don't get the communist vibe at all.

I think it's just trying to teach kids the value

that everybody plays a part in. Everybody everybody

plays a role and if everybody cooperates, then

we're all better off for it and of course The

biggest thing that you might remember about Smurfs

the show was the Smurf language and basically

you can substitute the word Smurf for Basically

just about anything any noun or verb and everyday

speech you just throw Smurf in there and it works

We're going smurfing on the rivers Smurf today.

Um, you know I usually meant to make the beat,

to laugh, to do stuff like that. Are you trying

to talk? I said that sounded horrible. Oh. It

was implied a number of times that Smurfs still

understand each other due to a subtle variation

in the way they say it. Humans have found that

replacing an ordinary word with the term Smurf

at random is not enough. In one adventure, Peewee

explains to some other humans that the statement,

I'm smurfing to the smurf, means I'm going to

the wood. But a smurf corrects him by saying

that the proper statement would be, I'm smurfing

to the smurf. I actually said a little bit different.

And so on and so on. They argue about it. But

basically, you've seen this a lot when people

reference smurfs as just throwing that word smurf

into everyday languages to mean whatever you

want it to mean. Kind of like Shakespeare did

with his plays. I'm not comparing Shakespeare

and smurfs. The other thing about their world

obviously is Smurf Village. Smurfs lived in basically

this little place called Smurf Village and the

Smurf used storks in order to travel long distances

such as the kingdom where Pee Wee and Johan live

and keep up to date with events in the outside

world. Smurf Village is made up of mushroom -like

houses which is always kind of something I thought

was odd. Trying to get kids to do mushrooms.

No, I'm just kidding. Mushroom -like houses of

different shapes and sizes and sometimes different

colors on their spots and stuff like that. I

don't know. You think I got any more comments

about Smurf Village? Well, I'm talking about

mushrooms. Oh, I forgot. It's almost impossible

for an outsider to find Smurf Village unless

you're led there by a Smurf. Yes, very, very

much so. OK. Well, apparently. OK, there it goes.

I You know the whole mushroom thing a scene from

one of my other favorite actual TV shows Nash

Bridges came into my head there's a scene where

they're all the cops are sitting around and they're

eating breakfast and Somebody said something

about mushrooms and Nash goes you must be aware

of you must be very aware of Harvey's mushrooms.

They're they're dangerous I don't know I just

There were like 12 TV specials from the show.

The Smurfs were really big so NBC played many

primetime Smurf specials over the years. There's

some trivia here. In France the episodes with

Johan and Piewit are considered as a different

TV series and therefore distributed with a different

title, Johan and Piewit. In 1985, each Smurf

is the height of three apples when... I don't

even know if we can even go there. I'll say it.

No, I'll say it. Well, I guess we've just answered

Jeff Dunham's question. When choked, a Smurf

turns yellow. And the last bit of trivia, the

reason there is only one female Smurf is because

to infiltrate the Smurf village, Gargamel created

Smurfette and sent her in to disrupt the village.

However, the overwhelming goodness of the Smurfs

turned Smurfette from evil to good. That's all

I got. Yeah, that's all I have too, so I think

we're going to move on to the music segment.

Okay, the music for the show. I think this is

one of the highlights too. I mean I like a lot

of parts of the show but besides voice acting

I think the music was huge. Yeah, I don't deny

that but when I was originally getting the information

for both this and Snorks, as I said before I

was originally going to plan this to be a battle

between the Smurfs and the Snorks to see which

show was better for this episode. Smurfs was

better, we just know that. Shut the fuck up.

That's cruel. No, no, not shut the fuck up, shut

the smurf up. Thank you, that's much better.

Much better. But it just amazed me, the entire

list of all of the stuff that some of the music

cues are taken from. It's going to be a whole

music segment, which normally the music segment

for our shows don't last that long. So I guess

if you want to go into it, go into it. Over the

decades, many singles and albums of Smurf music

have been released in different countries and

languages, sometimes very successfully, with

millions of copies sold. The best known is the

single, The Smurf Song, and it's accompanied

an album created by Dutch musician Pierre Kartner,

who we would probably better recognize him under

the name that he sings under, the alias Father

Abraham, which I know I grew up listening to

a lot of Father Abraham stuff, which actually

reached the number one position in 16 countries.

Worldwide more than 10 million CDs with smurf

music have been sold between get this 2005 and

2007 alone We're not talking about you know 80s

and 90s here We're talking about 10 million CDs

between 2005 and 2007 I did not know that that

shocks me And then like you were referring to

before, the Smurfs was noted for its frequent

use of classical music as background music or

themes for particular events. And I'm not going

to necessarily name all the different actual

names of the pieces, but just running down a

few of the names that you would be familiar with

of some of the background music that was incorporated

into the Smurfs. You have Bach. Beethoven, you

have Mozart, you have Schubert, you have Stravinsky,

Tchaikovsky, and Richard Wagner from the Ring

of the Valkyries. It's just who's who in classical

music. It's in the smurf somewhere. In the theme

song well some people think it's awesome and

great and put it up there in there like top five

No, it wasn't my top five. It's top 22 I put

it in number 22. I put it actually you're gonna

hate me for this. I put it ahead of GI Joe Thundercats

Silverhawks human and transformers Silverhawks

I can understand I think I put it along with

a couple others that are similar. Yeah I put

it along with, I put it right behind, I put Smurfs

at number 22, I have Inspector Gadget at 21,

David the Gnome at 20. It's not in the top 20,

but it's a good, it's a great theme song. You

hear it, you recognize it. I whistle it a lot

at school, just to see if anybody understands

what it is. That's very sad. I just want to see

if anyone recognizes it. No one does. They're

all little kids now, so they don't know what

Smurfs are. Yeah, you know, again, a lot of the

cartoons that we've talked about and a lot of

the cartoons that we will continue to talk about

on Tooncast, the music for the most part does

make the show. It obviously is a very main part

of the show and obviously with this, this is

the first cartoon that I believe that we've had

actual classical type music in a majority of

the other shows. You know either sub on and and

Levi have done or other people outside of them

You know have done it like Bernard Hoffer for

ThunderCats stuff like that I don't think we've

done a show yet that that has had classical music

in it unless it was maybe put in there as You

know part of a scene of a or a certain episode

or something But none of the episodes that we've

done so far here on tooncast So round of applause

for Smurfs for bringing in the classical music.

Pre -Fantasia. God, here we go. I hated Fantasia.

Let's not get into that. So I think we're done

with the music. OK, it is time for the legacy

segment. I guess I will... This is what I've

been waiting for. Sorry, go ahead. I guess I

will talk about the The first parts here we got

before you do this boo Sorry Why why are you

wait horrible what the hell are you booing about

what you're gonna say first? What? IGN. Oh god.

Oh god. I know I looked at it in the title thing

is like What the hell can you start talking like

ratings IGN ranking reviews? I didn't even really

realize that the I may protest IGN after this

This first was named the 97th based best animated

series by IGN. They called it a key. They called

it kitty cocaine. Holy crap During the age I'm

an addict then Oh 97th best is bullshit. Excuse

me. I don't cuss a lot on this show but 97th

best for Smurfs is bullshit They've ranked Chip

and Dale's above this that's ridiculous I May

no longer reference IGN in future shows. No,

we have to you may you may I may not comment

on silent protest They need to be killed by a

million little smurfs. Oh my god. The 50th anniversary

of the smurfs and the 80th anniversary of the

birth of its creator PEO were celebrated by issuing

a high value collector's coin, the Belgian 5

euro 50th anniversary of the smurfs commemorative

coin. minted in 2008. A country frickin' minted

a coin after this cartoon and you rank it 97th

best. Name me another show that a country has

minted a coin of. Seriously. Oh Christ. Do you

know why this show is popular? Or do you know

why this show is great? Because, you know, like

we've said before, a sign of you being great

is people trying to imitate you. And people try

to imitate the Smurfs non -stop, especially in

the 80s. Yes. Go ahead. Well, I was going to

say the Smurfs have been things that imitated

a period. Similar fictional races include Astrosneaks.

OK, that's weird. A series of space -based themed

figures made by figuring company Bully. After

they lost the license of the Smurfs and the Snorks,

The Bizkats to American Animated Series from

the 1980s parodies include the Smurks from Ebola

World. Wow, that's... Horrible, horrible name

for a company, which was removed after copyright

holders threatened to sue Lerps from the cartoon

Megas XLR. the shibs or the shubs from an episode

of the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, which

I hate that show. I got some others that aren't

listed there though, just real quick. Just some

other 80s shows. You had The Littles, The Little

Bits, The Mochichis, Shirt Tales, Snorks, Wuzzles,

like I said, The Biscuits. There's just a ton

of imitators. I don't care. The wuzzles were

awesome and the snorks were awesome. So I like

the shirt tails I like the shirt tails, but they're

all imitating the same thing. So some you know

Smurf was their mold Okay, as far as Smurf as

a nickname because of their characteristic blue

color Smurf has become a nickname for pretty

much anything distinctly colored blue examples

include police forces Spain, Denmark, and Finland

in the United Nations. Protection force members

in Bosnia because of their light blue helmets.

In competitive online gaming, a Smurf is an experienced

player who creates a new account, a Smurf account,

with fresh stats to make themselves look like

a beginner in order to bully genuine beginners

who have far less experience. Smurfs has infiltrated

all parts of our world. You never know where

it's at. Participants in online news groups and

blogs may also be defined as smurfs as an insult

and description of a silly and childishly cute

style in their participation. I mean, like I

said, it's everywhere. Look at this last one.

The blue artificial surface of the football field

at Boise State University has been nicknamed

Smurf Turf by American sportscasters. I mean,

everyone knows when you say Smurf what you're

referring to. Go ahead and go into the awards.

Okay. And to prove more so, not only has it had

a coin minted because of it, IGN bastards, it

has... been nominated or won tons of awards.

One, two, three, four, five. It said five nominations

and three wins. And we talked about the 12 TV

specials. Half of them won awards too. So we

have nominated for daytime Emmys in 1989, 1988,

1987, 1986, and 1985. You got nominated for a

daytime Emmy, what was that, five years in a

row? And they won the two years before that.

So those seven straight years where they were

either nominated or won a daytime Emmy, and that

was big for a cartoon back then. And then they

also won the Humanitis Prize in 1987 for children's

animation category. It's often referenced in

tons of stuff. Summer rental, which I would have

to watch Summer rental. I know I have to re -watch

that now. Yeah. Punky Brewster, Tap Your Troubles

Away. The show is mentioned by name. Night Court.

Ask if he can start at the think tank at 10 a

.m. instead of 9 so he doesn't miss the Smurfs.

The Simpsons. The Simpsons roasting on an open

fire. Mystery Science Theater 3000. I gotta re

-watch Tommy Boy 2 to see where it was in that.

Yeah, Tommy Boy, I don't know. And one of my

favorite Jennifer Love Hewitt movies. Well, you're

gonna watch that anyway. I have it on DVD, but

I gotta watch it again. Can't hardly wait to

reference the Smurfs where or when. I gotta watch

it. Oh, crap. Gone in 60 seconds, Donnie Darko,

Tommy Boy, and then of course Saturday Night

Live, Venture Brothers, Weeds, Sopranos, Robot

Chicken, Entourage, South Park, even the Girls

Next Door, Holly's wearing a Smurfette t -shirt,

it doesn't get better than that. Bride Wars.

Holy crap, for someone who doesn't curse on this

show, you list the Girls Next Door four different

times on here. Oh, six different times. Six different

episodes, dang it. Bride Wars just from this

year, Liv is called a smurf when she has blue

hair and fast and furious. One of the drivers

calls another racer a ghetto smurf. Remember

that, yeah. I actually just watched, I love that

movie. Nice. It's also been featured in Back

to the Future Part 2. I love the 80's Strikes

Back. Yeah, and then spoofed in a bunch of stuff

robot chicken Yeah, robot chicken Saturday Night

Live majority of it Saturday Night Live Family

Guy South Park. Yeah, all that good stuff anyway

Obviously, we know there was comics. We don't

need to talk about that. I don't what the comics

advertising or really cares about the advertising

their day I like the figurines even though I

didn't I don't think I ever really had hardly

any of them means from 1959 on until the end

of the 1960s Dupuis I don't know it sounds good

to me. I don't know produced smurf figurines

But the best -known and most widely available

smurf figurines are those made by Schleck Schleck

Schleck a German toy company most of the smurf

figurines given away as promotional material

By BP in the 1970s and McDonald's in the 1990s

made by Schleck as well New smurf figurines continue

to appear, in fact, only in two years since 1969.

91 and 98 have no new smurfs entered the market.

That's ridiculous. Well, it's only two years

in the past since... I don't know, only two years

since 1969 have there not been a new smurf figure.

Schleck currently produces eight new figurines

a year. Over 300 million of them have been sold

so far. Okay, first of all, as much as my 29

-year -old self Hates the show now Eat it beanie

babies You can't know got nothing on smurf. Yeah,

exactly and name me another cartoon that had

Something a whole ice capades about them Smurfs

on ice That's all I want to say about that I

know but I mean Disney was the Disney does plenty

of stuff on ice. Yeah, I mean Yeah, and we really

don't have I mean Again, that's you know Smurfs

on ice is pretty much all we have to say about

that you understand what we mean I like this

around 1984 the Smurfs began appearing in North

America theme parks owned by Kings Entertainment

each park featured a Smurfy attraction and Smurf

walk -around figures I've never been to one and

I never will be We don't need to mention. You

know there's video games form obviously in just

about every system you can think of DVDs as soon

as I As far as DVD releases, February 26, 2008

Warner Bros. released Season 1 Volume 1 on DVD.

It contained the first 19 episodes. On October

7, 2008, Warner Bros. released Season 1 Volume

2 on DVD. It contained 20 episodes from Season

1. The Warner Bros. has decided to discontinue

these season sets and release single disc volume

sets instead. They are reportedly still following

its correct order of episodes. Manga Home Entertainment

in Australia has released 9 disc 50th anniversary

collection. It contains a total of 52 episodes.

In September 2009, a Smurfette themed collection

containing 25 episodes will be available. I can

just get into the details real quick since I

have a couple of these. Season 1, Volume 1 has

19 episodes. I know but I'm just going in the

bonus features. The bonus features include the

Smurf Springtime Special and Smurf's The Music

Video. and includes the original broadcast versions

of the episodes rather than the syndicated versions,

which are shown on Boomerang. And then the one

that I own, Season 1, Volume 2, with its 20 episodes.

Bonus features include Smurfology 101 and a bonus

feature called I Smurf the Smurf about the phenomenon

and enduring popularity of the characters and

their world. That's kind of why I'm glad I have

that one instead of the first one, because the

special features are better on Volume 2 here,

kind of giving you an overall look at the entire

Smurf. Everything about Smurfs, so Yeah, I think

Warner Brothers are morons for discontinuing

the season sets. Yeah, that doesn't make any

sense I don't see why they would do that, but

whatever I do have one thing that's not listed

in the script that I do want to mention also

since we're talking about kind of like the legacy

Even though Disney claims that they did this

they're wrong Smurfs The debut of Whatever the

Smurf was, let's see. Come on, come on. Hold

on. I forget which Smurf it was. But one of the

Smurfs that was created later on. Oh, here it

is. A hearing impaired wood elf named, I think

it's Laconia or something like that. Her debut

when she debuted on the Smurf show in the early

80s was one of TV Cartoon Dome's first handicapped

characters. It was a hearing impaired wood elf.

And it was a decade before Little Mermaid, so

Disney, you weren't the pioneer in that. Smurfs

had the first handicapped cartoon character.

Thank you. I really don't. I mean, I know we're

going to go into our final thoughts and stuff

like that. Yeah, I'll just do that in the closing.

Anyway, no, I was going to say something, but

I'll save it for the closing after we're done

with the actual topic for today. So we are going

to move on to our final thoughts and then the

closing. It is now time for our final thoughts.

Yay, it's over. No. You can go ahead. Start with

a negativity end with a thought. Yay, it's over.

Okay, that's his final thoughts. Would I put

this show as one of the best cartoons ever? No,

I wouldn't do that. If I was to list, if I was

to come up with a ranking of the most important

cartoon shows ever, it would definitely be in

the top five, if not in the top two or three.

And let me explain why. You've often heard us,

if you've listened to any of the other Tooncast

episodes, refer to kind of the... I don't know

what you want to call it. In the Depression,

we had the Black Friday. In cartoons, we basically

had the Black Years, I'll call them, 1992, et

cetera, when a lot of networks scrapped their

entire cartoon lineup in exchange for either

live action, saved by the bell type stuff or

news programs like the Today Show. That all happened

in the early 90s and basically killed cartoons

for a while. What you may not have heard us reference,

because we've never referenced it before, Was

that was actually supposed to happen ten years

before? Thank God it didn't no get this they

were planning on doing that in 1981 not 1991

they were planning on doing it in 1981 Fred Silverman

who we've talked about in NBC Which was you know

the head man of the network needed something

really big for Saturday mornings in 1981 otherwise

cartoons were getting scrapped and they were

going to take the Today Show and transfer it

over into early morning weekend slots. Fortunately,

he saw his kid playing with a Smurf doll, decided

to make Smurfs a cartoon, he needed something

really big, and the Smurfs was an instant hit.

It garnered the highest ratings of any NBC Saturday

morning show in 11 years. Because of Smurfs,

NBC scrapped its weekend news plans and NBC built

its whole Saturday kiddie TV schedule around

the Smurfs. So when I say it's one of the most

important cartoons in history You know I would

put he man up there because it broke into the

syndication type stuff And the whole toy thing

but Smurfs. I mean good lord it it could have

saved a decade of cartoons for us and Ironically

ten years later when it does happen get this

this kind of freaky Let me let me give you this

fact here NBC, having ridden high on the Smurf

Tales of the series for nearly a decade, fell

back on its original 1981 plan, this is 1992,

and cancelled all its Saturday cartoon programs

in favor of an expanded today's show. Coincidence,

the NBC cartoon lineup was not the only 1992

casualty, but Payo, the creator, died the same

year. Wow. How about that? That's nuts. Is it

one of the greatest cartoons ever? No, but good

Lord, thank God it was there and thank God, you

know, we had a decade more of 80s cartoons to

deal with. Oh, yeah. So that's my final thought.

Yeah, you know, again, I could not tap into my

10 -year -old self or 8 -year -old self or whatever.

I could not tap into my inner child and bring

out those thoughts for the show. I could just

be who I am now and just say, ah, screw it. I

just couldn't get into it. To each his own. I'm

not saying that the show is horrible. It's not

the worst show we've done on Tooncast. No, and

it certainly probably wouldn't be the best one

either, but as you said, it did have historical

significance and that's awesome. You know, I

think episode 12 is the worst episode we did

was episode 7, but that's just me. No, wait,

not episode. Episode 6. Whatever the episode

was for Solar Ox. You can't put that ahead of

Dexter, you bastard. Yes I can. Oh my god. Anyways,

I don't know what it is now. I think it's me

more of being, you know, I always say quote unquote

an adult because I don't know. I just could not

get into the show. Really, it almost ended up

being scrapped from the schedule if you really

want to know the truth. It would have been a

crime on Tooncast. So yeah, I think we're going

to go into the close. Thank you for joining us

here on tune cast There are several ways you

get in contact with us will leave feedback for

the show The first is you can visit the www .geekcastradio

.com and find out all the other GCR and podcasts

there You can also look at our bios stuff like

that. You can comment on the website on each

of the individual episode releases The second

is you can stop by the predicatempire .com slash

cafe spark forums and all your GCR and transformers

discussion topics there. The third is you can

leave the show feedback on iTunes. Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much. We've had two reviews

so far. Please keep the reviews coming. If you're

a 80s, 90s cartoon fan, even if you're old school

cartoons like Hannah Barbera or something like

that, that is coming. Eventually, down the line,

we will be talking about that stuff, so please

continue to leave us positive reviews on iTunes.

The fourth is you can visit the earth -tube .net

forums and find our threads for the shows in

the self -promotion section. And the fifth is

the email address, which is gcrntunecast at gmail

.com. You can also follow us on Twitter. The

show name there is not gcrnmwire, it's gcrntunecast.

Mine is TFG1Mike and yours is what? We hope you

enjoyed this episode of Tooncast and wish that

you'll join us next time when we will be reminiscing

on the snorks. For now, I am TFG1Mike with Professor

BossKDog saying any more words of Optimus Prime,

transform and roll out, and thank you for listening.

Until next time.