The Smurfs is a 1981 English-language Animation Adventure series developed by Pierre Peyo Culliford directed by Bob Hathcock, George Gordon and Rudy Zamora and produced by Gerard Baldwin, Bob Hathcock, Don Jurwich, Walt Kubiak, Paul Sabella, Iwao Takamoto, Larry Latham and Charles Grosvenor under the banner of Hanna-Barbera Productions in collaboration with SEPP International S.A. and Lafig S.A. for NBC. Classic Saturday-morning cartoon series featuring magical blue elf-like creatures called Smurfs. The Smurfs, named for their personalities, inhabit a village of mushroom houses in an enchanted forest. These loveable creatures are led by Papa Smurf and live carefree.. except for one major threat to their existance: Gargamel, an evil but inept wizard who lives in a stone-built house in the forest; and his feline companion, the equally nasty Azrael. Typical stories deal with the Smurfs' efforts to fight off Gargamel, who wanted to do one of several things to the blue creatures including eat them, make them slaves and gain their magical secrets in order to gain dignity among the wizard's fraternity. than once, the Smurfs had to save Gargamel from his back-firing plans or even eviler wizards. Written by Brian Rathjen. The smurfs features Don Messick, Danny Goldman, Lucille Bliss, Frank Welker, Michael Bell, June Foray and John Stephenson. The show is based on The Smurfs by Pierre Peyo Culliford. The music was composed by Hoyt Curtin along with Clark Gassman, Mireille Delfosse and Tom Worrall. Editing was done by Gil Iverson. The show has a running time of 22 minutes for each episode. The show has a total of 256 episodes during it's run of 9 seasons. Distribution rights for the show were acquired by :.