Smurfs in other media
From Smurfology
Besides the cartoon show, the Smurfs have also appeared in other forms of entertainment media, such as books, movies, music, and videogames.
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[edit] Books
The Smurfs have appeared in various comic book formats in Europe and in America as well as in story books designed for children. The characters themselves were first introduced in a Johan et Pirlouit (Sir Johan and Peewit) story called La flûte à six trous (which came to be known as The Smurfs And The Magic Flute) published on October 23, 1958.
Around the early 1980s, Random House in America has released six English-translated Smurf comic books (referred to as "albums" in Europe), which include King Smurf, The Astro Smurf, Romeo And Smurfette, The Smurfic Games, The Smurfs And The Magic Flute, and The Smurfs And The Howlibird, along with a series of Smurf mini-story books, plus some activities books for children. A children's book called What Do Smurfs Do All Day was published under the Dr. Seuss banner. Some additional English-translated comic book "albums" such as The Smurfette and The Weather-Smurfing Machine were released in England and in Australia by Hodder and Stoughton.
Marvel Comics published a three-issue Smurfs mini-series in 1983 (which was also published as a large-sized collection version), with each issue featuring two stories of several pages' length, plus a dozen one-page sketches, all of which were done by Peyo.
Fanfiction works have also sprouted up featuring the Smurfs, either based on the cartoon show, the original comic books, or a mixture of both.
[edit] Movies
- Also see The Smurfs And The Magic Flute
As of this writing, the only known Smurfs movie to exist is The Smurfs And The Magic Flute, which was developed and released in Europe in 1976, and then later in America in 1983, when it was dubbed into English. A new Smurf movie featuring computer-generated animation is being worked on by Sony Pictures Animation, with its release date as early as 2010.
[edit] Music
Several popular Smurfs LPs were released, the first of which was created by Dutch musician Pierre Kartner who sings under the alias Father Abraham. His single The Smurf Song reached the #1 position in 16 countries. Subsequent albums included Smurfing Sing Song, The Smurfs All Star Show, Christmas in Smurfland, and Best of Friends. In 1996 there was a release titled The Smurfs Go Pop! which had a hit UK single titled "I've Got a Little Puppy". The same year, the Smurfs' album Techno is Cool - Volume 1 received a platinum award for sales in excess of 1 million in Europe. This was repeated in 1999 when the German language album Alles Banane (by Die Schluempfe) also sold more than 1 million copies.
Both the Vader Abraham song and the theme song for the 1980s cartoon series) have been released in local versions around the world, like the 1981 Japanese Silly Little Song of the Smurfs.
In 1984, the album Best of Friends by The Smurfs received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Album for Children.
In Finland, there has been so far (2007) fifteen Smurf CDs (mostly featuring smurfy versions of pop hits). The first of them sold 170,000 copies in Finland. They're also popular in German language area. Worldwide, more than 10 million CD's have been sold between 2005 and 2007 alone.
[edit] Videogames
- See the list of Smurf videogames at Wikia Gaming.
In the early 1980s, the toy company Coleco released some Smurf videogames for the Atari 2600 and their own ColecoVision system. Smurf: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle, released for both systems, was an early run-and-jump videogame where the player must guide the Smurf across various regions such as the forest, the fields, and the caves in order to reach Gargamel's castle and rescue the Smurfette. Smurf Paint & Play Workshop, released for the ColecoVision, was a paint and animation program designed for children while Smurfs Save The Day, released for the Atari 2600, was an educational activities game for children that came with the Kid Vid Voice Module for that system and some cassette tapes that were used with the program. Some additional games were planned for the Atari 2600, the ColecoVision, and the Intellivision system, but were never worked on or released.
In the 1990s and up until 2002, the European company Infogrames released various Smurf videogames for the popular videogame systems of that time period, most of them in Europe, though some were released in America. The Smurfs was a run-and-jump scrolling action game that appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo Gameboy, the Sega Master System, the Sega Mega Drive, the Sega Game Gear, and the Sega Mega CD. Other games released by this company include The Smurfs Travel The World (for all the systems listed except for the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Mega CD), The Smurfs' Nightmare (for the Nintendo Gameboy and Gameboy Color), The Adventures Of The Smurfs (for the Nintendo Gameboy), The Smurfs (a completely different game for the Sony Playstation), Smurf Racer (also known as 3,2,1,Smurf for the Sony Playstation), and Revenge Of The Smurfs (for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance). In addition, Infogrames has released a series of Smurfs educational games for Microsoft Windows-compatible PC systems.