Way back in 1981, Hanna-Barbera ushered in a new era of safe Saturday morning television viewing. It marked the arrival of The Smurfs, a cartoon series that proved incredibly popular and ran for over 250 episodes through 1990. Now, after years of waiting, cartoon fans can own disks full of their adventures with the release of the first volume, containing 19 episodes of the long running series.

The 1980's were the glory years of Saturday morning cartoons. It was a time when you could not turn on the television before noon and not find cartoons. For some reason, the Saturday morning cartoons went away in favor of news magazine shows and a variety of other non-kid fare. With the loss of these Saturday mainstays, so went the tradition of kids planting themselves in front of the tube with a big bowl of sugar-loaded cereal. I have to say, the death of this tradition is a real shame. However, all is not lost. As more time passes, more of these old toons are arriving on DVD. The more that come out, the closer we are to recreating Saturday morning, sans commercials of course.

The Smurfs is the latest to arrive on DVD, and it couldn't have come too soon. I loved this show as a child. I cannot say exactly why, but the show always proved to be well paced, well animated, and a lot of fun. It combined comedy, fantasy, and adventure all into one package that goes down easy, with a spoonful of extra sugar on my cereal.

While the cartoon did not arrive until 1981, the little blue guys actually made their debut back in 1958. This first appearance was in a Belgian comic strip entitled Johan et Pirlouit. It chronicled the adventures of a page named Johan and his sidekick, Peewee. Do these names sound familiar? If you are a Smurfs fan they should. They appeared later on in the cartoon series, going on adventures with our primary protagonists.

Between their print debut and their first television appearance, they received their own strip and a few early cartoons (some of which were collected in the 1960's and released theatrically). However, it was with the Hanna Barbera cartoon that their existence was immortalized. In addition to the cartoon, there was also a large series of small figurines. I remember having a bag full of the little guys.

The stories are all relatively simple. On one side you have the Smurf village, where all of the inhabitants had their place and their specific job, and they were named as such. They have names like Handy, Hefty, Brainy, Baker, Vanity, Jokey, and many others. Leading them all is Papa Smurf, complete with white beard and red outfit (lending more credence to the belief they were a Communist commune). They are also distinctive.

On the other side of the coin is Gargamel and his cat, Azrael. Gargamel is a human wizard who spends all of his time plotting ways to capture the Smurfs so he can eat them, prepared in a variety of ways. However, he never seems to be able to hang onto them when he is able to get a hand on them. Makes one wonder just why he is so sure they taste good?