A tail is an appendage that is the terminus of a living being's spinal column, usually appearing around the buttocks.
Mainstream Smurfs Media[]
Smurfs have short stubby tails that stick out from the back of their pants. Smurfette's tail is mostly unseen, usually covered by her hair or by her clothes. Some PVC models of Smurfette do have a tail being shown through the back of her pants, and in the 2021 cartoon, she is shown to have a tail when she wears a tracksuit.
A tail doesn't appear to serve much purpose for a Smurf other than self-identification, but it is considered a weak spot in the comic book story "The Black Smurfs" (and its English-audience cartoon show counterpart "The Purple Smurfs"), where a Smurf could be infected with the Black Smurf disease by being bitten either by the black fly or by another Black Smurf.
In the 1980s cartoon show episode "Hopping Cough Smurfs", Clumsy Smurf wagged his tail in excitement over finding wild berries.
In the 1980s cartoon show episode "Tattle-Tail Smurfs," Brainy cast a spell on the Smurflings that caused their tails to grow whenever they tattle-tale. In the story "The Fake Smurf," Gargamel (in the comic books) and Hogatha (in the cartoon show) used a fake tail to disguise the fact that their Smurf impersonation wasn't perfect, which resulted in the Smurfs pinching each other's tails when the masquerade was exposed.
Empath Stories[]
In the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf story series, Empath's tail did serve a purpose in saving Polaris' life, though mostly by accident, when he slipped and fell during a rock-climbing exercise in Psychelia and he grabbed onto the nearest thing that could save him from plummeting. However, it also exposed Empath as being a Smurf and not a Psyche when Polaris realized that the very thing he grabbed also caused his partner pain when he grabbed it. Tails are also said to be used for holding up Smurf pants in addition to drawstrings that Tailor sews into the pants. One of Jokey's pranks is that likes to draw faces on the seat of a Smurf's pants when they are wearing them, having the tail be the nose of that face.
In the act of "getting under one's hat", a Smurf's tail will involuntarily twitch when being aroused.
Hero Stories[]
In the HERO: The Guardian Smurf story "Smurfette's Crazy Love", Smurfette playfully pinched Hero's tail when she began to experience the "Hero dream", hoping that he would reciprocate out of the desire to have intimate relations with him while he was still married to Wonder.
Glovey Story[]
In the Glovey Smurf story series, the Smurfs experience the "wagging tail" phenomenon whenever they get excited in the presence of a Smurf of the opposite sex.
LD Stories[]
Within The Smurfs: Light and Dark series, a multitude of characters have tails.
Smurfs[]
Ever Smurf in the village (known so far) has a tail and either enjoys having it, or seems indifferent to it.
Others[]
Other creatures with tails include the goblins Mystico and Hethera. More to come later!