1981 8:30 on CBS: Trollkins

[captain_slinky]

Tune in to your local CBS affiliate station at 8:30 on Saturday morning in 1981 and you'll be watching Trollkins - Like a cross between the Smurfs and The Dukes Of Hazzard. SERIOUSLY. Multi-colored Smurfs, with cars and Southern hayseed accents, living in trees that make up "Troll Town". If the two cartoons hadn't been made by the exact same studio (Hanna-Barbera) and debuted on the exact same day in the exact same time slot, you'd swear that one was a rip-off of the other.

And you'd be right.

The third-hand story behind this show as I have heard it repeated from fairly reliable sources (HOORAY FOR GOSSIP YAAAAY!) is that when Hanna-Barbera got hold of the rights to make an American animated version of the beloved European comic strip characters The Smurfs, it was decided (and nobody will take credit for this) that was "too intelligent" for the youth of America and it needed to be dumbed down. The concept was passed around through all the various lawyers, marketing executives and Censors to make "notes" on how to "improve" the show.

• All of them being just blue could be seen as being racist. Make them a multitude of colors.
  
• Mushroom houses could be a drug reference, have them live in trees.
  
• The Dukes Of Hazzard is popular right now, make them all sound Southern.
  
• Put them in vehicles - easier to sell as a Happy Meal Toy if this cartoon takes off.
  
• Villains are too threatening, make our conflict be with a biker gang that is just non-conforming and annoying.
  
• They need a dog. EVERY Hanna-Barbera production should have a dog in it because Frank Welker needs work.

This was given the green-light and went into production before they checked with Peyo, the creator of the Smurfs. When they showed him the Trollkins, he said something like "That is a very nice cartoon, and I can hardly wait to see what you can do with a GOOD concept like my Smurfs!"

Nobody spoke of the Trollkins ever again. One season and *done*, never to be spoken of again, put in to lots of syndication packages as padding.

I don't know if that story is true, but I love it :)