The Smurfs - The Story Behind the Cute Blue Characters

If you were a child growing up in America in the 1980s, there is a good chance you spent some of your idle time watching the Smurfs on television. And if you were a parent or grandparent in that era, you may have been thankful that the adorable little characters occupied the kids for a while so you could take care of other duties or just relax.

But was there a hidden agenda behind the Smurfs? Were the kids actually being brainwashed while the adults were sipping coffee, doing the laundry or washing the car?

We'll ask that question of a person with intimate knowledge of what the Smurfs were really all about. Rena Winters is the author of Smurfs: The Inside Story Of The Little Blue Characters. She was a key executive at the company that created the Smurfs for TV and movies.

Rena will tell us whether the Smurfs were providing innocent entertainment, or teaching America's children the benefits of communism.