THE SMURFS: A MAGICAL SMURF ADVENTURE

One of the most vexing things about my days of watching The Smurfs was that they were on too early.  As a kid who wanted to sleep in and watch Saturday Morning Cartoons, I was always torn between pulling the covers up over my head and dragging myself out of bed to see these cheerful blue creatures who were just three apples tall.  I did my best to show up on time, but I must confess that I would have been over the moon if DVDs had existed when I was a kid.  The luxury of watching what you want to see when you want to see it was something we could still only dream about.  Shoot, programming our VCR was something I could still only dream about!

Thirty years after the debut of the show, we have The Smurfs: A Magical Smurf Adventure, a collection of ten beloved Smurf adventures spanning its eight year run.  At whim you can relive these childhood classics or share them with your own kids, and who wouldn't want to do that?  In "Smurf Van Winkle", Lazy Smurf awakens to find his Smurf friends are old and grey.  As the only spry Smurf among them, poor Lazy must wait on them hand and foot.  Appropriately (and hilariously), he laments, "if I'd known I was going to Smurf this hard, I would have slept another 100 years!"

Indeed this is only the beginning of the smurfing.  In "Revenge of the Smurfs", the Smurfs smurf the horses and the knights too!  In "Smurf Me No Flowers" everybody thinks Lazy is going to smurf off in two days, so they smurf him a rip-roaring "going away" party.  Mix-ups with potions turn Smurfs into flapping, yellow, birdlike beings, and Gargamel is led to Smurf village blindfolded (I remember this one!) to help.  I swear it's Brainy who has *this* brainy idea, and of course Gargamel is up to no good.  Luckily he's foiled by Papa Smurf, and the Gargamel adage that Smurfs "should be steamed and not heard" is never put into play.

Just in time for the release of the Smurfs live action movie, this blast from the past will entertain kids of all ages.  Ahem, especially those in their thirties.  Strangely, I tried to introduce the Smurf's to my friend's three year old, who asked me to turn them off.  Later, she said, "Jen? You know that show with the little blue guys and that big black guy [Gargamel] that you like? It scares me."  Huh.  I can only think we were made of stronger stuff in the 80s.

A featurette called "Smurf Speak", which will teach you to talk like a proper Smurf: the key is to use the word "Smurf" whenever and wherever you can. (Hint: it's a noun, a verb, and an adjective.) and collection of "Smurftastic Moments" makes light of the more absurd moments in Smurf adventures with its hilarious commentary.  Seriously, how can you listen to anyone talk about a "rat-tailed unicorn parrot-looking monster" without cracking up? The trailer for Lego Battles Ninjago rounds out the extras.