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The Smurfs are featured in five episodes with their friends Peewit and Johan.

The Smurfs, Volume 1: True Blue Friends has five episodes from the second season of the animated series. Here’s the rundown. “S-Shivering S-Smurfs” is about how winter comes early to the Smurf Village and only one Smurf prepared for it. “Turncoat Smurf” is one of the few episodes that features Gargemel, the wizard who makes it his mission to go after Smurfs. The third episode, “The Smurf Who Couldn’t Say No,” deals with Pushover Smurf (a Smurf I wasn’t even aware of) being taken advantage of by the other Smurfs and forced to do all their chores while they have fun. He gets talked into taking on a risky mission and almost gets really hurt until the other Smurfs realize he’s in danger.

The last two episodes, “The Haunted Castle,” and “The Black Hellebore,” both deal with two human friends of the Smurfs, Johan and Peewit, who live during the Middle Ages in Europe. The first episode has them in a haunted medieval castle the heirs to the estate who are trying to take over. A ghost must find the true heir to be at peace. Johan is a page to the king and Peewit is his little sidekick with a bigger ego (and mouth) than brain. The Smurfs and Peewit and Johan all join in helping to find the true heir. Along the way we’re treated to Peewit’s off-key singing voice.

In “The Black Hellebore’ episode, the king is poisoned by a shady potion maker who uses a bad flower (the black Hellebore) to try and take over the kingdom.  This episode includes a young royal woman who is a bit more modern than most royals and wants to help instead of just being a traditional lady-like royal.

The DVD only has five episodes on it which seemed a little sparse, especially since it’s for kids. There are interactive features, but I would have liked to have seen more episodes. Also, Gargemel isn’t shown very much. It’s hard to have an interesting series without a regular evil nemesis to defeat. Maybe if the show wasn’t such a cult favorite it wouldn’t matter, but he’s a huge part of the Smurf franchise. Omitting episodes where he’s a key player just didn’t make sense. There are two with Johan and Peewit (two medieval type characters) which are interesting, but those two were not exactly fan favorites. Actually, you can only take so much of Peewit’s off-key high pitched, screechy voice before you hit the fast forward button.

Any episode of the Smurfs is going to be fun to watch, but perhaps including at least one more episode with Gargemel would have helped.  Also, many of the better known Smurfs weren’t featured, which would have also made the episodes more entertaining. Hopefully the next Smurfs DVD to be released will give us more.

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