“Smurfboards” (“Les Schtroumpfboards”)
Summary: Brainy, on his Segway Scooter, doesn’t like the newfangled kids and their dangerous skateboards.
Commentary: I have to think this one plays well with the core audience. Or, at least, it would have when I was a kid (ahem, 30+ years ago).
Skateboards have always been that outsider/punk thing, you know? Kids riding skateboards just get in the way. They’re dangerous. They’re constantly getting hurt. You still see signs in some places that say “No Skateboarding Allowed.” Seriously, there’s one today at a Starbucks near me.
It may be 2022 as I write this and we now have all these powered scooters and e-bikes and all the rest, but the skateboard thing still survives in this way. The kids who were outlaws for riding their skateboards or even BMX bikes 30 years ago are the parents shaking their fists at the clouds today.
That brings us to this episode of “The Smurfs,” which adds one weird modern twist: Brainy is on a friggin’ Segway scooter type of thing and is complaining about the danger to the Smurfs community that is the skateboard.
I’ve seen enough episodes now to know how backwards this might be. How many times has Brainy lost control of his wheels now? Remember the episode where Papa Smurf became invisible because Brainy’s segway went out of control, for one example?
Yeah and now he’s cracking down on Jokey and Vanity for going too fast on unpowered skateboards?
Pot. Kettle. BLACK! (Sorry, should that be PURPLE?)
Papa Smurf tells Brainy to teach the skateboarders the rules of the road. This is where the show has its Flintstones moment: What does a traffic light look like in the Smurfs’ world? Like three glowing caterpillars:
If we were going The Full Flintstones, these three would have a few lines of dialogue about how they love their jobs and have names that are puns on, uhm, mushroom types, I guess.
We also see our first crosswalk in the Smurfs Village. That’s there so, what, the fire engine doesn’t hit them? I have so many questions about this new layer added to the Village. It used to be that the pedestrians dominated and the only motorized devices were emergency vehicles, Farmer’s Snails and tractor, and Brainy’s segway. Now, we’re adding smurfboarders, too.
Smurfs Village is starting to feel awfully congested. I thought Smurfs moved there to escape the hustle and bustle of the big Smurfs City and its tall mushrooms and bumper-to-bumper traffic.
In any case, Brainy’s Traffic School is a painful experience for them, and the low point comes when Farmer Smurf rides a snail past them. They have had enough with that and so they rebel.
Everything comes down to a chase through the forest. Yes, more white slash lines to indicate speed! More fast sequences through narrow hollow tree trunks! And, once again, the canyon that everyone falls down eventually.
The funny thing to me is how quickly it turns into an episode of classic Star Trek. Remember the episodes where James T. Kirk would defeat a computer with logic? He’d argue the computer into committing suicide, essentially. Here, Jokey and Vanity argue with Brainy that he’s breaking the rules when he’s chasing them down for breaking the rules. That causes Brainy to seize up temporarily before he goes total rebel and shows how fast he can drive his segway just for the sake of driving it fast.
It’s nice to see Jokey rebelling in a way other than handing out joke presents, and it’s fun to watch Vanity at work in a way that doesn’t involve him looking in a mirror. The escalation on the story is handled well, and there’s a nice twist or two at the end that might surprise you. I know I expected something and got something different. Well played, Sasselin and Serafin!
Title Translation: I giggled softly at “Les Schroumpfboards”. Forget the translation. I like the French title on this one. It’s just a funny-sounding word.
Credits:
Script: Peter Saisselin, Amy Serafin
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Romain Cislo
Director: William Renaud
“Monkey See, Monkey Do” (“Malin comme un singe”)
Summary: A package delivery confusion lands a monkey in Papa Smurf’s house. The mischievous animal quickly becomes a friend to both Jokey and Dimwitty, and they don’t want to send him back. Things get wild.
Commentary: I mentioned some of the modern things that “Smurfboards” incorporated into that short, but this one goes further. This story is all about a package delivery mix-up where Papa Smurf and Gargamel’s orders got crossed up.
First, it’s very Pandemic Era to center your plot on a bad delivery.
Second, there’s a customer service support phone number that Papa Smurf can call.
Third, he’s using a Smurfs version of an Amazon Alexa to do it! Yes, the glowing orb with the green smoke in it is a voice assistant device. It lets Papa Smurf know when his delivery is here, but it also takes requests and fulfills basic functions. When it talks, there’s a new glowing line that shows up across the globe to indicate the vocal patterns.
It’s a very advanced piece of technology for a series that is usually considered to be set in roughly medieval times, really. Being isolated in the forest means there aren’t any intrusions of modern tech around. You accept a few parallels between Smurfs Village and more modern times like a fire engine or a segway scooter, but that’s a very low baseline.
When a voice assistant starts making phone calls for you, it feels a little weird. I suppose this is a neat workaround for having to directly add phones to this series, and we all know how much cell phones ruin storytelling for everybody in Hollywood.
Also, I’m old and know the difference between eras of technology. The kids watching this won’t have a clue. They’ve always known wi-fi at home and cell phones and next-day delivery.
The one scary part of this particular service line is that they tell Papa Smurf where his package was meant to go. That’s how he knows to go to Gargamel’s hovel to save Brainy. That kind of breach of customer security would be a lawsuit and federal prosecution in the modern world.
That said, I loved this short. The monkey is adorable and acts as an agent of chaos in the Village that Jokey — limited to deliveries of blow-up gift boxes — just can’t mimic. The Monkey is cute and adorable and fun to watch, but also a little bit naughty. He’s everything Jokey aspires to be.
The basic plot starts in a similar way to “Joke’s On You“, but takes a dramatically different turn. Both start with a new character (or characters) who enter the Village and take Jokey’s jokes to an even higher level. The twist here is that Jokey and Dimwitty promise to send the monkey back when Papa Smurf tells them to, but instead dress Brainy up as a monkey and send him away in the return box.
Where “Joke’s On You” became more dramatic with Papa Smurf tied to a rocket, this one maintains its lightheartedness, even in the face of Gargamel holding Brainy in his hand. (Those two get along so well, too. See “Forget Me What?”)
Brainy as a monkey is a great visual, and the little extra touch of texture they use on the paint to turn him brown looks great, too. Little blue streaks still appear through that makeup. It seems to me like they wanted to be able to easily show the viewers the difference between an actual monkey and a Smurf dressed up like one. It’s pretty obvious, as is, particularly since they used Brainy with his big glasses. On the other hand, it’s a plot point later in the show that Brainy loses his glasses, so maybe they did the right thing.
As usual, Azrael turns out to be the smarter of the evil pair, and notices the fake monkey long before Gargamel. Gargamel doesn’t appreciate the help and kicks Azrael out.
All the while, the other Smurfs have come to rescue Brainy, who can’t tell the difference between his friends and the wood carvings of Smurfs that Gargamel likes to make. It’s a fun bit of storytelling and a very visual bit, too. Any cartoon can have characters saying funny things; The Smurfs has characters who do funny things where you have to be watching to get what’s happening.
In the end, The Smurfs escape through a window near the roof, as always, and Gargamel comes up empty-handed. It’s a satisfying ending with a final call back to a plot point from much earlier in the short.
This one is good, silly fun.
Also, they should keep the monkey. He should be a helper in Papa Smurf’s lab. It’ll help kickstart a whole lot of stories.
[Turns out, it’s such a good idea that they did it. I just looked at an episode guide and saw that there is a future monkey story where Brainy and the monkey compete to be the better assistant to Papa Smurf. I can’t wait for that one!]
Title Translation: “Clever as a Monkey” is fine, but using the more idiomatic English expression works better. This time, the English title is the clearly superior version.
Credits:
Script: Peter Saisselin, Amy Serafin
Storyboard Supervision: Alexandre Viano
Storyboard: Stéphane Annette
Director: William Renaud
Bonus Waffles
I’ve been keeping a close eye on The Smurfs’ love of waffles. (See a round-up in my review of “Waffle Wednesday.”)
“Monkey See, Monkey Do” sets a new precedent in waffle proliferation.
There’s a plot point where Papa Smurf mistakes the monkey for Baby Smurf and is shocked that Baby is eating solid food. That solid food is, of course, a waffle:
We see Chef casually carrying a plate of waffles before the monkey steals them:
The monkey then enjoys the stolen waffles with Jokey and Dimwitty:
