The Smurfs (Peyo)
The Smurfs were a side detail in someone else's comic. Peyo, the Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, introduced them in 1958 in a Johan and Peewit adventure serialised in Spirou magazine, and they took over.
About The Smurfs (Peyo)
The Smurfs were a side detail in someone else's comic. Peyo, the Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, introduced them in 1958 in a Johan and Peewit adventure serialised in Spirou magazine, and they took over. Their appeal is a system rather than a character: identical small blue figures in white hats, each distinguished by one trait and named after it, led by a bearded elder in red. Hanna-Barbera's American series ran on NBC from 1981 and made them a fixture of Saturday-morning television in the United States, and Peyo's family still controls the rights.
Each Smurf is defined by a single trait and named after it, which makes the cast endlessly extendable.
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Key eras
| Era | Years | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Spirou | 1958–1980s | Belgian comics by Peyo and his studio. |
| Hanna-Barbera series | 1981–1989 | NBC's Saturday-morning run. |
| Films | 2011– | Live-action hybrids, then fully animated features. |