Before we start, we have to mention the cartoon that inspired this and may of the other cute 80s shows. While He-Man (or Thundarr) inspired all the action figure action shows, Smurf Adventures aka The Smurfs inspired all the cute, friendly shows. It lasted for a whopping 256 episodes for 10 seasons or so. The Smurfs and it's knockoffs would give us villages full of friendly creatures where each character would have it's own distinct, extreme personality. Since the creatures are so friendly, outside forces would have to play the bad guy. Other knockoffs include The Care Bears, Fraggle Rock, and Get-Along Gang.
So the Snorks are an underwater version of The Smurfs. A Snork has a big round head, no nose, and a tube coming out of their head. I actually had a snorkel that had a snork tube (or whatever they're called) on it. They come in a variety of colors, which probably match their personalities.
Our into opens with a look undersea. We see various reefs and a couple of domes where our cute collectibles no doubt hang out. Then all of a sudden we see a bunch of Snorks dance, play a harp, and do their best to have a fun time Under The Sea. Boy, do they have huge eyes. This is followed by more fish swimming away from a snork in a sub. Or I guess it's a car to them. Whatever.
The song starts and it's much more fun and upbeat then the semi-serious Smurf theme. The song invites us to the Snorks and to play with them because they're so gosh-darn fun. Maybe they don't even have a Gargamel character. I don't remember too much.
We see a pink girl snork ride a seahorse. Clearly everything that people have will have a sea version of it. Also, I bet most girl snorks will be pink and purple while other snorks will have any color that fits them. Actually, the next picture proves me wrong because a little girl snork and and elderly woman snork are both yellow. Maybe the colors are suppose to represent family. We next see a merry-go-round made up of seahorses circling an octopus. Because they're undah the sea, see?
The song gets more upbeat while we see various snorks bounce on their tubes at a hang out. It has a stage with a band on it and their are tables to the side. Given the shows target audience, I guess this is the Chuck E Cheese of the deep sea, except the Snorks are probably preteens or teens.
Next we see a yellow snork being licked by his red octopus pet. He was the head character of the show. Because of that, he was the cool character that everybody looked up to. The red octopus was his pet dog that probably acted like Dino from the Flintstones. Next we see some seaweed creatures. The bigger one is a grumpy looking guy and the smaller one is a girl picking flowers. Presumably they are father and dauther, or maybe they're a husband and wife and she just looks smaller. We all see a vampire snork swim by. No, really. I would say that he's a bad guy but I doubt any snork would be portrayed as bad without an external influence. I bet he's a wacky count character. The seaweed people are closer to actual villains.
As the theme changes a little we see various snorks sitting around a camp fire. I mean sea fire. There's a green snork that looks like Charlie Chaplin, I guess. I think he's a relative type that shows up whenever the writers need one. At this poin we get several quick images of various characters on the show shoved into our face. The first is a couple of rag snorks. The girl has a veil on her head. Let's move on without thinking about any of that. We have an eskimo snork and then we see a cast of dozen of the snorks we will actually see in most episodes. As a kid it would ignore me if an intro or a promo would promise characters that we would never see. I bet I would watch episode after episode waiting for that damn eskimo to show up.
We see the vamp snork and a double tubed snork. Since the snorks are used for movement the latter was fast as I recall. He was the Brawny Snork of the group. We see a snork with a shell on his hat. I guess he's called Oil Snork. Then various snorks play on a band, including octdog. (It wouldn't surprise me if that was the creatures name or species.)
A seabus drives by, but our snorks are riding an eel instead. Pixar totally stole this but they used a ray instead. I'm onto you, Pixar. There are more shots of happy snorks. Geez, I hope they remember to toss in a conflict at some poin. We see the seaweed creatures again and I don't know. The girl looks like she could be a friend while the grumpy seaweed looks like he could be either a minor but recurring bad guy or a Grumpy Smurf.
Finally we end with the green snork blowing bubbles that turn into the title. He was the silent snork that honked. He was probably called Honker or something. He was the mascot of the series.
A look at wiki shows a slightly more restrained entry than yesterday, but someone has got to stop listing every episode title of the series in television entries. Also, I don't care about Family Guy. Stop telling me that Family Guy made a reference to everything I liked as a kid. I don't need to know.
Ahem. Snorks were actually born in Belgium, the same place the Smurfs came from. Wow, that's a naked attempt to rip off. Hannah Barbara is responsible for this cartoon, which I didn't mention because I wasn't aware of it. Meh, the intro doesn't look too bad. The snorks don't have _____ Snork names. Their names do match their personalities. Honker is actually named Tooter.
The seaweed creatures are villains, but they were only introduced in the later, syndicated seasons. Man, imagine how exciting those first couple seasons were. The vamp snork is also a villain. Maybe it's all the Anne Rice stuff but I just don't find a vampire villain a good way to spice up a series.
The married doll snorks are actually robots. I guess. They don't look like robots but they are. Also included in the show are the main family of the main character. This was usually done because we're suppose to connect to that character. This always makes it look like the other characters lack a family, though.
Did I really write this much about a Smurf clone? I can't think of anything else to say so I'm done.
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