Smurf Basketball

Smurf Basketball (also known as The Basketball Adventure of The Smurfs in France and French Belgium, and The Smurfs' Basketball Adventure in Dutch Belgium and other countries, except Australia) is an American-Belgian sports comedy video game based on The Smurfs. The game is produced by Paramount Interactive, Sunbow Entertainment and THQ. It is also one of the Smurfs-related games to not be produced by Infogrames. The game was released to Sega Dreamcast in North America on May 11, 2000, Europe on July 6, 2000 and Australia on November 4, 2000.

Sypnosis
One night, Gargamel is fed up of having to capture Smurfs and so is Azrael. He then hatches an idea and decides to bring a team of monster basketball players from the future to the Medieval Ages. As the Rebels transported to Gargamel's hovel, he orders them to find the Smurfs and abduct them. The Rebels then set off to the village and abduct the Smurfs through a UFO. The leader of the Rebels, Blazer forces the blue creatures to play a basketball game against them or they will be turned into gold by Gargamel. Papa Smurf thought about it and told his little Smurfs that they should do their basketball game, in order to be set free.

The Smurflings were in charge of designing the costumes for the team. They thought about what the outfits would look like between various depictions, until they came up with different color schemes for basketball outfits (red/maroon/light maroon for Papa Smurf and sky blue/navy blue/white for all the male adult Smurfs). A cheerleader outfit was designed for Smurfette and has the same color scheme as the adult male Smurfs' basketball outfits.

Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to the 1995 Looney Tunes basketball game Looney Tunes B-Ball. It is an arcade-style basketball game starring the Smurfs.

The game features 3-on-3 gameplay. Up to four human players can play simultaneously with the Sony PlayStation Multitap. Players can collect gems on the court to purchase in-game power-ups, such as a protective forcefield or a smurfberry to throw at opponents. Another power-up which can be purchased is a character-unique signature long-range shot (for a 3-point field goal). These shots can only be used by a character on his defensive side of the court and if his team has the funds to do so, but the shot always travels in the direction of the goal his team is attacking. The game ball will, at random, turn into Feathers which will fly around the court and automatically does this when a shot-clock violation occurs. The game also includes in-game cheat codes, which can be used during gameplay, and are activated by inputting specific sequential button presses. The game also displays animated cutscenes.

Development
In August 1997, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment teamed up with Hanna-Barbera Productions and Midway Games to work on a new basketball game based on The Smurfs. For the past few years, Infogrames worked on their Smurfs video games which stayed more true to the original comic books. Originally, Infogrames was intended to produce the game based on their plans. But the game company could not utilize 3D computer animation at the time. Yet rough storyboards of the planned game survived before revisions were made by Hanna-Barbera. Kevin Petrilak, Mike Kazelah and Scott Shaw were put in charge of finishing the game, the same way they did on the previous game Smurf Island Adventures.

"Thierry and Veronique have assigned us to finish Smurf Basketball just after we've completed Smurf Island Adventures." said animator Kevin Petrilak.

Writing
The cutscenes were written by Glenn Leopold, Kevin Hopps and Charles M. Howell IV. Script supervisions and editing were done by Theirry Culliford.

"It was nice to do another video game with Hanna-Barbera after Smurf Island Adventures.", said Theirry. "We've always wanted to do a basketball game with more modern basketball outfits, as opposed to the classic ones in the PVC figures. Midway Games made a collaboration with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera back in 1995, when the island game was rejected by Infogrames after we pitched it to them. Now with new characters created for the next game, we were going to get The Smurfs into the basketball act for sure."

Voices
Scott Innes takes over as Papa and Dreamy, as well as Jim Cummings taking over for Gargamel and Frank Welker taking over as Azrael. Dan Castellaneta, Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria took over as the new voices of Tracker, Clumsy, Painter and Tailor. The rest of the characters' voices were reprised by their respective cast members from the 80s cartoon show.

Cutscenes animation
The cutscenes were traditionally animated and had smoother animation and a higher framerate than some games with cutscenes. Those scenes were directed by David Silverman (longtime director of The Simpsons), layouts by Scott Shaw and animated by Kevin Petrilak and Mike Kazelah.

Animation
Animation for the gameplay is handled at Midway Games, with the use of 3D computer graphics and textures. Characters were modeled based off their designs directly from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Props and backgrounds were completed from concept art sketches and later finalized for the game.

Music
Music for the game is composed by Akira Miyagawa.

Voice cast

 * Scott Innes as Papa Smurf and Dreamy Smurf
 * as Brainy Smurf
 * Harry Shearer as Clumsy Smurf and Painter Smurf
 * Michael Bell as Grouchy Smurf, Handy Smurf and Lazy Smurf
 * Frank Welker as Hefty Smurf, Poet Smurf and Azrael
 * as Smurfette
 * as Greedy Smurf and Harmony Smurf
 * as Vanity Smurf
 * as Jokey Smurf
 * as Farmer Smurf and Scaredy Smurf
 * Dan Castellaneta as Tracker Smurf
 * as Sloppy Smurf
 * Hank Azaria as Tailor Smurf
 * Jim Cummings as Gargamel
 * as Snappy Smurfling
 * as Slouchy Smurfling
 * Charlie Adler as Natural 'Nat' Smurfling
 * as Sassette Smurfling
 * Yeardley Smith as Baby Smurf
 * as Blazer
 * as Eclipsus
 * as Behemoth
 * as Spike

Quotes

 * "(beginning of opening cutscene, singing) La-la. La-la-la-la. Sing a happy song. La-la. La-la-la-la. Smurf the whole day long" - Smurfs.
 * "(singing) Smurf along with me!" - Papa Smurf.
 * "(while watching the theme on his crystal ball transmitter) Blech! I'm sick and tired of watching these rotten Smurfs over and over, day after day! Week after week! Month after month! Year after year!" - Gargamel.
 * "Mreh, mreh!" - Azrael.
 * "I must think of a new plan to catch them! A new way to imprison them in somewhere else, besides my hovel! (he overhears some noise from a group of monsters playing sports in the late 90s on his other crystal ball transmitter.)" - Gargamel.


 * "Let's play, my little Smurfs!" - Papa Smurf.


 * "Golly! I sure love playin' basketball!" - Clumsy Smurf.


 * "My evil scheme is working perfectly, Azrael! Soon those stinking blue rodents will fail miserably at this game, and nobody will be able to stop me! I will dominate Smurf Village! (cackles evilly)" - Gargamel.
 * "Meow!" - Azrael.
 * "Right you are, Azrael! (to himself) D'ooooh! I should've killed all those Smurfs years ago when I had the chance. It makes me sick to see those tiny happy, little creatures whenever I wanted to go do something in life. But right after the game is finished, I will no longer see those wretched little do-gooders when I'm through with them (cackles evilly)" - Gargamel.
 * "(overheraring Gargamel's plan) What? So, he's planning to make these little blue creatures into gold"- Blazer.


 * "I hate baskeball! (All Smurfs glare at him) Well, not much. (chuckles nervously)" - Grouchy Smurf.


 * "So, Papa Smurf. What do you think of our new special basketball costume designs?" - Snappy Smurfling.
 * "They look pretty smurfy, Snappy." - Papa Smurf.


 * "Papa, why can't I play?" - Smurfette
 * "The reason why, my little Smurfette, is because the Smurflings assigned you to be the cheerleader of the team. Now, why don't you run along and do what you were made to do?" - Papa Smurf.
 * "Yes, Papa Smurf" - Smurfette


 * "(while dribbling the basketball) Smurfaroo! This basketball game isn't as bad as we thought!" - Snappy Smurfling.


 * "You won, little creatures. You're free to go!" - Blazer.
 * "Thanks for everything, Blazer." - Papa Smurf.
 * "You bet, Papa Smurf. Now, we'll try to give this evil wizard a lesson that he won't forget. (the monsters turn over to angrily glare at Gargamel)" - Blazer.
 * "(shocked) Oh, no!" - Gargamel.
 * "(when he is defeated by the Smurfs and chased away by the monsters) Help! Azrael! Get me out of here! I'll have my revenge, Smurfs! You'll all be sorry! My revenge will be terrible! You'll see! You'll see! (Azrael sees it and cackles, only to be shocked when he sees an monster hungrilly seeing him)" - Gargamel.

Still under construction...
 * "We did it, my little Smurfs! We beat the Rebels at their own basketball game! We saved ourselves from Gargamel! And we're safe and sound back in our village! So, who's up for a celebration? (all of the other Smurfs cheer)" - Papa Smurf.

HD Remake
A high-definition remake was released on October 23, 2008 for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and even, the PlayStation Portable to celebrate The Smurfs ' 50th anniversary. In addition, there will be an another HD remake in 2018, made by Avalanche Software, for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch.

Trivia

 * This game is considered non-canon to the whole Smurfs franchise, despite that the game is based off the Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
 * In one of the cutscenes, the Smurflings are the ones who came up with the designs of the basketball player outfits for all the male Smurfs and a cheerleading outfit for Smurfette.
 * Early concept art had numbers on the jersey of the male Smurf basketball players. This was changed to a Smurf symbol to save time.
 * Smurfette is the only Smurf in the game to not be a basketball player. She is instead the cheerleader for the Smurfs basketball team.
 * Johan and Peewit were originally intended to be in the game. However, they did not make the final cut.
 * This game featured fully-voiced traditionally animated cutscenes. Those scenes were directed by David Silverman (longtime director of The Simpsons), layouts by Scott Shaw and animated by Kevin Petrilak and Mike Kazelah.
 * The gameplay was made with computer animated 3D visuals.
 * There were some differences between Infogrames' rough version and Hanna-Barbera's final version.
 * In the planned opening cutscene, footage from one of the Belgian Schtroumpfs shorts in the 1960s appeared on Gargamel's crystal ball transmitter. In the final version, it was changed to the second season intro of the 1980s cartoon from Hanna-Barbera.
 * The Rebels were voiced by other voice artists, such as Lucas E. Player, Topher Malone, John Martin and Gary Sanderson.
 * At the beginning of the opening cutscene, Gargamel is watching the intro of The Smurfs ' second season.
 * Development of the game took only two years to finish. Production of the game started in late 1997, after Smurf Island Adventures had completed production.
 * A promo of the video game first aired Saturday, November 13, 1999 in the early morning timeslot on Cartoon Network during the middle of commercial break while re-running some episodes of The Smurfs.
 * The game was first planned by Infogrames but was finished by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Hanna-Barbera Productions and Midway Games. Other games that were first planned by Infogrames and finished by the same three companies included Smurf Island Adventures (1997), Smurf Battle (2002), Smurf Racer II (2003), and Revenge of the Purple Smurfs (2005).