Les Schtroumpfs

A wise portrait of community. Seductive and inspired and useful. Amusing and lovely. Because it propose the expected stories about relations and about the importance of the other, about wisedome and generosity, about innocence and way to discover reality in delicate - courageous way.

I used to watch "Smurfs" every day as a kid, and at 18 I remember the show with such fondness. It is a real shame I haven't seen Smurfs on TV for such a long time, it was a cartoon classic. It had great animation with nice, clean colouring and well drawn characters, a catchy theme tune and clever background music, fun, gripping story lines that often taught something, strong writing and most of all unique and endearing characters. Who can forget Papa Smurf, Handy, Clumsy, Smurfette, Greedy, Smurfy, Vanity and Baby? And of course villainous Gargamel and his somewhat cute feline sidekick Azrael? These are great characters and are well voiced by the likes of June Foray, Don Messick, Frank Welker, Alan Oppenheimer, Alan Young and Lucille Bliss. Overall, a cartoon that I will always revere as a classic. 10/10 Bethany Cox

I used to love The Smurfs when I was a kid. They were a true highlight. I've been hearing lots of stuff lately that they were socialists and all the stuff about stereotyping, but I think that's digging in a bit too deep. The show was obviously aimed at kids. What do kids care about such things? I didn't. I thought the Smurfs were cute and the episodes were all good. For some reason, I've never been able to get such episodes as "The Purple Smurfs" and "Forget-Me-Smurf" out of my mind. Those episodes made huge impact on me. I think every kid would be enchanted by these little blue creatures. I loved them.

*** out of ****

I used to watch the Smurfs back when I was at least 5. And the appeal of the show hasn't dimmed. BTW: I'm 18 now.

Recently I read (or should I say "smurfed"?) one of the original Belgian comics, "L'Oeuf et les Schtroumpfs" ("The Smurfs and the Egg", where a giant egg begins to grant wishes), which also featured "Le Centième Schtroumpf" ("The 100th Smurf", where Vanity's mirror creates a new Smurf) and "Le Faux Sctroumpf" ("The False Smurf", where Gargamel disguises himself as a Smurf). And I enjoyed them all, despite the fact that they were in French (a language I studied in school)

And the cartoon is still a "smurfy" cartoon. Worthy of a smurf next time it comes on.

I'm really surprised when I see that so few user comments on such a hallmark show. To me the Smurfs defined the 80's. And most importantly, it was what a cartoon should be - plain and simple fun, a touch of morale lessons and most importantly, very little violence.

When you consider other cartoons that were popular in the 80's like Thunder Cats, the Smurfs come out way up ached, in all departments. What makes the Smurfs more interesting than its counterparts is the fact that it also was intellectual, not just a shallow action adventure cartoon, so even grownups can have fun watching it.

If you ever get a chance to watch it, don't miss it.

Trust me.