September 3rd, 2021 
Jackson Murphy 
Nickelodeon’s new CG The Smurfs series debuts with a sneak peek episode this Monday September 6th at 12:30pm. Official series premiere is Friday September 10th at 7:30pm. Writers Peter Saisselin and Amy Serafin pick-up the ball after Sony’s trio of recent features and give these characters the chance to shine — and be themselves — for a new generation.
Jackson Murphy: Peter, tell me about the origins of this series and coming off of three big animated/family films that played really well around the world.
Peter Saisselin: Peyo Productions… and the family that has the rights to The Smurfs, thought it was a natural choice to go from the movies because of their success, into a series. It just made sense. That 1980s series is still sold and watched the world over today. A lot of seasons. It was time to revisit, renew and start anew. Amy and I were fortunate enough to be called and we did our best.
JM: I think you’ve absolutely done that. Amy, is it true that you made a good portion of the series and then Nickelodeon came on board? How did Nick come into play exactly?
AS: Yeah. We started out working with Dupuis, the French producer, and Peyo and the Belgian network… and KiKa came on.
PS: And TF1.
AS: Yes, TF1, the broadcaster in France. And then Nickelodeon came on later. They probably wanted to see what was being done and when they decided they liked it… I’m speaking for them. I have no idea. But I assume that’s how it went.
JM: I’m sure they wanted to get this brand. I know they’ve got the Garfield brand as well at Nickelodeon now. Powerhouse, iconic figures in animation coming in. Peter, what were your goals that you knew right away for this new show and maybe some goals you found a little bit along the way into production?
PS: Amy and I worked together on the bible, which is the set-up for the series. We re-read all the books. We went back to the source material. We did not go back to the ’80s series. We looked at a few episodes, but television has changed since the early 1980s. It goes a lot faster. If you look at that series now, it is extremely slow! (laughs) Amy and I talked a lot and read all the books and what we really enjoyed about the books was that there was a little bit of edginess. Peyo, the creator, would make little social commentaries through his characters and we picked-up on a little bit of that. We liked these little jokes that were tossed aside and we chuckled. And we were like, “We’d like to keep that energy.”
JM: It’s interesting you mentioned the speed of animation being a lot faster these days. I can definitely tell that.
PS: Yeah. Along the way, I would say we discovered that… when we were working closely with the director [William Renaud], we discovered he wanted a lot of action sequences. We’re much more verbal and more back and forth and auditory in terms of one-liners and he’s like, “That’s great. I also wanna make sure we have some set pieces of moving that camera, action and really have tiny, 10-minute movies.” And we’re like, “Oh. We’re getting it.” When we were writing during production we were thinking, “Okay. What’s our action sequence? Where are we gonna start? And what’s this episode about?” But we need time for this action.
JM: An episode I screened a few months ago because Nickelodeon had it as part of a virtual upfront presentation was the “Diaper Daddy” episode, which is so fun and a cool storyline. Amy, what do you like the most about that episode and kind of the really bouncy, playful nature of it?
AS: That was one of the first ones we wrote. I like the baby. (laughs) Baby Smurf is so cute. We wanted to get as much chaos as possible into all of these… at any moment this whole community can just make things spiral out of control. Handy has this great idea to make a robot who will change Baby’s diaper when no one else wants to. Of course, the robot ends up going rogue and runs off with the baby. Gargamel ends up getting involved. That was one of my favorites. It just made me laugh. The baby’s just laughing and the robot throws it up in the air and the baby’s hanging off a tree. Nothing phases Baby Smurf. (laughs)
PS: I know I discovered to love Baby more because you can have so much fun with Baby. His innocence plays and he hangs out and has a fun time. There were certain characters that were like, “Ugh… not my favorite.” And then as we got to know them, they became our favorites.
JM: Interesting. I was gonna ask the both of you which Smurf you connect to the most and what the Smurfs have meant to you. So in terms of who you connect with, is it somebody you maybe discovered grew on you a little more? Peter, I’ll start with you on that.
PS: Alright: it might be the same answer.
AS: We agree that we have the same feeling about this one.
JM: Okay!
Amy, Peter, Jackson and Gargamel
PS: When we first started reading the books, we were like, “Ugh. Jokey. The same exploding box. It’s so been there / done that / seen that.” And we were like, “I guess we have to use the exploding box.” How clueless are the Smurfs? Why would they ever, in today’s day and age, why would Papa Smurf take a box from Jokey? Why would Vanity Smurf take a box from Jokey? They all know it’s gonna explode, so why? Then – as we dug around the character because we really wanted to round out these characters as much as we could for today’s audience and the time we have, we’re like, “Okay. Why does he do this… for attention?” And then we said, “If he annoys us, maybe he annoys other characters.” So we wrote a story called, “Joke’s On You” where Vanity and somebody else are like, “I’m so tired of Jokey’s jokes!” And they decide to play a trick on him, which goes bad, and all of a sudden a bunch of little Jokeys pop out of a box.
JM: Whoa.
PS: And they’re worse than Jokey himself. And they just cause havoc all over Smurf Village. So he got a taste of his own medicine. And then I felt sad, “Oh my God. This poor guy is getting his come-upance.” So all of a sudden I had sympathy for him, and then from that point on, we just liked his irreverence.
AS: We liked his mischief. They’re all mischievous. But with Jokey, there’s a little bit of that glint. He’s always looking to stir up trouble, whereas the others stir it up without necessarily needing to. Jokey’s the one who’s pushing things – and beyond the box. He’s the one who says, “Let’s try this.” He ended-up becoming a very fun to work with for that reason.
PS: He’s the class clown.
AS: And I should probably talk about Smurfette. When people found out we were working on The Smurfs, everybody said, “What about Smurfette? What are you gonna do with her? She’s great, but…” at that point it was 2017 when we started working on this. (laughs)
JM: Wow.
AS: “What are you gonna do with her?!” That was a discussion we had with all the partners in the beginning. We wanted her to be obviously a little bit more of a feminist and have a lot of character. We gave her character. We didn’t want her to be perfect. And that’s a fine line to straddle but it’s more fun. Her mind’s all over the place. She has good ideas and sometimes not great ideas. She’s a bit impulsive. We both have daughters who were doing krav-maga, self-defense. One day we were like, “What if she does some sort of self-defense?” We came-up with Smurf-Fu, which became a very big part of her character. There’s an episode where the others wanna learn Smurf-Fu and she teaches them and she’s a very impatient teacher.
JM: That’s good you take good care of Smurfette because I remember when the movies were coming out and everybody was hoping and praying that the characters wouldn’t be ruined, especially Smurfette because she’s so special and has been to so many people. I also love that in the dialogue you include “Smurf” and “Murf” in as many ways as you possible can in the dialogue with references. My last name is Murphy, so a lot of people like to shorten that to “Murph”. You use “Smurf” and “Murf” to cover-up words that maybe you couldn’t say on Nickelodeon in general.
PS & AS: (laugh)
AS: Yeah, maybe we did! There’s a lot of “What the Smurf?” (laughs)
JM: Entertaining the kids and adults without fully having to go that far. You pull that off very well. If kids and parents – or anybody of any age – are really feeling blue one day and they turn on this Smurfs show on Nickelodeon, how do you think this show is gonna cheer them up?
PS: When I saw the finished product of the images and the textures and the 3D, I was gobsmacked. It was the quality of the movies. For a television show, it’s very impressive. If I were a little kid and I was feeling sad or blue and I turn on my TV or hopped open my computer and saw this universe that is so cozy and warm and safe… that’s what I think a kid [will get from it]. There’s 99 little blue friends. There’s a lot of activity. There’s some danger, but it’s never a huge threat. I find it would be a place to go and take a pause. It’s a wonderful universe to escape into. “If I were small again I’d lose myself in this world.” When you look at the images… the forest and all the details, the texturing, it’s so much fun.
AS: I agree with Peter. Also the sense of community. It’s this village with the little mushrooms. [The Smurfs] argue. They get on each other’s nerves. They get into trouble but it always turns out okay. And they always have each other’s back. They’re independent. They run their own village. They do their own thing. At the same time, they’re little kids. That combination of character is very interesting. They’re obviously one big happy family, which is just lovely.
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