“The Majestic 5” (“L’Arbre á Schtroumpfs”)
Summary: A hollow tree just outside the Smurfs Village is going to be repurposed as a last defense against a Gargamel invasion. But who will be there to save the day in that crazy circumstance? The Majestic 5! Oh, yeah, and then Gargamel discovers the Village and they’re put to the test right away.
Commentary: Right up front, the setup for this story confuses me. I’ve watched the first few minutes of this episode multiple times and I’m still not sure it makes any sense. Maybe it’s a translation issue? Maybe it’s the curse of knowledge, where the writers knew what was going on so well that they forgot to explain it clearly to the viewers?
Here’s Handy’s idea: If Gargamel finds the Village, the hollow tree is a great place for a rescue team to run to and hide.
Papa Smurf tries to sell the idea to the Village: He needs five volunteers to hide in the tree. They’ll be the official rescue team in the worst-case scenario.
Is he seriously asking for five Smurfs to volunteer to hide inside a tree on the off chance of a Village invasion? Or, once the invasion begins, it’s up to those five to use the tree as a place to meet up and plan a counter-attack or a rescue operation? But it’d be too late by then, wouldn’t it?
Or is Papa Smurf seriously asking five Smurfs to live their lives inside a tree for the good of the whole Village?
No wonder why nobody volunteered.
Instead, they take it to a vote.
This is the ultimate Worst Superhero Team in Comics story. The Smurfs need to create a five-person team to save them against their mortal enemy, Gargamel. These should be the five most reliable Smurfs who can think quickly on their feet and overpower a human-sized wizard (and his cat).
No pressure.
You’d want to lead with people like Hefty and Handy. Nope…
Through a series of funny circumstances, the final team is incredible:
- Baby Smurf
- Dimwitty
- Clumsy
- Scaredy
- Lazy
It’s a collection of the most hilariously useless characters for a situation like that. This is a Giffen/DeMatteis-era Justice League Annual type of story right here. (Remember Justice League Antarctica?)
And, yes, they’re introduced as a team in very The Right Stuff fashion, with an all-too-quick slow-motion walk that ends with Clumsy falling over himself. Of course.
Papa Smurf turns out to be the most self-aware Smurf here. You can see the slow burn as he reads off the votes. He never bothers to hide his dismay, even to the point where he’s publicly shaming the winners of the vote without thinking twice about it. Papa Smurf has no &$%^s to give, it seems — even against poor Baby Smurf. Or hapless Clumsy. Or the clueless Dimwitty.
Earlier in the episode, there’s a scene where Dimwitty misunderstands something that’s blatantly obvious by taking it too literally. That’s where Papa Smurf leads the way in creating the Smurf Facepalm:
I love Papa Smurf. He’s got plenty of attitude. Trying to take care of this motley group of characters will do that to you…
The other thing that sticks out about this episode to me is just how toyetic it is. You could make a dozen toys from here easily. Handy is introduced as the Q to Papa Smurfs’ James Bond. He has all the gadgets that The Majestic 5 can use from their treehouse to fight back — including his jet pack, some jokey exploding gift boxes, and the Emergency Smurf Mobile. (As soon as they’re introduced, you also know they’ll be used later in the episode for the rescue.)
Throw in the costumes (just helmets, really) the team wears in their slow-motion introduction, and you have a couple hundred dollars on the shelves at Target tomorrow.
I don’t know if I need the Empty Smurf Tree Playhouse, but the Emergency Smurf Mobile would be a cool toy and a great place to store my Smurf figures, right?
Let’s fast forward to the part where Gargamel — still rocking his Smurfs pajamas — finds the Village, freezes everyone in it, bags them up, and walks away.
Amazingly, the plan works! The Majestic 5 hide in the tree while Gargamel and Azrael get away using the Emergency Smurf Mobile to carry their bags of Smurfs with them. (I knew a couple people in the 80s who would have needed large bags for their Smurfs collections, too.)
It’s amazing how much a frozen Smurf looks exactly like one of those figurines.
The five who almost inexplicably got away and hid then work together to chase after Gargamel and free the bags that are holding their friends, mostly without clueless Gargamel ever noticing. It’s a simple “plan” that they make up as they go along. It makes sense and gets the job done.
Also, the giddy joy on Baby Smurf’s face when he drives the tractor to the rescue:
In the end, the episode set-up leaves some questions, but I love the premise as a whole. Putting together the least energetic/active/productive/strong Smurfs into one team and seeing them manage to save the day almost in spite of themselves is a lot of fun. The dumber they are, the harder I laugh.
And, it should be noted, every one of them gets their chance to shine and be an active participant in saving the day. This episode doesn’t cheat any of them out of their moment in the sun.
Title Translation: The French title leans more towards the headquarters than the team. It’s “The Smurfs Tree.” I prefer the English title in this case, though they never actually refer to the team as “The Majestic 5.” They’re called “rescuers” in the cartoon, so maybe “The Smurf Rescuers” or “Rescue Smurfs” would have worked better?
Credits:
Script: Peter Saisselin and Amy Serafin
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Alexandre Ulmann
Director: William Renaud
“Kitchen Klutz” (“Cataschtroumph en cuisine”)
Summary: Clumsy saves Chef’s life and, in return, becomes his Sous Chef. As you might imagine, the entire Smurf Village gets sick after their next meal. But can Clumsy redeem himself when Chef isn’t available?
Commentary: Is Clumsy’s Italian accent offensive? And shouldn’t a Belgian production lean more towards French cuisine, anyway? Wait, does the original French language version of this series use an Italian accent with the Chef character, too? I have so many questions already.
This one has some cute moments, but it’s not a great outing. Clumsy almost kills Chef, but saves him at the last minute. Chef offers his appreciation for Clumsy saving his life, not realizing at first that it was Clumsy’s fault that he almost got killed.
Chef tries to teach Clumsy how to cook, but Clumsy holds true to his one character trait and messes everything else. The entire Village gets sick.
Papa Smurf tells Chef to fire Clumsy before the next day’s Blueberry Festival. But when Chef slips on a rolling pin and is knocked out, can Clumsy fill in to save the day and make the ultimate Blueberry Cake (I assume they meant pie) for the festival?
In the end, he makes something that looks more like a jello mould, which he then refers to as a “flan”.
Has nobody on the Smurfs writing staff ever looked at a dessert cook book?!?
I think how much you like this one will depend on how much you like Clumsy or the relatively under-utilized Chef. It runs through the paces, hits the beats, and has a cute ending. It’s fine.
100 Smurfs?
I do have a question about the size of the Village here. I recognize the answer is “Because Animation Isn’t Cheap,” but I’ll ask it anyway. There’s a reference in this episode to the 98 Smurfs that got sick. That makes sense since, traditionally, there are 100 Smurfs in the Village.
I can’t recall ever seeing 100 Smurfs on the screen at the same time. In this episode, there’s the Blueberry Festival, which is a big deal. Enough seats and plates are put out to serve maybe 30 Smurfs, at best. In the previous episode, when the vote is held, the entire Village gathers round for the results, but we only see a couple dozen of them.
Where are all the other Smurfs? And how many of them have known personalities?
Title Translation: The French title puts “Schtroumph” inside a regular word, which means Google Translate is going to choke on this one. But that first word is obviously “Catastrophe” and I know “Cuisine” is “kitchen,” so I’m going with “Catastrophe in the Kitchen” here.
I do enjoy the alliteration of the English version, but that warped version of “Catastrophe” works so well with “Schtroumpf” in it that I think I favor the French here. It doesn’t work so well in English: “Catasmurfy?” That doesn’t work at all.
Credits:
Script: Peter Saisselin and Amy Serafin
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Bruno Issaly
Director: William Renaud
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