The Smurfs: Four Smurf-tastic Episodes

Introduction

It may surprise some, but like most childhood favourites, The Smurfs have been around for a while. They almost certainly hit a peak during the 1980's but were like my own personal faves Tintin and Asterix around for a lot longer than that. Similar to my favourites as well, the creator of The Smurfs was not English, dammit. No, he was a Belgian cartoonist called Peyo and the date the Smurfs came into existence was 1958.

Starting life as simply side characters in a comic strip, the Smurfs became popular quite quickly and graduated to their own strip. Led by wise leader Papa Smurf, the Smurfs are instantly recognisable with their blue skins, white costumes and own English language variant and by the 80's were ubiquitous in their presence, a decade where cartoon heroes made the leap from comic strip to fame and fortune (think Garfield for example...). The Smurfs were helped by a long-running Hanna-Barbera cartoon series, a series that ran almost throughout that decade and consisted of 256 episodes and 7 specials.

Here is a collection of four of what are considered the best of the series.

Smurfette

The wizard Gargamel decides that the best way to capture the Smurfs is through the heart and creates the raven-haired Smurfette.

The Good, The Bad And The Smurfy

King Argon is a burly, boorish brute, but his wizard Mordain is worse still. He plans to use several captured Smurfs to steal all the King's gold...

Papa's Wedding Day

When the flower nymph arrives at the Smurf village, all the Smurfs fall for her charm and wit. But they soon learn that she is planning to marry Papa Smurf.

All's Smurfy That Ends Smurfy

Gargamel's theft of the Fairy gold almost starts a war between the Fairies and the Smurfs...

Picture

Sadly this is where the Smurf enthusiast is let down somewhat. The picture is sometimes a bit grainy but also sometimes looks a little dirty, almost as if the finished films weren't stored or looked after properly - although this always seems to have been an issue in a pre-DVD or even VHS age.

Overall

So far, only the first two series of The Smurfs has been released in the UK along with the original Smurf film The Smurfs and The Magic Flute, the latter not being part of the Hanna-Barbera canon but released earlier in 1976 by a Belgian studio. The timing and length of this release in my mind is simply to cash in on the imminent release of the live action film from the creators of Shrek. And fair play to them for that, this is why people acquire licences to distribute visual material.

The Smurfs have courted controversy over the ages, specifically regarding their almost all male population. In fact, all naturally occuring Smurfs are male and the only female Smurf was created by the Smurfs arch enemy, the wizard Gargamel. There have also been theories about the Smurfs being a Communist collective, what with the identical white uniforms and no currency or possessions as such, and all Smurfs working their own particular skills for the good of all. Such comparisons, though, have been vigorously denied by Peyo's son.

The Smurfs was one of those guilty pleasures as an 80's teen, along with a myriad of other cartoons, and like most of them this doesn't really stand up to adult nostalgia. The stories are simplistic and rather banal overall, the only saving grace being the realisation that Gargamel is voiced by the late Paul Wichell, more famously known as the voice of Dick Dastardly. Still, for those within the right age group (including students, obviously) this is overall a decent enough collection of episodes that are amongst the best the series can offer. Well, almost. I don't like the episode with the Fairy war, partly because of the two jarring styles of animation used but also because I don't particularly like fairies. Although dislike is maybe too strong, but certainly not trusted, ever since that incident with the fairy dust and the cucumis sativus. I couldn't sit down for a week.

Anyway, moving swiftly on, a short enough and reasonably priced compilation that will serve as a nice enough introduction to the Smurf phenomenon for the latest generation and also quite an attractively priced cash in on the new film. What more can you ask for?