YMMV / The Smurfs (1981)

• Accidental Innuendo: In the episode "Hats Off to Smurfs" Vanity hides himself in a closet after being turned ugly.
  Papa Smurf: Vanity, you must come out!
  Smurfette: Yes, Vanity, come on out!
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Brainy quotes Papa Smurf all the time because he really idolizes him? Or is Brainy doing this to reinforce his own image as Papa Smurf's representative, thereby justifying all of Brainy's authoritarian acts?
  • Same goes for the other Smurfs. Are they little blue beings who like to help each other? Or do they like to crack jokes at each other's expense instead of showing sympathy towards themselves?
  • In episode "A Hug For Grouchy", did the spell really need to be broken with a hug given by a grouchy person? Or did Papa Smurf invent this detail to force Grouchy to hug someone?
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Some fans find the Smurflings as a fairly good addition to the cast, while others found them unnecessary or too annoying as characters (reducing Papa Smurf and all the other adult Smurfs to being babysitters).
  • Brainy Smurf. Some fans would like him for being the most serious of the Smurfs, while others would hate him for often mistreating Clumsy and/or botching up the Smurfs' plans at times.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: As the series goes on, Gargamel begins appearing in every story, even if his presence is unnecessary for the plot, which several times results in BLAMs.
• Broken Base: Most die-hard fans find the show to be heartwarming and hilarious, while some criticize the series for its toned-down violence and Hanna-Barbera's own brand of comedic slapstick compared to the wit and humor of the original comics, as well as changing the Smurfs from being mischievous in the original comics into easygoing little elves who are friendly to each other and sing happy songs.
• Covered Up: Very few people realize that Gargamel's theme is not an original composition, but an esoteric piece of classical music, specifically "Schubert's Unfinished Symphony".
• Designated Hero: The Smurfs themselves towards Grouchy in "A Hug for Grouchy". After the day is saved, a group of Smurfs pile themselves on top of Grouchy to give him a big hug (without showing respect for his personal space).
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Marina and Scruple. Gourdy's slowly making his way up there as well.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Most fans would pretend that the time-travelling saga from the ninth season never happened, and to a lesser extent, Seasons 5-8 (where the Smurflings where introduced).
  • A few bad episodes of the series would be ignored, with "Clumsy Luck", "A Hug for Grouchy", "The Smurfy Verdict" and "Chlorhyrdis' Lost Love" being the most notable examples. The reason these episodes are considered bad are because "Clumsy Luck" has Clumsy being made a social pariah for allegedly being bad luck, "A Hug for Grouchy" has Grouchy being made to hug someone despite him not liking hugs, "The Smurfy Verdict" has Brainy being even more of an Insufferable Genius than usual, and "Chlorhyrids' Lost Love" has a Downer Ending.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • The most divisive complaint about the show's decline in popularity was when the Smurflings and Puppy were introduced. As a result, there were much less episodes centered around such characters as Jokey, Hefty, Tailor and Dreamy. Another issue is the new storylines dumbed down into being lighthearted and comedic, far more than when it was in its first four seasons. However, the series still retains its original premise in the Middle Ages (despite the shift in tone).
  • Most fans can agree that the ninth season was when the show finally ditched the original premise in favor of going through time travel. Characters, such as Wild and Sassette, would appear depending on the episode. A few, such as Jokey, Painter and Baby, were treated less like characters and more like plot devices. The pop culture references were even used more often and the slapstick humor had been amped up to Tex Avery levels. Not helping is the Smurfs meeting up with dopplegangers of already existing villain characters, such as Gargamel, Azrael, Scruple and Hogatha.
• Fridge Horror:
  • Gargamel wants to eat the Smurfs, and there are times when he outright attempts to eat a character alive on-screen, even though he lacks most teeth (which would render it hard if not impossible to chew). The size difference also sometimes puts the Smurfs as small enough to fit in his mouth and, combined with the lack of teeth, gives off a particularly morbid implication that wouldn't be out of character for Gargamel. With all that in mind, it begs the question: how frightening would he become without the one thing that keeps him from achieving this goal?
  • Though the forest is idyllic and Gargamel never wins, the fact stands that the Smurfs are only truly safe while they're in their village - and even then, as long as Gargamel doesn't discover it. So this means two things: one, they're toast if he figures out where the village is and how to thwart them, and two, they're at risk the moment they leave the village boundaries. And they sometimes have to go into the forest for one reason or another, knowing there's always the equivalent of a Super-Persistent Predator on the loose nearby. The only thing that really keeps them safe is that The Good Guys Always Win, otherwise...
• Growing the Beard:
  • The show started off as adaptations of comic stories with original stories written for the series. They were mostly slapstick-based with little to no hints of story. Johan and Peewit were introduced in the second season, but that's not saying much. Season 3 was when the show started to improve. Episodes became more story-based, new characters were added (such as Marina and Laconia), and Handy's inventions started to resemble more or less to modern technologies (such as telephones and wheelchairs).
  • In Season 6, the animation quality started to improve as Hanna-Barbera farmed their work overseas to foreign studios (namely Wang/Cuckoo's Nest, Toei Animation and Fil-Cartoons).
• Ho Yay: Brainy and Clumsy, inferred in at least one episode, "The Smurfiest Of Friends."
• Memetic Troll: Papa Smurf can be interpreted as one, creating holidays like Unhappiness Day, where every Smurf has to be miserable while he walks around making sure they aren't having fun, and Hug a Smurf Day, which almost just becomes "Torture Grouchy" day because he hates hugs, not that Papa Smurf doesn't find this hilarious.
• My Real Daddy: Although the characters were created by Peyo, the driving force and input of the show comes from Gerard Baldwin and a team of scriptwriters at Hanna-Barbera. It's also evident that Peyo had far less involvement in the writing and animation process than in the Magic Flute movie (only approving scripts and production material), due to the extremely tight production schedule and limited budget.
• Narm:
  • Smurfette can be considered this due to her girly girl beautician personality and occassional damsel in distress moments.
    • An example is "Haunted Smurfs", where Smurfette cries that she can't go on while the others are departing from the village.
  • The other Smurfs also had their fair share of narm moments, such as Brainy Smurf crying about being doomed when Hefty and Dreamy broke off the steering wheel of the ship in "Smurfs at Sea".
  • In "Hats Off to Smurfs", Vanity and Gargamel's deformed faces are more mockery than gruesome. But it's understandable, as the faces couldn't be so ugly as to scare children.
• Older than You Think: The Hanna-Barbera series isn't the first time the characters spoke in English. The earliest appearance of The Smurfs speaking in English was in a series of British commercials for National Benzole in 1978.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: The Season 9 episodes were made without Peyo's supervision (due to his ill health), and are considered inferior due to its heavy use of slapstick humor and pop culture references.
• Questionable Casting: In the Italian dub, the two manliest Smurfs (Hefty and Grouchy) are voiced by... a teenage girl (a very young Giuppy Izzo, who also voiced Baby Smurf and one of the Smurflings), and she makes them sound like children. This changes in the Italian dubs of live-actions and later adaptations where they both got male voice actors.
• Recycled Script:
  • The villain-disguised-as-a-Smurf ploy was used a few times in the cartoon show, both by Hogatha and Gargamel.
  • Sometimes, they would do rehashes of older episodes. "Long Live Brainy" reused the exact same plot as "King Smurf", but with Trokels added into the mix.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Simon in "The Littlest Giant" would be the first voice role of future prolific voice actress Tress MacNeille.
  • In the Japanese dub, this was the debut role as a voice actress of Omi Minami as Handy Smurf, before her Star-Making Role as Ruri Hoshino.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, this was also the debut role of Humberto Vélez, voicing a wizard in a single episode.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • The show started to decline in Season 5 when the Smurflings were introduced. Some would find the de-aging of three Smurfs as kids too unnecessary to happen and against the addition of Puppy (who is twice the size of the Smurfs). The conflicts became sillier and more juvenile than truly frightening in the previous four seasons due to Executive Meddling.
  • To a lesser extent, anything made after Gerard Baldwin's departure from the series after Season 5. Most episodes from Seasons 6-8 were a bit of a downgrade in terms of writing.
  • The final season was a Retool of the series that saw the Smurfs lost in time and traveling through different eras trying to get home. The worst offender is the unusual exaggeration on the slapstick (for example in "Cave Smurfs") and the replacement of Gargamel's voice actor. The change proved unpopular and led to ratings to plummet, which led to the series' cancellation shortly after.
• Squick: In "Romeo and Smurfette", all the male Smurfs fall in love with Smurfette, despite being supposed to be her adoptive brothers and father.
• Strawman Has a Point: In the episode "The Magical Meanie", where after the Smurfs see a shooting star at the ending, Grouchy said "I hate wishes!" and everyone responds with "Oh, Grouchy!", but Grouchy had every right to say this, seeing as a Jackass Genie had double-crossed them all.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Some folks on YouTube noticed the similarity between The Smurfs theme song and the scatting melody of the J. Geils Band's "Centerfold", both of which came out in 1981.
  • The episode "Smurfing For Ghosts" uses a tune that sounds very similar to Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters", while the cartoon special "The Smurfic Games" uses one that's similar to Vangelis' Chariots of Fire theme tune.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: "The Great Slime Crop Failure" has King Bullrush's hunters venture out for a farmer to fix their great slime crop failure and they make it to Gargamel's hovel, only to be chased off by Azrael. This is the closest we’d ever get to a Villain Team-Up between Gargamel and the Wartmongers in the whole show.
• Toy Ship: Sassette and the male Smurflings, mainly Nat and Snappy.
• Values Dissonance: Given the show is over 40 years old, some episodes have depictions and plots that would make modern viewers cringe.
  • One of the episodes, "A Hug For Grouchy", had some misleading aspects that wouldn't fly today in our current decade. The Smurfs forcefully share their feelings with Grouchy, whether he'd like it or not. They go so far as to tackle him with a big hug at the end of the episode, without being called out for it.
  • Smurfette being mostly a Girly Girl, sometimes overly weepy whenever something goes wrong and her occasional status as Damsel in Distress is no longer relevant, thanks to the 2021 TV series (although Smurfette always appears doing hard work alongside the male Smurfs, such as removing rocks and building military weapons, although she almost never takes the lead in the action).
  • The very fact that Smurfette is turned blonde by Papa Smurf after redeeming herself conveys the idea that this would be the only way for her to be loved by the Smurfs, as if she could not be accepted as she is. If Peyo started again today, he would almost certainly make Smurfette ugly forever.