Far, far away, in a little mushroom village, live a group of little blue pixies called Smurfs who wear short trousers and white bonnets. Only as tall as three apples, they speak in 'Smurf', a language that only they understand. The Smurfs are carefree, peaceful creatures that live in harmony with nature. But they have a nasty habit of wanting to act like man, which causes them 1,001 problems...

The Smurfs: Complete 2nd Season collects 24 episodes (including a Christmas and Valentine special with much improved production values) from season two of the '80s Hanna-Barbera animated TV series. Each episode ran for 22 minutes with about half of these split into two different stories of 11 minutes each.

Once again, like the first season box set, this second collection is not run in the original broadcast order. Also, according to a quick online search, the second season of The Smurfs was made up of 36 episodes - 12 more than included in this collection. However, for most this won't be a huge problem - it's only the die-hard Smurf fans who will find this a bit of a disappointment.

A few extra Smurfs are introduced in this season, including Sloppy, Nosey, Tracker, Dreamy and Scaredy. Also Clumsy Smurf seems to have stopped being clumsy and has instead become rather stupid. There are also a couple of interesting themes explored, including death (in the episode Squeaky) and problems with being overweight (in Gormandizing Greedy).

Highlights in this collection include:

Squeaky, sees Smurfette find and nurse back to health an ill mouse. However, the mouse eventually dies giving the Smurfs the opportunity to experience death in their lives.

It Came From Outer Space, is the second story in the episode that also features Squeaky. Dreamy starts to imagine what is out there in outer space. The very next day an alien ship crashes into the forest and a small Smurf-like alien appears. Of course, no one believes Dreamy.

One Good Smurf Deserves Another, sees Clumsy Smurf finding ways to repay Handy after Handy saves his life. However Clumsy ends up messing everything up and annoying Handy - creating more work for him.

Smurf Van Winkle - Fed up with lazy Smurf being so... well, lazy, the rest of the Smurfs decide to teach him a lesson. They dress as old Smurfs and pretend years have passed since they last saw him. Lazy believes he's slept for a long time and sets about doing all the jobs that everyone else is too old to do.

Smurf Me No Flowers, sees everyone thinking that Lazy has only a few days left to live. This is all Brainy's fault - as he overhears Papa Smurf talking about his dying plant, but thinks he's talking about Lazy. They all set about making Lazy's last days as comfortable as possible.

Heavenly Smurfs - While chasing the Smurfs, Gargamel and Azrael trip and knock themselves out. The Smurfs dress as angels and convince Gargamel that unless he is kind to Smurfs he will go to Hell. Gargamel takes their warning and befriends the Smurfs.

Extras are identical to those included on the first season collection. These include I Smurf the Smurfs (16 min, 45 sec feature that interviews z-list celebrity fans and experts about the Smurfs. There are also interviews with cast and crew from the series); Character Biographies (text based); and Smurf Info (12 min text based featurette where text, that covers just about every aspect of The Smurfs, scrolls up the screen).

For the young this is another good mix of episodes.

7

Darren Rea