The Smurfs have been a mainstay of popular culture since their creation in 1958. Originally a Belgian comic strip, The Smurfs by Peyo, it quickly became a Cash-Cow Franchise in the following decades, culminating in the 1965 animated film Les Aventures des Schtroumpfs, the 1976 animated feature The Smurfs and the Magic Flute and Dutch singer Vader Abraham (Father Abraham)'s 1977 hit single The Smurf Song, which was a top 5 hit in many countries and was translated by him in many other languages, including Japanese. After Hanna-Barbera turned the series into a Saturday-morning children's TV cartoon series, The Smurfs (1981), in 1981, the Smurfs became a global phenomenon in all other parts of the world too, including the USA. In the 2000s, the CGI live-action Smurfs films revived interest in the franchise.
Naturally, this has led to countless shout-outs, references, spoofs, homages and other winks to the franchise.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- In some episodes of the German dub of Sailor Moon, many characters sing the theme song to The Smurfs.
Comic Books
- On the first page of the Flare story "Dolf and the Crunchbird
", one of the Smurfs appears on two TV screens behind Olga and Teresa. - De Kiekeboes:
- Posters of the Smurfs can be seen hanging in a children's bedroom in the album De Spray Historie.
- In Afgelast Wegens Ziekte Kiekeboe and his son decide to buy some new backgrounds for their comic strip. They go to Plagiarism Land where stock backgrounds from well known comic strips are being sold. One of them is the Smurf Village, where a sign ironically says: Only used once!
- Benoit Brisefer: In one album, Lady Adolphine is given a present which promptly explodes in her face. Afterwards she looks knowingly at the reader. This Smurfs reference was especially obvious since both Benoit Brisefer and The Smurfs were made by Peyo.
- Urbanus: In De Hittentitten Zien Het Niet Meer Zitten Urbanus is attacked by some Smurfs, but they are picked up by two representatives of the Hanna-Barbera studios (namely Fred and Barney from The Flintstones) to take them to Hollywood.
- In an issue of John Byrne's run on Superman, Mr. Mxyzptlk turns a billboard of Dorfs (Smurfs Expies) cartoons into living creatures that attack Superman.
Comic Strips
- In the cartoons of Dutch cartoonist Gummbah, the Smurfs are frequent background characters, often shown as degrading, cigarette-smoking, unshaven cynics.
- Off the Mark:
- "I hope you had better luck finding your 'something old, something new, and something borrowed' stuff..."
- Blue Man Group tries to trace their ancestry...
- A Smurf is among the residents of the Betty Rubble Center For Recovering Toons. Other residents include Sally Brown, George Jetson, Pikachu, one of the Crocs from Pearls Before Swine, and Dory.
- This strip features a Smurf listening to an blues music.
- "I hope you had better luck finding your 'something old, something new, and something borrowed' stuff..."
- Frank and Ernest:
- "It's probably a typo, but I'm not eating it if it's blue."
- In this strip, Frank and Ernest run a "Fictional Characters Fishing Tours" business. Frank tells Ernest that the Smurfs are coming today.
Ernest: We'll take them out for bluefin! - "It's probably a typo, but I'm not eating it if it's blue."
- Mother Goose and Grimm:
- When Ralph gets married, he realizes that he doesn't have "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue". Fortunately, Grimm has him covered.
- A Smurf coffee house.
- When Ralph gets married, he realizes that he doesn't have "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue"
- In PreCure in a Nutshell, Cure Sword gets the parody name of Cure Swoofnote .
Films — Live-Action
- Back to the Future Part II: At the Cafe 80's, several TV screens behind the counter are playing various series from the 80's, one of them being the Hanna-Barbera Smurfs cartoon.
- Donnie Darko has a scene where Donnie and his friends speculate about the Smurfs' sexuality. Donnie debunks his friends' perverted theories with his surprisingly detailed knowledge of Smurfs lore.
- Juan of the Dead: Zombies attack during a community meeting and China's boyfriend, who is Afraid of Blood, faints. Needing help with the guy, China tries to get Juan's attention by calling him Papa Smurf. It does not work.
Literature
- Umberto Eco once wrote a pun essay called Schtroumpf und Drang (a pun on Sturm Und Drang) about the use of the word smurf in speech.
- The Nac Mac Feegle in Discworld are mostly a Violent Glaswegian pun on "Pict" and "Pixie" with hints of a hive structure. But the fact this has resulted in a society of little blue men with only one female is not a coincidence.
Live-Action TV
- In the Flemish sketch show Buiten De Zone, the Smurfs were a frequent Running Gag.
- In How I Met Your Mother, Ted compares the blue french horn he stole for Robin to a "Smurf penis". There's also this exchange between Lily and Barney:Lily: No, friends make each other feel good. They build each other up and support them. That's what being a good friend is about.
Barney: Yeah, if you're a SMURF. - In the first episode of The Orville, when Captain Ed Mercer was arguing with his ex-wife Commander Kelly Grayson about the extra-marital affair she had with a humanoid alien that ended their marriage, Mercer said that she was "banging Papa Smurf".
- Radio Enfer features several references to The Smurfs, particularly when making fun of Camille's short stature.
- Maria drinks some potion invented by Galgouri that is supposed to brighten the complexion. Unfortunately, she ends up getting a blue skin for six hours, causing everyone (herself included) to make Smurfs-related jokes:Maria: [after screaming in horror upon seeing her blue skin] MY LIFE IS OVER! Carl would never wanna date the Smurfette.
- Maria drinks some potion invented by Galgouri that is supposed to brighten the complexion. Unfortunately, she ends up getting a blue skin for six hours, causing everyone (herself included) to make Smurfs-related jokes:
- In the first episode of Supernatural, Sam's girlfriend Jessica wears a shirt with a Smurf and the Smurfette. Dean comments that he likes it.
Music
- Dutch singer Vader Abraham (Father Abraham) became filthy rich in 1977 after releasing The Smurf Song, which was translated in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Japanese, all sung by himself. This was followed by many other Smurf-themed songs.
- There have been some other unofficial Smurf themed records released in other countries, which all form the same pattern. Take a current hit single, replace the vocals with some Smurf related lyrics and sing everything in a helium voice. The Other Wiki has an entire article about it: [1]
- The Beastie Boys reference a dance called "The Smurf" during "The New Style" and "Posse In Effect" on Licensed to Ill.
- In the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "eBay", a Smurf TV tray is one of the items mentioned.
Video Games
- In Infinite Craft, the word "Smurf" can be crafted, as well as Papa Smurf, Smurfette, and Clockwork Smurf.
Web Original
- In the Rifftrax video intro, Gargamel is seen chasing after a couple of Na'vi from the movie Avatar.
Web Video
- The Angry Video Game Nerd:
- In his review of the Colecovision, one of the games the Nerd plays is Smurf Rescue.
- In his review of Berenstain Bears games, the Nerd plays The Smurfs Save the Day, the only other Atari 2600 game that works with the Kid Vid Voice Module besides Berenstain Bears.
- The Nostalgia Chick devoted an entire episode to female Expy characters of male cast members and named it The Smurfette Principle.
Western Animation
- In the Animaniacs (1993) episode "Valuable Lessons", two network censors think the Warner siblings are too violent so they show them a cartoon called "The Cute and Fuzzy Snugglers" in an attempt to soften them up, the cartoon features purple Smurf-like creatures who look up to Papa Snuggler, a Papa Smurf parody.
- Duck Dodgers: In "The Green Loontern", the title character refers to one of the Guardians of the Universe as Papa Smurf after he receives a Green Lantern ring and joins with the rest of the Green Lantern Corps on Oa.
- Family Guy: One cutaway gag had two Smurfs talk about one of them scoring with Smurfette and using the word Smurf as a substitute for the word fuck.
- Garfield and Friends:
- One post-opening sequence line was, "The Garfield Guarantee: No giant robots or annoying little blue people."
- Another post-opening sequence line was, "Today, a Saturday Morning investigative report; Where Did All Those Smurfs Go?"
- In "Crime and Nourishment", when Garfield's picnic lunch gets stolen, he discovers an underground village inhabited by green Smurf-like creatures who eat money and use Italian food as currency.
- In "Mystery Guest", during the eponymous theme song, Roy sings that the guest is not "a singing raisin" or "painted blue" while holding up posters of the respective silhouettes of a California Raisin and a Smurf.
- MAD had a spoof of Mama involving the Smurfs, called "Papa".
- In the Milo Murphy's Law episode "Star Struck", there's a cutaway to the Show Within a Show Milly and the Menninkainen, which is drawn in the style of The Smurfs and also parodies the show's title cards.
- Oggy and the Cockroaches: In "First Flight", the cockroaches were flipping Oggy side by side on the plane (as he was literally turned into molding clay), Oggy briefly turned into a Smurf.
- Robot Chicken:
- In an early skit, parodying the movie Se7en, Brainy Smurf investigates the mysterious deaths of seven fellow Smurfs. The culprit is Jokey Smurf.
- In one skit, Smurf Village is victim to a flood. Gargamel finally manages to capture some of the drowned Smurfs and eats them. However, waiting for so many years turns out to be a disappointment, because they don't seem to taste well. After only one bite, he throws the rest of his meal away and orders some Chinese food by phone.
- In another episode, the Smurfs are at war with The Snorks.
- In one skit, parodying the James Cameron film Avatar, Gargamel transfers his mind into a Smurf body and infiltrates the Smurf Village as "Gargle Smurf" to destroy them.
- One skit has Gargamel put on trial for attempted genocide.
- In one skit, a Smurf commits suicide after becoming depressed while working at Smurf Radio after saying and hearing "La la la" all the time.
- In another episode, parodying the movie The Hunger Games, the Smurfs' village faces infestation by gypsy moths, which eat all of their smurfberry crops; with the Smurfs facing starvation, Gargamel capitalizes it by hosting a tournament, in which all of the Smurfs fight to the death for a prize of Gargamel's smurfberry crops. The Smurfs win the Hunger Games after Azrael explodes from eating gunpowder from Jokey's surprise gift and then gets kicked by Gargamel while he rants, but the celebration is cut short when Sassette Smurfling shoots Papa Smurf in the head with an arrow after he ignores her suggestion about how to avoid another famine, going as far as to cut his beard off and wear it, all while shouting "Who's your papa?!" and forcing the other Smurfs to bow to her.
- One skit has Gargamel wearing a bikini and eating a burger filled with Smurf jelly.
- In another episode, parodying the reality show Undercover Boss, Papa Smurf goes undercover to see how his village really runs.
- In another episode, parodying the TV series House of Cards (US), the village holds an election to be Papa Smurf's second-in-command. Brainy assumes it will be him; instead, he once again gets thrown onto his head. The constant head trauma has given him a lack of moral compass and a Southern accent. Brainy conducts an unscrupulous campaign that includes teaming up with Gargamel, blackmailing Handy Smurf, and getting political favors by seducing Smurfette. Hefty Smurf ends up winning the election and as soon as he does, Gargamel attacks and kills Papa Smurf with a mallet. Brainy is there for the rescue with a gatling gun that Handy built for him. Smurfette calls for another vote and Hefty wins again on sheer looks alone.
- In one skit, Handy Smurf suspects that the dead Smurfs (named on Memorial Day) died of natural causes, when actually Papa Smurf assassinated them (after they had outlived their usefulness) via gunshots, despite Papa denying it by saying that their deaths were natural. Papa later pays Azrael to assassinate Handy for getting too close to the truth.
- In one skit, Brainy attempts to buy boxes of Sudafed from a pharmacy in order to make Crystal Meth. He, Handy, Jokey, and Hefty are hidden within a trenchcoat, with Brainy on top.
- In one skit, Brainy is diagnosed with CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) as a result of being tossed on his head too many times.
- In one skit, a falcon flies across the Smurf Village and constantly poops on the Smurfs.
- The Bitch Pudding Special has Bitch Pudding being befriended by the Schlorps, purple-skinned parodies of the Smurfs.
- In the Rugrats (1991) episode, "Together at Last", Larry and Steve get jobs painting Phil and Lil's house. When Phil accidentally causes a can of blue paint to fall on Steve, Larry says, "Oh, dude! You look like a Smurf!"
- The Simpsons:
- In "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", Bart tells Homer to bet all his money on the dog race track because "miracles always happen to poor kids at Christmas. It happened to Tiny Tim, it happened to Charlie Brown, it happened to the Smurfs, and it's gonna happen to us."
- After kidnapping Lucy Lawless in "Treehouse of Horror X", Comic Book Guy as the Collector informs her that she will now be his Sex Slave and gives her a list of names he wants to be addressed by: Obi-Wan, Iron Man, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and Big Papa Smurf.
- In "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", Homer looks at a statue of the Hindu deity Vishnu and confuses him with Papa Smurf.
- In "Homerland", Annie Crawford imagines Papa Smurf in her hallucinations.
- The Show Within a Show "Happy Little Elves", most prominently featured in "Some Enchanted Evening" and "Lisa Simpson, This Isn't Your Life", is essentially the show's own version of The Smurfs (despite the above mentioned references to the actual Smurfs.)
- South Park:
- Smurfs are seen as background characters among other fictional beings in Imaginationland.
- In "Dances with Smurfs", Cartman tells a tale in which he went to the Smurf village and was accepted by them to live in their midst. He tries to sell the movie rights but is furious when he learns somebody else already beat him too it: James Cameron's Avatar (by the way: this episode aired before the film had premiered.)
- In the short, "Working Pig" from the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Career Oppor-toon-ities", when Hamton gets a job at the ACME Mall's toy store, some of the toys he tries to sell to Elmyra are of the "Muffy Smuffs".
