Smurfs (1981 TV series)/Season 9

The Smurfs cartoon show title used in the Season 9 intro sequence

Season 9, which aired from 1989 to 1990, was a different season from all the seasons that preceded it, in that instead of its episodes taking place primarily in the Smurf forest and/or the Smurf Village, they now took place in various points of time and around the world, thanks to the time crystals that Papa Smurf had to assemble together without the use of a magic key that appeared in the first episode "The Smurfs That Time Forgot".

Also, the cast of Smurfs characters that starred in the episodes were severely cut back to about seventeen, mostly with some primary characters that have been in the show since its beginning and with some that were introduced in the later seasons such as Season 3's Baby Smurf, Season 5's Sassette and Snappy, Season 6's Grandpa Smurf, Season 7's Wild, and also Season 8's Smoogle. This is the only season where Gargamel does not appear in.

Due to Peyo's ill-health, he was unable to supervise the scripts and gave Hanna-Barbera more creative freedom (such as the presence of bubblegum, most prominent in "Gnoman Holiday"). However, the season also began to show that the creative well for new stories and characters was running dry, as the Smurfs now ran into time-period variations of existing villain characters such as Gargamel, Azrael, Scruple, and Hogatha (most likely their ancestors). Unfortunately, this shifting of the show's premise to time-travelling episodes signaled its doom, as this ended up becoming the final season for the cartoon show in general, and thus arguably was the season that made the show "jump the shark" in the eyes of certain viewers (who were displeased with the change of the premise). As a result of lower ratings and a new live-action block replacing Saturday-morning cartoons on the NBC, the show was cancelled and the cliffhanger of the saga was sadly unresolved, leaving seventeen of the Smurfs wandering endlessly in time-travel.

Interestingly, part of this season's plot was used for the storyline of Infogrames' The Smurfs Travel The World videogame that was released in Europe on videogame systems of the 1990s. It was after this season's cancellation that the Smurfs made their last appearance in a cartoon special, the "non-canonical" cartoon crossover story "Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue".

Intro Sequence

Papa Smurf and some other Smurfs enter the chamber with the Time Scrolls, where Grandpa Smurf arranges them with the ruby key, and soon they get transported to the ancient Middle East, where they find themselves chased by a genie. They escape on a magic carpet, and then they get transported to the prehistoric past where they outrun a giant dinosaur and go into hiding just before his tail crashes down. After the tail goes away, the SMURFS title logo carved in stone appears at the intro's end.

Episode Listings

The episodes that appeared in this season (in the order of their original air dates as well as the location of the episode) include:

No. in series	No. in season	Title card	Title	Air date	Code	Location
376	1		The Smurfs That Time Forgot	September 9, 1989	901	Prehistoric Times
A group of Smurfs travel back in time to return a little dinosaur back to his home.
377	2		Lost In The Ages (The Smurfs That Time Forgot, part 3 (syndication title))	September 9, 1989	902a	Prehistoric Times
The Smurfs must save Clumsy from the caveman Grog.
378	3		Cave Smurfs	September 9, 1989	902b	Prehistoric Times
A giant bird thinks Greedy is her baby while the real baby bird thinks Brainy is his "shmama".
379	4		Hogapatra's Beauty Sleep	September 16, 1989	903b	Ancient Egypt
Hogapatra takes Lazy's pillow to have her beauty sleep.
380	5		Mummy Dearest	September 16, 1989	904	Ancient Egypt
Pharaoh servant Gargotec wakes a mummy after taking its jewel while Brainy gets sunburned.
381	6		Shamrock Smurfs	September 16, 1989	903a	Ireland
Greedy turns into a leprechaun after eating shamrock stew.
382	7		Karate Clumsy	September 23, 1989	917b	Feudal Japan
The Master Mouse teaches Clumsy karate so he can save his friends from the Ninja Rat.
383	8		Like It Or Smurf It	September 23, 1989	913a	Polynesia
Brainy invents a game called "Like it or smurf it" that everyone likes, but it gets dangerous when they start finding extreme challenges for Hefty.
384	9		Papa's Big Snooze	September 23, 1989	918	Feudal Japan
Papa is bitten by a slumber bug and falls into a deep sleep, so the Smurfs go on an expedition to save him.
385	10		A Fish Called Snappy	September 30, 1989	915a	Ancient Greece
A water sprite turns Snappy into a fish while the ship of hungry fishermen arrives.
386	11		The Smurf Odyssey	September 30, 1989	906	Ancient Greece
Sassette and some others help a young boy on his quest to become a god.
387	12		Trojan Smurfs	September 30, 1989	905b	Ancient Greece
A spoiled princess takes Smurfette as her doll.
388	13		Fortune Cookie	October 7, 1989	911b	Ancient China
Brainy writes fortunes for Greedy's fortune cookies, but Jokey replaces them with his own fortunes.
389	14		Imperial Panda-Monium	October 7, 1989	912	Ancient China
Snappy wanders away from the Smurfs to see a young emperor who's in danger because of his cousins!
390	15		Smurfette's Green Thumb	October 7, 1989	905a	Babylon
Smurfette is pricked by a living flower at a magic garden and everything she touches becomes a plant.
391	16		Hefty Sees A Serpent	October 14, 1989	915b	Scotland
No one believes Hefty that he has seen a serpent in the Scotland Lake except for the evil Angus McGarg.
392	17		Phantom Bagpiper	October 14, 1989	916	Scotland
Smurfette help a bagpipe playing ghost retrieve his stolen pony from his evil neighbor by becoming a horse jockey on a race against this neighbor.
393	18		Jungle Jitterbug	October 14, 1989	921b	South American Amazon
Vanity catches the jungle jitterbug and he can't stop dancing.
394	19		The Clumsy Genie	October 21, 1989	910	Arabia
Clumsy falls into a genie lamp, allowing the real genie to flee, so now it's up to Brainy, Vanity, and Smurfette to get the genie back to its lamp.
395	20		Scary Smurfs	October 21, 1989	924b	Transylvania
The Smurfs get turned into monsters after nibbling on a gingerbread house in Germany.
396	21		Sky High Surprise	October 21, 1989	909b	Arabia
The time crystals are stolen from the Smurfs by a band of baby bandits on flying carpets, so Jokey must retrieve them using his flying present.
397	22		Gnoman Holiday	October 28, 1989	908	Ancient Rome
Smurfette is forced to marry a prince in a gnome version of Rome unless Brainy wins a gladiator fight.
398	23		Greedy's Master Pizza	October 28, 1989	907b	Ancient Rome
Greedy helps an Italian cook to bake the greatest pizza ever when his recipe is stolen by Gargensole.
399	23		The Monumental Grouch	October 28, 1989	907a	Ancient Rome
Painter's statue of Grouchy comes to life and follows Grouchy around.
400	24		Curried Smurfs	November 4, 1989	926	Mughal India
Wild, Grandpa, and Jokey fall into the hands of Gargapuri who wants to sell them as exotic animals.
401	25		G'Day Smoogle	November 4, 1989	917a	Australia
Smoogle discovers more of his kind in Australia and now he has to save them with his newfound power.
402	26		Grandpa's Fountain Of Youth	November 4, 1989	921a	Aztec Mexico
Grandpa gets affected by the fountain of youth and Sassette must take care of him.
403	27		Big Shot Smurfs	November 11, 1989	919b	Lilliputian-like Island
Greedy and Brainy find themselves on opposite sides of an island of which tiny people are in war.
404	28		No Reflection On Vanity	November 11, 1989	925a	Antarctica
In Antarctica, a penguin takes Vanity's mirror, so Vanity tries to find his reflection in everything.
405	29		Papa Loses His Patience	November 11, 1989	919a	Spain
Papa Smurf's patience ends up in a bullfighter El Gargo, thanks to Brainy.
406	30		Swashbuckling Smurfs	November 11, 1989	920	Atlantic Ocean
A parrot pirate unearths the Clamulet and puts some of the Smurfs under a spell of it.
407	31		Painter's Egg-Cellent Adventure	November 18, 1989	922	Russia
Painter must get a magic chicken in Russia to start laying painted eggs again.
408	32		Small Minded Smurfs	November 18, 1989	909a	South American Amazon
A jungle man shrinks the heads of the Smurfs, so Clumsy and his new friend monkey Chimpy must find the antidote.
409	33		Bananas Over Hefty	November 18, 1989	913b	Polynesian Island
An orangutan falls in love with Hefty and takes him along with the time crystals.
410	34		The Smurfs Of The Round Table	November 18, 1989	914	Camelot, England
Evil witch Morgan le Fey attacks Camelot, steals Excalibur, and makes a real destruction there, so it's up to the Smurfs to defeat her.
411	35		Wild Goes Cuckoo	December 2, 1989	925b	Switzerland
After Wild releases a cuckoo from a cuckoo clock that stops time, the man who owns the clock uses Wild as a replacement.
412	36		Brainy's Beastly Boo-Boo	December 2, 1989	924a	Africa
Brainy attempts to make the others listen to his stories by stealing a magic powder, turning himself, Snappy, Sassette, Baby, and two kids from Africa into animals.
413	37		The Golden Rhino	December 2, 1989	923	Africa
A greedy trader steals a golden horned rhino from a young boy, so Handy and Clumsy help him rescue the rhino.
414	38		Hearts 'N' Smurfs	December 2, 1989	911a	The Netherlands
Hefty, Clumsy, and Brainy try to help Cupid spread love, but Brainy is captured by Van Garg and starts spreading nastiness instead.

Characters Present In Season 9

The main characters featured throughout this season's episodes include:

• Papa Smurf
• Grandpa Smurf
• Baby Smurf
• Smurfette
• Brainy Smurf
• Clumsy Smurf
• Hefty Smurf
• Handy Smurf
• Greedy Smurf
• Grouchy Smurf
• Lazy Smurf
• Vanity Smurf
• Jokey Smurf
• Painter Smurf
• Wild Smurf
• Sassette Smurfling
• Snappy Smurfling
• Smoogle

Nanny Smurf, Farmer Smurf, and Harmony Smurf only made guest appearances in the season premiere episode "The Smurfs That Time Forgot".

Trivia

• During production, the writers wrote several episodes with different ancestors of Gargamel so that Paul Winchell (who played Gargamel) could play different types of Gargamels in different worlds. This idea was previously explored in Season 8's "Don Smurfo's Uninvited Guests". But Paul Winchell was unavailable during Season 9, because he was playing the character of "Tigger" at Disney. So due to the lack of time, Michael Bell (who played Handy, Lazy, Grouchy, and other guest characters) had to take over and play different doppelgangers of Gargamel in Season 9.
• It's unknown if the Smurfs and Smoogle ever made it back to their own time.
• In the HD remaster on YouTube, some dubs such as Arabic, Cantonese, Croatian, and Serbian use the Season 1 intro instead of the Season 9 intro.
• In the Tubi version of the Spanish dub of Season 9 (as well as the YouTube release of an episode), the Season 8 theme plays over the Season 9 intro.

Video Releases

• Apple iTunes has made both volume sets of Season 9 episodes available for download.
• In 2008, Magna Video Entertainment (now known as Beyond Home Entertainment) of Australia has released Smurfs: Time Travelers, which features episodes from Season 9. Four and a half years later, the same company released the entire season on DVD set from August for Australia and New Zealand.
• In July 2013, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the entire season on DVD set for Germany, featuring all the ninth season episodes.
• In September 2014, Imavision released episodes of Season 9 on the Les Schtroumpfs Coffret 7 French-language DVD for Canada.