“Smurf Your Seat Belts” (“Les Schtroumpfs Volants”)
Summary: Gargamel uses his amulet (last seen in “Clumsy Not Clumsy“) to help Azrael fly so they can find the Smurfs Village from the air. Handy and Stormy Smurf have to work together to create a flying machine to keep Azrael at bay. Hilarity, as I so often say, ensues. (“Ensmurfs”?)
Comments: Gargamel is really clueless, isn’t he? It feels like he stumbles across the Smurfs in every episode, but he has a hard time finding the Village? The forest isn’t that big!
This is a good time to remind one’s self that this is a kid’s show done for fun and not to think about it too much.
I loved this episode for a couple of reasons. First, the animation of Azrael flying wildly through the sky felt very much like something someone might have animated in the classic cartoons of the 40s or 50s at Warner Brothers. The way Azrael is a rag doll getting tossed through the air is hilarious, particularly with the lost look on his face.
Second, kudos to the team that works on the textures in this series. They do some serious work on this episode. I loved Handy’s leather helmet and gloves here. There’s a great natural leathery look to everything that’s done with some kind of texture map.
And, finally, we see one of the outside Village smurfs in action. In this case, Smurfstorm is paired with Handy, and the two play off each other well. They compete, they come up with different solutions, and in the end they work together to win the day.
One thing I learned from this episode: Smurfwillow is the name of their character who is the Papa Smurf equivalent. It’s been a while since I saw the movie, so I’m needing reminders of names in this series for the “Lost Village” cast.
As always, great animation with wonderful storyboard work, particularly in the chases through the sky in the flying machines. I also loved the repeated gag of Azreal being tossed into the sky through the tree canape, which was a bit of a running gag from “Diaper Daddy“, too.
Title Translation: It’s “The Smurfs Fly.” I prefer the English translation on this one
Credits:
Script: Robert Vargas
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Jean-Luc Abiven
Director: William Renaud
“Leaf It Alone” (“Qui a schtroumpfé la salsepareille”)
Summary: Gargamel’s new plan is to unleash sarsaparilla-eating caterpillars into the forest to deprive the Smurfs of their favorite natural product.
Comments: Just run with the notion for a moment that sarsaparilla grows only in the forest immediately surrounding the Smurfs’ village. At one point in the episode, Papa Smurf takes a stork up for a flight to go looking further out for fresh supplies of sarsaparilla. He finds nothing except, conveniently enough for the plot, the fresh plot of fully grown sarsaparilla plants in the garden outside Gargamel’s home. And when he realizes the difficulty and danger involved in harvesting that crop, he doesn’t look any further.
Once again, let’s all remind ourselves that this is a cartoon for kids and that each short is constrained to 12 minutes. Keep that in mind and the plot will follow.
There is a lot of fun to be had with the Smurfs going crazy as they miss their favorite food. They tie up Greedy, at one point, to get him to spill the beans about where he might be hiding a secret stash. Dimwitty offers himself up for a ritual sacrifice to the sarsaparilla gods.
Gargamel celebrates his impending win with some smooth hip thrust dance moves. It’s worth the whole episode just for those five seconds. They look a little something like this:
Papa Smurf orders Chef Smurf to use blueberries in the meantime, and the Smurfs react like mom just told them she’s only making salads for the foreseeable future. You can make some pretty good and sweet stuff with blueberries, you know. When I was a kid, my mother’s blueberry muffins were awesome. Just saying.
Sarsaparilla has traditionally been indicated for helping with itchy skin and joint pain, though rigorous scientific testing has never been done to prove that. It’s also been indicated by the Pharmacopeia as an herb that can be used in treating syphilis. The secrets Smurfs Village could tell… It’s like the Olympics Village in there…
“Hovel” is the term Papa Smurf uses for Gargamel’s dwelling. I suppose that fits, though I’ve always used that term as almost a pejorative for a small ramshackle dwelling that isn’t fit for man nor beast. It’s not exactly a castle that Gargamel lives in, but I don’t think it’s so bad that it’s “hovel” quality.
It is, however, hard for Gargamel to defend. We’ve seen the Smurfs repeatedly just traipsing in through the skylight and walking amongst the rafters. There’s a convenient Smurf-sized door hole along the ground for them to get in and out with. It’s a stone wall – carving that out must have been tricky. Yes, Gargamel never fixes it.
The episode is quick and cute. It’s not the strongest story in the bunch, but it follows the formula well and has some fun gags to offer. It’s not as dense and manic as some other episodes, like the Halloween one, for example, which leant itself better to that kind of fun madness.
The storyboarding, as ever, is spot on. The early scene when the Smurfs discover the destroyed sarsaparilla fields in the forest is a high point. It’s a sequence of repetition — three Smurfs walk into a new plot of land, only to determine it’s been stripped bare. They walk through it in shock and horror.
The scene repeats itself, but the visuals are never copy-and-paste. There’s a good rhythm to it and a nice mix of blocking, camera angles and movements to carry you through the scene. I appreciated that.
Title Translation: This one works out to “Who Smurfed the Sarsaparilla?”, which I like a lot. There’s probably some concern that a parent group somewhere would read something unfortunate into the use of the word “Smurf” as a verb there, I’m sure.
I wonder if that’s a concern in the writer’s room on the show. Do they have to be careful with how they use “Smurf” so that it doesn’t ever seem like an obvious replacement of a four letter word?
Credits:
Script: Peter Saisselin, Amy Serafin
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Jean-Luc Abiven
Director: William Renaud
One Comment