“My Smurf the Hero” (“Super Schtroumpf”)
Summary: Scaredy dreams of being a superhero, and Handy is here to help him. After fashioning him a costume and rocket pack, Scaredy gets a quick taste of saving the day and tries to repeat his success. Unfortunately, all of his later attempts go awry, creating a mess in the Village, and ultimately getting the rest of the Smurfs to raise their pitchforks to chase him out of town.
Until, suddenly, they need him again. Can Scaredy overcome his own fears to save the day one time for real?
Commentary: This is a cute one. As a long-time North American comic book reader, the idea of a superhero Smurf is obviously appealing to me on some level. The fact that they made him The Rocketeer is just icing on the cake.
They don’t overdo the superhero thing with all the tropes, or by trying to turn him into the Dark Knight or something crazy like that. (“DuckTales” did that best already, of course.)
The episode starts off with a dream sequence imagining something out of a Saturday afternoon serial. The rest of the show stays on model, but with those white speed lines being used for someone who really IS going super fast, thanks to his backpack rocket pack.
The subtle thing to notice, though, is that Scaredy is never really in control. He got lucky that first time, but every other time he’s a chaotic mess. He manages not to get killed using the jetpack, but that seems like dumb luck. There’s no grace or power to his flight, either. He looks more like an out-of-control Muppet being thrashed about, arms limp and flailing.
The best part of the episode is when he’s on patrol in Smurfs Village during the day and valiantly attempting to save people from things like Jokey’s exploding presents, books on the top shelf that might fall down, a breaking branch that might drop Hefty 50 feet to the ground, etc. They all end spectacularly poorly for the new superhero, even though his heart was in the right place. His actions just created bigger disasters.
The grand finale is in saving Papa Smurf from opening a Jokey present, but crashing instead into the house behind him and setting off fireworks. There is some great timing in the way those gags are shown.
Title Translation: This is one of those things I like about the French language. When in doubt, translate the English word into French with as little change as possible. Throw in an accent and call it a day!
Superheroes aren’t a French thing, anyway. They make every other kind of comic you can imagine, but superheroes have no real tradition there.
So, how do you translate ‘superhero’ into English? It’s basically “super-héro”. Yup, just include a dash and an accent and you’re good to go. Superhero becomes super-héro and nobody gets sued.
The Nick translation of this title goes for something a little less obvious, but just as common a phrase.
Credits:
Script: Peter Saisselin, Amy Serafin
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Jean-Luc Abiven
Director: William Renaud
“Alien Smurf” (“Invasion extraterrestre”)
Summary: An alien comes to Smurfs Village. He has a tough time making friends, but the device he carries in his hand lets him zap a Smurf to become his unwavering friend, complete with green eyes and a near-frozen grin. It’s Joker Alien Smurf!
Commentary: No, actually, it reminds me more of “The Purple Smurf”, except with a near viral outbreak of Smurfs being controlled by alien technology. It’s a fun build-up as the alien takes control of the Smurfs, one at a time. In his wake, they all follow to the next unwitting “friend” to be made/controlled.
My favorite moment is when the chirpy and positively upbeat alien tries to befriend Grouchy. It’s the perfect clash of personalities, and it’s also the moment Smurfette witnesses what’s going on.
The alien doesn’t want to make friends with Smurfette, though. He thinks girls have cooties and so he stays away from her. Smurfette, realizing she needs help to break the alien’s spell and free her friends, calls in the cavalry from the Girls Village to save the day.
Together, the four of them take out all the individual Smurfs and bring down the alien.
That fight scene at the end reminded me a little of the sequence in “Jokes on You” where all the mini-Jokeys are doing their little jokes. A lot of episodes have that moment where a bunch of little things can happen.
It’s a great opportunity for lots of little gags and for the artists behind the series to show off a little. The final showdown between Papa Smurf and Smurfette is particularly awesome.
One little thing I liked about the beginning of this short is how well-lit the Smurfs VIllage is at night. There are street lamps scattered through the neighborhoods and, of course, lights by the front doors of many of the homes. It leads to mushroom houses that have a bit of uplighting and some spotlights on their roofs.
Good work to the lighting crew on that one, plus the background design folks who had to lay that all out and thought through enough to have those lights in there.
I would buy that painting at a mall Smurfs store over a Thomas Kinkade painting any day!
The image you see above is from the opening sequence. It features a green glowing light zipping between the homes that turns out to be the alien. So it’s more fun for the special effects folks, I’m sure, to put this together. (They did a good job with invisible Papa Smurf, also.)
When the alien is first given Smurf form, he asks his computer more about what a Smurf is, giving us a chance to canonize some classic Smurf lore. The computer tells him that there are at least 100 other Smurfs, and that he’s roughly 3 apples high. Check and check!
Then he has to learn to walk. He’s used to smiling, which he knows is the superior way. There’s some great acting there from the animators to show him moving his “inferior limbs” one after the other. That’s only the first of several things we see the alien having problems with. These are things we take for granted like using doors to get out of houses.
It’s the perfect humor for the younger audience that should eat this series up, and it entertains the kid in me.
It reminds me of one of those exercises that most computer science students have to do at one time: A computer program is merely a set of steps written to the computer to explain what it should be doing. It can only do what you tell it to do. So, write down the steps you would use to make a sandwich.
It sounds so simple, but you’ll always miss steps. “Spread mayo” on the bread? Sure, with what tool? What mayo? Where did you get that mayo? DId you remember to open the lid? How much mayo should go on the knife? Where did that knife come from?
And so on and so on.
It’s a maddening process but it’s there to teach you a lesson: You take things for granted. When explaining something to someone else, you are gifted with the curse of knowledge and can’t fathom how other people don’t know the things you take for granted. It’s hard to do it all.
Like walking. You had to learn that, too. Trial and error. Lots of falls. You figured it out eventually. And so did this alien Smurf.
Title Translation: I don’t think you need to be fluent in French to figure out what ‘invasion extraterrestre” translates out to. It’s pretty on the nose. The Americanized version is close to it, though they do change “extraterrestrial” to “Smurf”. It’s cute, and about as clever as the original.
Credits:
Script: Peter Saisselin, Amy Serafin
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Jean-Luc Abiven
Director: William Renaud
