I had a copy of this on VHS growing up, and I remember watching it religiously. The tape eventually wore out or got thrown away much to my dismay, but my girlfriend still has her copy of it. The other day we popped it in and I was shocked to here everyone refer to Johan as "John". On my copy he was referred to as "Johan" (his correct name).
Were there two English dubs made? All the voices are exactly how I remember them, the only thing that has changed is Johan's name.
Ok. I just got this movie on DVD yesterday and here's what I found out.
The DVD is the original theatrical release from Atlantic pictures. For the first half of the movie Johan was pronounced John. But then after he and Peewit go to Smurfland he is pronounced Yohan. Also Papa Smurf had a different voice.
The VHS version I had they refered Johan as John throughout the movie and Papa Smurf sounded like an old man. I really don't know why they made this change for home video.
There was both a US version and a UK version. I don't know how much crossover there was between the production teams for the two dubs, but certainly some of the character's names differ.
However, I do not know of a version in which Johan retains his original name - as far as I know his name was changed to John in all English versions of the Johan et Peewit stories.
In the US version the main characters are Sir John and Peewee, whereas in the UK version they are John and William. Also, the villain is called Oily McCreep in the US version, but Matthew Oilycreep in the UK one. The voices and music are totally different in the two versions.
There is surprisingly little information available online about either version of the film. It seems it rather fell through a gap because the Johan et Peewit stories are not that popular and, despite the title, the smurfs only play a minor role in the story.
I've seen both the UK and US version.
The UK dub was made first, roughly in the late 70s/very early 80s. Probably depends on the UK release date, which I can't seem to find.
The US dub was done by Stuart R. Ross' company, First Performance Pictures Corporation, and the dubbing cast consisted of non-union vocal talent best known for anime voice work! (Cam Clarke, who voiced Kaneda in the Streamline dub for AKIRA, and also voiced Snoopy in SNOOPY!!! THE MUSICAL, did the voice for Peewit, and Mike Reynolds, who you've heard in countless anime movies/series to this day, voiced Papa Smurf and the villain Matthew McCreep!)
The Vestron Video version and the Tribune TV versions both use the original First Performance Pictures credit (from the US dub's original negatives), while the Atlantic Pictures theatrical print (which is complete and uncut) instead uses the Atlantic Releasing logo/credit. To the best of my knowledge, all US prints use what might have been the original opening credits used in the UK version (which, in the current DVD, has since been replaced with a cleaner version with brown-green background instead of blue, and new credits (in a Medieval font), adding "Smurf.com" at the beginning).
Johan was called "John" in both dubs. In the UK version, Peewit was called "William." (My guess is that this was a localization thing; Peewit, pronounced "pee-wee," sounds too much like the British terms for urinating; "pee" and "wee." Probably an inappropriate name, when you consider that the Nintendo Wii went through the same thing!) The wizard Homnibus was not mentioned by name in the US.
FYI, the original French name of the villain was Torchbag (Torchesac). In the UK, he was called "Matthew Oily Creep," and in the US dub, he was "Matthew McCreep." I dunno about the change from Lord Mumford to Earl Flatbroke, though.
While the UK dub is not at all bad, one problem I had with it was how some of the Smurfs were dubbed. Some of them have very low voices (electronically reduced pitches; listen especially to Lazy Smurf in the Smurfs' introduction musical number! He sounds even creepier than in the US version.), others were even unintelligible (Grouchy Smurf talked in a thick Cockney accent AND the aforementioned electronic low-pitch). Might be one of several reasons it had to be redubbed in the US.
Hope this helps some!
I just watched this on Netflix (1976 version) and it all sounded wrong to me, the characters were referred to as John and William when I distinctly remember it being Johan and Peewee (Peewit) in the film I saw a hundred times while growing up.
Though the story was the same, the differences in music, voices, and names ruined it for me. Apparently there's a different 1983 US version, so I'll have to see if I can find that one somewhere.
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Yep the version I watched growing up they were Johan and Peewee and Peewee had kind of an obnoxious whiny tone to his voice.
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