Its Smurfalicious!

So I was digging through the bags at the Library the other day, looking for a DVD from the main for a patron, and I found, lo and behold, that we own the Smurfs on DVD. Now of course I HAD to take that out...just for the cheese factor alone...

And I'm watching it, and its cheesy, yes, but some of the messages there are odd, when you think about it. Smurfette was created by Gargamel, with black hair. When she was transformed into a real smurf, she became a blonde. hmmmm. Subliminal messages much?

And don't you wonder how Papa Smurf got to be a Papa without a Mama Smurf around? Maybe they grow like mushrooms....

There were some valuable lessons in the Smurfs, though. Language (usage of real words, like integrity), friendship, doing for others...

But its amazing sometimes how we've gotten shaped by TV and the TV shows of our childhood. TV has taken the place of the traditional oral tradition, or telling stories around the campfire, or the stories in religion, the oral transmission of where we come from, and what shapes us. Kids today, as evidenced by my CCD class, come from a larger world, and yet have, in some ways, less sense of where they came from. They have more pieces to put together, because they have more stories to learn from.

What did you learn from your childhood TV shows? What stories do you have to share?