Flashback: Mays, Harris Share 'Smurfs' Memories

Before the sequel to the Smurfs' big-screen adventure, The Smurfs 2, hits theaters this summer, let's take a trip back to the first film and listen to star voice actors Jayma Mays and Neil Patrick Harris share their favorite Smurfs memories.

The Smurfs was first created as a comic book series in Belgium in 1958 and was developed into an American television series in 1981, when Mays and Harris were both children.

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The show, which ran a total of nine seasons, was thus a part of their lives for a good stretch of their childhoods.

"My mom used to force me to watch 'The Smurfs'...every Saturday morning," Mays recalls of her experience with the animated series. "[She] even collected the cups and things like that."

Because she was forced to watch it, Mays, who was two years old when the series premiered, says she would take sides with the show's antagonists.

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"She would make me watch, so to spite her, I would always say that Gargamel (the Smurfs' arch-nemesis) was my favorite and I loved Azrael (Gargamel's cat)," the 33-year-old actress reveals.

Harris, six years Mays' elder, had a similar strong connection to The Smurfs.

"I grew up in the early '80s watching TV when Saturday morning cartoons were...when you watched cartoons. [There weren't] networks full of them all the time. So, 'Smurfs' was a big part of it. Hanna-Barbera had their show every week," the New Mexico native recalls.

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Although the show featuring the tiny blue-skinned creatures was a big part of his childhood, the How I Met Your Mother actor admits that he wasn't the biggest fan, and in fact, found the show a bit peculiar in some respects.

"I wasn't a rabid collector of figurines or comics or bed sheets or things like that. I wasn't as addicted as some," he discloses. "I found them a little a creepy. [It was] the song, and then Gargamel was kind of evil and the cat. There was always a ferociousness in 'Smurfs.'"

Harris may have turned off by the show's song, amongst other things, but he jokes, "I really only sing the theme song when I'm making sweet love."

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Watch the full flashback from the stars of The Smurfs in 2011 above. The Smurfs 2 is in theaters July 31.