Like the Smurfs - a Hanna-Barbera Production - about a village of small, blue, industrious creatures and their adventures.

Smurfette, the Smurf, was my favorite. She had long blonde hair and was sweet: everybody's friend.

(In retrospect, I always wondered how she managed in a world full of male Smurfs.)

I think she was the only female character on the show originally, although in later years I think they introduced a younger character, a sort of female junior Smurf.

Smurfette wore white, high-heeled shoes. She may have lived in a mushroom house, but she was stylish. (I've seen somewhat recent photos of Paris Hilton wearing similar footwear.) She hung out with the likes of Handy Smurf and Brainy Smurf. I think there was even a Lazy Smurf.

Wouldn't it be convenient if a person's name revealed their character? I don't remember a Jerky Smurf on the show, but in real life you'd want to avoid them. Same goes for Sleezy Smurf.

Life was good in the Smurf village as long as they avoided Gargamel, the wizard, and his cat, Azrael.

Azrael always spotted the Smurfs before Gargamel did.

The Smurfs had a unique way of speaking. They inserted "Smurf" into their everyday language in the place of verbs or nouns. Papa Smurf (with his white beard) might say: "Smurf to it," instead of "Snap to it."

I never figured out what the relationship between the Smurfs was. If they all had the same Papa Smurf presumably they were all brothers and sisters. But, where was Mama Smurf?

I was also a big fan of the show "Rainbow Brite." Rainbow Brite was a little girl with a big head of blonde hair. She had a blue dress with rainbow sleeves.

Rainbow Brite rode around a lot on her white stallion "Starlite." They were always racing down rainbows. I'm not sure why.

On the show there were these little puffball creatures called "Sprites."

On second thought I'm not sure why the show's creators didn't call it "Rainbow Bright" to be grammatically correct. (At least they were consistent with the "ite" ending.)

I also enjoyed watching "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe." He-Man's home base was Grayskull. For transportation he rode a helmeted tiger. The heroes of the show (He-Man and his friends) had to watch out for Skeletor, the skeletal-looking bad man. He-Man was pretty macho, but I favored "She-Ra: Princess of Power." She had a cool gold sword, and, again, long blonde hair. Am I sensing a pattern here; do blondes really have more fun? I think she had telepathy with animals. I wish I had that: I could communicate with the deer on the side of the road and convince them to stay put and not run out in front of my vehicle after dusk.

Shirt Tales. Another classic. However, only a few of my peers remember this great show. I'm not clear on the premise of the show, but there were various animals with different colored T-Shirts living in a tree. I believe the tree was in the zoo.

I remember a Tiger with a red T-shirt and an orangutan with a green T-shirt. I also think there was a mole wearing a blue T-shirt.

Sometimes words flashed on their T-Shirts, although I can't remember what they said.

All in all for Shirt Tales, my memory is foggy. Must have been on right before naptime.