It seems almost bizarre to me that The 1980s Hannah-Barbera Smurfs hasn’t made any sort of appearance on DVD until now. It was huge in its time, running for nearly a decade and over 250 episodes. Indeed, in service to full disclosure I suppose I ought to say I was a bit obsessed with the show when I was a nipper, thinking the Smurfs were just about the best thing that ever happened.
Now with older, more jaded eyes, I can admittedly see that these 27 episodes may not be a masterpiece of animation, but they’ve stood up surprisingly well and are still a lot of fun. In case you’ve only just arrived from a Smurf-less alternate dimension, the titular characters are small blue creatures who live in a mushroom village in the magical woods. However life isn’t perfect, as the evil wizard Gargamel has an irrational hatred of Smurfs (in Peyo’s original albums and comic strips, Gargamel wanted to eat the little blue ones, but here he mainly just seems to want to destroy anything that’s happy).
Things start out with the Smurfs living in an all-male environment, but Gargamel creates a Smurfette to entice the creatures into his trap. However while she’s supposed to be evil, the Smurfs turn her good and she lives with them from then on (and in a bit a gender stereotyping, she’s got black hair when she’s evil but goes blond and puts on high heels when she’s good). However this doesn’t put Gargamel off and he spends the next 26 episodes finding other ways to try – and fail – to kill his little blue nemeses. Admittedly, the Smurfs themselves are a lot dumber than I remember, forever getting into predicaments they should be able to see coming from a mile off, but thankfully Papa Smurf is there to sort things out.
There’s little doubt that despite the passing of nearly 30 years, young kids will still absolutely love this and those who grew up with it won’t be disappointed by the trip down memory lane either. Whether you’re a child or adult, most of the jokes still work, although the blue ones habit of replacing every other word with ‘Smurf’ is more perplexing than I remember. If nothing else, it’s certainly good preparation for the live action/CG Smurfs movie that’ll arrive in cinemas next year.
The four disc set comes with a few special features, the most notable of which is the 17-minute ‘I Smurf The Smurfs’ featurette (I’m hoping the first ‘Smurf’ in that title stand for ‘love’, or otherwise the mind boggles). It’s a fairly interesting look at how the Smurfs got from being a Belgian comic strip to an international phenomenon, and how the Hannah-Barbera cartoon took over the world. There’s also a lot of rather random interviews with minor celebrities like Debbie Allen from Fame, talking about how they are their kids loved the series. There's plenty more history of the Smurfs in the surprisingly interesting 'Smurfs Info' text feature, if you're interested.
Overall Verdict: A wonderful trip down memory lane with 27 smurfing good episodes that are still entertaining for both young kids and those who remember the cartoon from their childhood.
Special Features:
‘I Smurf The Smurfs’ Featurette
Character Guide
Episode Synopses
Smurf Info
Reviewer: Tim Isaac
