“Chef Soup” (“La Recette du Schtroumpf Cuisinier”)
Summary: When Brainy writes a negative review of Chef’s new carrot muffins — and the rest of the Smurfs agree with it — Chef storms out of the Village. Unfortunately, he gets picked up by the two ogres and must cook for them to stay alive.
Commentary: It’s a fun little short. It’s consistent with Chef’s character, though, if you remember “Waffle Wednesday,” when he went crazy because his waffles were suddenly not the Village favorite. It’s a different take on the story (“Forget Me What?”) where Brainy became Gargamel’s best friend.
Here, Chef doesn’t necessarily become the Ogre’s best friend. It’s more like he’s cooking for his life. There’s a bit of a size difference that makes this untenable. A single Smurf can’t cut up and cook up the large portions a pair of ogres would require, no matter how tasty his food. However, Chef is a pro and is pretty quick at slicing large carrots down to size….
A nicely laid bit of plotting earlier in the episode comes back into play to save the day here.
The other half of the story is just as entertaining — with Chef gone, Papa Smurf has try-outs to see which Smurf might replace him. The gags are a little obvious, but it’s still fun to see the different Smurfs try and fail. The reactions from the other Smurfs are often the most entertaining parts. This is a Smurf Slow Burn, for sure. Papa Smurf, in particular, is always very animated in his reactions; he’s fun to watch. There’s a mix of disbelief and frustration in many of his reactions to the things the other Smurfs do.
The interesting thing about the ogres in this episode is just how heavy an accent they have. I really had to pay attention to their dialogue in this episode to understand what they were saying. I’m surprised Nick went with such a thick accent.
Animation-wise, I was impressed by all the expressions Chef goes through in the opening scene. His surprise and disgust at Brainy’s negative review of his work is fun to watch. The poses and mouth movements aren’t extreme, but they get the story points across.
Also, the Smurfs don’t necessarily have lips, but Chef bits his lower lip at one point in that sequence. That led to me watching a lot of Smurfs talking to see how their mouths move.
It’s very subtle, but you can see where the Smurfs do have lips. It’s just a slightly lighter colored blue shelf around their mouth opening that functions that way, just to give them a little depth and the ability to pull face like Chef does here. (Brainy’s lips are also visible while he’s eating Chef’s muffins and pondering his review. It’s a two-fer in that scene!)
Just don’t question how a Smurf’s eyebrows, when raised, managed to fly up onto their hats. Peyo drew them like that, so it’s canon. It works. It looks great, too.
You didn’t expect this review to be the answer to the question, “Do Smurfs have lips?”, did you? Neither did I. Let’s move onto the next short!
Title Translation: The French title translates out to “Chef Smurf’s Recipe.” That’s super generic and boring, though once again it sounds delightful when you try to say it with your best French accent. “Chef Soup” is terribly simple, but has slightly more character to it. It also describes the situation well later in the episode when the Ogres attempt to make a soup with Chef and the other Smurfs in it.
Credits:
Script: Reid Harrison
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Bruno Issaly
Director: William Renaud
“Adventures in Smurfsitting” (“Un babysitting mouvementé”)
Summary: The Fire Rescue team of Dimwitty and Clumsy try to prove their worth to the other Smurfs by babysitting Baby Smurf. Things don’t go terribly well, naturally. It’s a race through the forest including confrontations with Bigmouth and Gargamel.
Commentary: Papa Smurf has made some questionable calls as the leader of Smurfs Village in the past. “Majestic 5” stands out as one of them) He should be fired just for putting Dimwitty and Clumsy in charge of firefighting in the Village. If there were insurance companies in the world of the Smurfs, the rates would be astronomical based on that one fact.
This is a parallel to the situation of Asterix’s Village where Chief Vitalstatistix or the Druid Getafix have questionable moments of leadership that lead to great stories.
However, this is fun/silly cartoon for kids. Putting the two clumsiest and dumbest Smurfs in charge of babysitting the one baby smurf is a recipe for hilarious disaster. I loved it. It’s a throwback cartoon, really, to the early black and white movie days or the Warner Bros classic Termite Terrace shorts. Think Three Stooges here.
It makes no logical sense, but who cares? Stop being so serious and enjoy a fun cartoon, won’t you?
There’s also a loving heart built into this story. Dimwitty and Clumsy are the worst possible choices for this job, but they still want to do it well. They believe they can. Clumsy, in particular, is upset that the other Smurfs think they’re “a couple of imbeciles.” He wants nothing more than to prove to everyone that he’s capable and helpful. His heart is truly in the right place.
So when Baby Smurf proves to be too dangerous to hang out with Papa Smurf in his lab of explosive potions, Dimwitty and Clumsy come up with the bright idea of babysitting Baby to prove how useful they can be. Since everyone else in the village is busy working, Papa gives them their chance — and they immediately start by losing Baby.
The rest is just an increasingly crazy series of gags and pranks as Baby acts like a baby and Clumsy and Dimwitty do everything they can to entertain him. In most every case, Baby is safe and never in any trouble. The gags are all about the trouble the other two get into while trying to protect or entertain Baby. Every gag is at their expense, often ending in Baby laughing at them.
Until — the two fall asleep, Baby runs off, falls off a cliff, and lands on a bear. But the story never pumps up the melodrama. Baby hangs in the air like Wile E. Coyote (and Gargamel in “Pop Out!”) before dropping. He laughs the entire way as he bounces from branch to branch. The landing on the bear is a soft one. He boops the bear’s nose, for goodness sake! (Remember when Scaredy almost got away with that in “Mind the Cat”?)
As his madcap solo adventure continues, he winds up involved with both an ogre and Gargamel, because situations like this always ramp up continuously. It’s a greatest hits of Smurf endangerment, but played for laughs. In the end, it’s an Inspector Gadget style ending where Baby saves the day, but Dimwitty and Clumsy congratulate themselves for keeping Baby safe.
And everyone lived happily ever after….
Title Translation: Looking at the list of titles for this series so far, I’m surprised at how restrained they’ve been in not putting the word “Smurf” in every title. This is one of the few examples of it. The French title works out to be “Eventful Babysitting.” The 80s child in me much prefers the “Adventures in Babysitting” movie reference of the American title. And remember, that movie had a Thor reference in it a long time before the Marvel Cinematic Universe made such a thing trendy.
Credits:
Script: Robert Vargas
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Jean-Luc Abiven
Director: William Renaud
