The Smurfs and the Magic Flute [1983] US VHS Version 1 / HD Remaster
3For a lot of Gen X, and early Millenial, folks in the U.S., this movie was and remains a classic. Hardcore fans know that there are essentially 4 official releases of this movie: the original 1976 French release, the UK release in 1979, then two US releases in 1983. The first of which was released in theaters and on VHS, with Bill Capizzi doing the voice of Papa Smurf, and all mentions of "Johan" were voiced as "John". The second was broadcasted on TV and sees updated voice acting from most of the original cast, with the character referred to as "Johan". I believe some of the original music between both US releases are different, particularly the song played in the dining hall early on in the film. Papa Smurf in this version was voiced by Michael Sorich.
While there have been remastered re-releases of this classic Smurfs movies debut over the years on DVD and Blu-Ray, none of them have featured the full Version 1 VHS Audio in an HD resolution. The best you'll get is a DVD release that combines portions of both - however there is a LOT of content cut from that release for whatever reason. If you want to re-live the entirety of the voice acting from that copy, you're limited to either purchasing an old VHS copy, or finding one of the few uploads available on YouTube in SD with really grainy video quality.
Today I'm proud to release a version of this movie in which I have spent considerable time overlaying the best quality of the VHS audio I could find over a Blu-Ray rip of the UK release, and then going through scene by scene to make sure the audio and video line up as closely as possible. Some scenes had frames removed, or otherwise manually added/duplicated by necessity. The result is not one you're going to find anywhere else when it comes to experiencing the US Version 1 release.
The intro is still in the format of the Blu-Ray UK rip, as there's no good way to handle recoloring this to match the US version, including typefaces and the differing logo. So you'll just have to deal with that one change.
Lastly, the outro credits have been kept with the UK rip - however I did jump through some hoops to create a custom voice actor credit that looks about as close as it possibly can to the look and style of the UK rip (the typeface, size, and transition between the UK and US versions are way different). But I wanted to give proper credit to the voice actors on this version - and I think I've done them right here.
Much love to Peyo, Jose Dutillieu, Yvan Delporte, Michael Legrand, all of the production companies and distributors, many of who have passed away since its initial release. Please consider purchasing a copy of this movie, and otherwise encouraging the rights holders to finally release the FULL US VHS Version 1 of this movie, including the full original soundtrack in English.