The Smurfs, elf-like creatures with human-like personalities, debuted in a 1958 comic strip illustrated by Belgian artist Peyo. They didn't enter America until the late '70s, when children's albums like Smurfing Land, Father Abraham in Smurf Land, and Best of Friends were marketed along with plastic figurines and the classic Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon. The Smurfs peaked during the mid-'80s, but they would not disappear so easily. Smurf records popped up in dozens of countries, including Israel, Sweden, Spain, France, and the Czech Republic. Most remarkably, albums from each country were not merely translated replicas of the same songs but completely different packages altogether, meaning that there are easily more than 100 Smurf CDs floating around the continents. ~ Peter Fawthrop