Smurfquest - NOT A TV SPECIAL
I have never seen so much misinformation and myths around a Smurfs episode. I actually decided to deep dive this and it's possible I've gone insane. This damned thing keeps coming up so let's get into it, once and for all....
- MYTH - It was another Prime Time Smurf's Special!
FACT - It wasn't. There's no evidence this ever aired outside it's normal Saturday Morning Timeslot.
- MYTH - It's an hour and 30 minute movie!
FACT - It's not. Even imdb repeats this runtime lie. SmurfQuest taps in with about a 70min runtime (give or take.) NBC tacked another episode onto this ( "Gargamel's New Job") in order to fill out Smurf's full regular 90 min time slot that Saturday Morning.
- MYTH - It's a TV Movie!
FACT - While NBC did release a 10 second promo calling this a "movie," the truth is that it was the 6th Season Premier that aired Saturday Morning on September 13, 1986 in it's normal timeslot. If you want to consider that a movie then that's up to you. But there was no real difference between that week's episodes and the following week's episodes, except for the Smurfquest Saturday Morning had 4 interconnected stories instead of four standalone stories.
- MYTH - It aired as a movie and was later broken into 4 half hour episodes!
FACT - Nope. Another myth that likes to come up in various searches. The actual episode runtimes breakdown more like... Part I (13 mins,) Part II (23 mins,) Part III (13 mins,) Part IV (23 mins.) It's also debatable about whether this "movie" originally appeared without individual title cards or not. I can't find an original broadcast recording to confirm but it seems likely NBC only had one version of this "movie" and it was always just the four episodes back to back. Sources differ about what happened in syndication.
- MYTH - It was originally supposed to be a theatrical movie!
FACT - I personally couldn't find a single source to verify that beyond people just like to say it. The myth states that it was a movie cancelled due to the failure of Transformers and GI Joe at the box office. I guess that's a theory. But there's absolutely nothing cinematic looking about Smurfquest so I find that theory hard to believe. The Transformers/GI Joe movies were 4:3 movies cropped to a widescreen format for a theater release. I couldn't imagine someone cropping Smurfquest for a theater release without it looking like absolute shit. I might believe the script was floated as a movie idea early on, but I find it impossible to believe it was animated with theaters in mind.
-Sources-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986%E2%80%9387_United_States_network_television_schedule_(daytime)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Smurfs_(1981_TV_series)_episodes#Season_6_(1986)
https://saturday-morning-broadcast-archives.fandom.com/wiki/September_13,_1986
https://nbcarchives.fandom.com/wiki/September_13,_1986
https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/retro-kansas-city-sat-september-13th-1986.685099/