NBC Classic Rebooted by Nickelodeon

One of NBC's most successful outings into family television is getting the reboot treatment: The Smurfs. A new Smurfs TV show recently premiered on Nickelodeon. As shown in the recent trailer, The Smurfs features revamped CGI animation. It premiered on Sept. 10.

The Smurfs' original NBC run was hugely successful, airing more than 400 episodes between 1981 and 1989.
The new iteration stars David Freeman as Papa Smurf, Berangere McNeese as Smurfette, Lenny Mark Irons as Gargamel, Youssef El Kaoukibi as Brainy and Catherine Hershey as Willow. The new series seems to be unrelated to the most recent round of Smurf movies, which were released by Sony Pictures. This gives the franchise some freedom to explore new avenues and build itself from scratch for a whole new audience.

"The Smurfs is an iconic global franchise that has resonated with audiences for decades," said Pam Kaufman, President of ViacomCBS Consumer Products. "By partnering with LAFIG, we are able to join our creative forces to bring an all-new line of consumer products across multiple categories to consumers, along with a fresh and original animated series."

"I am extremely proud and happy to have Nickelodeon and its fantastic team to represent our Smurf brand both for the broadcast of our beautiful New TV series and as an agent," added IMPS/LAFIG Founder and President Véronique Culliford. "We are making history again more than 40 years after the global success of the first TV series of the Smurfs, which is broadcast in more than 100 countries still today! I am convinced that we could not have found a better partner to smurf our beautiful blue planet."

The new Smurfs teaser trailer shows plenty of slapstick gags playing on the Smurfs' size, clumsiness and apparent invulnerability to injuries. It also hints at some danger in the form of humans and animals out in the forest. So far, it has only used the word "Smurf" as a verb once, but long-time fans can hope that there will be more of that on the way.

The Smurfs began as a Belgian comic strip franchise in 1958 and found global success in the years to come. In the U.S. they have starred in three TV series before, and several movies, video games and comic books. Disclosure: PopCulture is owned by ViacomCBS Streaming, a division of ViacomCBS.