"A Mere Truffle" is an episode of Season 2 of the 1980s Smurfs cartoon show.
Characters[]
- Tracker Smurf
- Papa Smurf
- Smurfette
- Brainy Smurf
- Clumsy Smurf
- Greedy Smurf
- Vanity Smurf
- Scaredy Smurf
- Truffle Trolls
- Hefty Smurf
- Handy Smurf
- Jokey Smurf
- Harmony Smurf
- Poet Smurf
- Grouchy Smurf
- Azrael
- Farmer Smurf (Non-speaking cameo)
- Unnamed Smurfs
Synopsis[]
When leading the other Smurfs to a truffle hunt, Tracker loses his memory and wanders away while the others are captured by the Truffle Trolls.
Plot Summary[]
As Papa Smurf is busy doing delicate work on an experiment in his laboratory, Brainy races in calling Papa Smurf's name and causing his beakers to fall and break. This makes Papa Smurf upset and demanding to know what Brainy wants. Brainy asks if Tracker has come back with the truffles yet, and Papa Smurf says that he hasn't, but when he does return, Papa Smurf is certain that Brainy will be the first to know.
Meanwhile, Smurfette sees Greedy with his pies and baked goodies at his window, looking bored and disinterested, and asks what's wrong. Greedy says that he can't even think about eating smurfberry goodies when all he can think about are truffle goodies. Smurfette seems to empathize with what Greedy is feeling about truffles, saying that they taste very smurfy, but Greedy feels that her sentiments are an understatement. Grouchy, however, doesn't share the same feelings every Smurf has about truffles, even when Poet and Harmony try their best to convince him otherwise, only to throw Grouchy out of the village on his head when they fail to do so. Vanity sees a wrinkle forming on his face and goes to ask Papa Smurf if Tracker will be back soon with the truffles. Papa Smurf sighs and says that he should be returning soon, which makes Vanity feel relieved because he's going to prepare for himself a truffle mud beauty treatment.
Poet and Harmony hate Grouchy's right to his opinion about truffles.
Out in the forest, Tracker is happily whistling a birdsong as he is on his way back to the village with a bag full of truffles when he stops and sniffs the air around him. He realizes that he's almost home, but after he continues on, he stops and sniffs the air again, sensing a danger approaching him. He soon sees that it's Azrael, who has found a Smurf to chase after. Tracker makes a run for it as Azrael swipes at him with his paw, creating a rip in the bag that causes the truffles in it to be spilled. Tracker manages to escape by diving into a gopher hole while Azrael sniffs the spilled truffles and sneezes before swatting them away.
At the village dam, Harmony signals the other Smurfs that Tracker has arrived with the truffles. They all gather around him and ask if he's got lots of truffles to bring home with him. As Tracker explains his run-in with Azrael, Brainy notices that there's a hole in the bag, which makes the other Smurfs upset and thinking that Tracker failed to bring home any truffles. Tracker shakes the bag and only one small truffle drops out of it, which makes all the Smurfs so eager to get their hands on it that they fight each other for its possession. Papa Smurf interrupts the fight and says that if Tracker only managed to bring back one truffle, then the least they can do is share it and have it divided up equally for every Smurf.
Soon, all the Smurfs are lined up as Papa Smurf tries to give each one of them their fair share. None of them are happy that the slice of truffle they got was big enough to do anything with, and some are even fighting over who has a bigger slice of the truffle. Papa Smurf tells his little Smurfs that if they're all depending on Tracker to bring them truffles, they must be satisfied with whatever he can bring them. Then Papa Smurf suggests that Tracker can teach the other Smurfs how to sniff out their own truffles, which makes Smurfette so eager to ask Tracker that she kisses him when he says that he will.
These trolls are real pigs when it comes to truffles.
A little later on, Tracker leads a group of Smurfs far out into the forest and then sniffs out a spot near a tree where he smells truffles. He tells his fellow Smurfs that he has found truffles, and soon they are all digging into the ground to get their hands on them, digging so fast that a rock ends up hitting Tracker on the head and knocking him unconscious. The Smurfs find a lot of truffles in their digging, but they also see Tracker knocked out cold, and soon they also hear pigs coming their way. Brainy explains that humans use pigs to dig up truffles, and when the Smurfs hear "humans", they carry off Tracker as they go into hiding, leaving Brainy elucidating to no one and realizing he needs to hide as well. Soon a group of humanoid pigs stop at the spot where the Smurfs were digging up truffles and see that there are truffle thieves they need to go after.
The Smurfs reach a spot where they examine Tracker and see that he's got a bump on his head. They need to bring him back to the village for Papa Smurf to treat him, but then they realize they have no idea which way their home is, and only Tracker can lead them back home. Soon he awakens and wonders where he is, which the other Smurfs were hoping he would know. However, they quickly see that Tracker has lost his memory, as he has no idea who he is or who his fellow Smurfs are. This means that they'll have to try finding their way home without Tracker, but as the Smurfs go off in one direction, Tracker goes off in another, and it doesn't take long before the Smurfs both lose Tracker and get caught by the pigs that were following them.
"How dare you take our truffles, which we don't even eat!"
The Smurfs get taken to a cave inside a mountain, where the pig king sees that they have been stealing his truffles and that they need to be punished. Greedy wonders what the pig king could want with all the truffles and how he could possibly eat them all. The pig king says that he and his people never eat truffles, that the taste makes him sick, but before any more questions can be asked, he has his guards take the Smurfs to the isle on the Lake Of Doom. As they cross over on a boat to the isle, one of the guards tosses a truffle into the lake. Greedy asks why he did that, and the guard says the thing in the lake likes truffles. The Smurfs are then left on the island with Greedy wondering why they're in such a hurry to get away from the island.
Back in the village, Papa Smurf tries to work on his experiment again when this time Hefty calls Papa Smurf's name and causes the beakers to fall and break as he rushes into the laboratory. He's asking when Tracker will return with the truffles, and Papa Smurf realizes that he and his group should have returned days ago. Papa Smurf then leads a group of Smurfs into the forest to look for Tracker's group and eventually reach the spot where Tracker's group was digging for truffles...but they see another set of tracks, indicating that the Smurfs weren't alone. Papa Smurf says that those tracks must be those of Truffle Trolls, who must have taken the Smurfs. He tells his group of Smurfs to gather up some truffles in order to deal with the trolls. Soon Tracker appears and has trouble referring to his own people by name. Papa Smurf briefly examines Tracker and realizes that he now has amnesia.
It's The Thing with No Name!
On the isle on the Lake Of Doom, Smurfette and Greedy are starting to feel hungry and are wondering what they could eat. Clumsy says that he has a little something stashed away, but as he reaches under his hat to pull out a truffle, a green tentacle reaches out from the lake and scares the Smurfs into hiding. Clumsy drops the truffle he was holding, and the tentacle snatches it up. The Smurfs see that it's "the thing with no name", as the guards call it. Vanity asks if anyone has anymore truffles, to which Brainy says he doesn't. But then the tentacles turned Brainy upside down and shook him, revealing that he had truffles stashed away personally in his pockets.
Papa Smurf's group soon reaches the entrance to the Truffle Trolls cave, with the village leader wondering how they will get inside. Jokey has an idea, which he puts into action by using the door knocker to get the guard's attention and then offering him one of his "surprises" which distracts the guard long enough for the Smurfs to slip inside. They hide and watch a group of trolls pulling a wagon of truffles to the lake, carefully following them until they leave the wagon by the lake. The Smurfs then see large green tentacles emerge from the lake, taking the truffles one at a time before grabbing the entire wagon and pulling it underwater. Handy fears that the thing in the lake will also get their fellow Smurfs on the isle that the guards mentioned.
Papa Smurf has an idea of how to rescue the Smurfs on the island. While he has Jokey feed the thing in the lake with the bag of truffles, Handy and Hefty take one of the boats and row it across to the island, hoping to get the Smurfs off it before Jokey runs out of truffles. Meanwhile, Tracker is distracted by the smell of truffles and goes off to track their scent, which he finds their source on a boat full of truffles. Jokey soon runs out of truffles and Papa Smurf says it's time to meet the other Smurfs at the boat landing when he sees that Tracker is gone. Now with both groups of Smurfs safely together, they need to go find Tracker.
Unfortunately, the Truffle Trolls find the Smurfs first and are now heading straight for them. Papa Smurf tells every Smurf to get into the boat when Tracker shows up with a bag full of truffles. As the Smurfs row off into the lake, the Truffle Trolls follow after them in their boat. Then the thing in the lake reaches out its tentacles again, sensing truffles. Papa Smurf tells Tracker to give the truffles to the thing, and so he does, which rewards him with a pat on his head by one of the tentacles. But the Smurfs are not out of danger yet, as the Truffle Trolls are closing in on them. However, the Truffle Trolls have bigger worries, as the thing now grabs their boat and crushes it, sending them swimming to shore. The Smurfs try to find their way out of the cave when the thing grabs their boat and sends them through an underwater passage that leads to a waterfall, reaching safety and sunlight.
Tracker gets kicked out of the village due to his passion for truffles.
Back in the village, Tracker watches the Smurfs work at the dam while Papa Smurf is again busy working on a delicate experiment. Clumsy arrives to ask Tracker if his memory has returned. But then he gets called by Hefty, and as Clumsy turns to respond to Hefty, he swats Tracker in the back of the head with the board he's carrying. Tracker's memory suddenly returns and soon he's telling his fellow Smurfs that they must be off to collect truffles, going on and on about how wonderful truffles are when he gets catapulted out of the village, leaving him to wonder what they have against truffles.
Quotes[]
“Brainy Smurf, how come you smurfed all those truffles and didn’t share ‘em, huh?”
“Um... I was, um… smurfing them for a smurfy day.” (chuckles) “Lucky I did, huh?”
- Smurfette talking to Brainy, when it was revealed that the latter had the truffles personally stashed in his pockets.
Trivia[]
- This is Azrael's first appearance without Gargamel.
- Hamilton Camp (The voice of Harmony Smurf) displays his talents as a professional singer when Harmony was singing Poet's poem.
- Both Grouchy and Tracker receive the Brainy treatment (getting kicked out of the village) in this episode.
- At 9.50 million viewers, this is the highest (known) viewed episode of the series.[1]
- A children's book adaption of this episode was released internationally. It is one of few Smurfs Classic books that have not yet been released in the US.
- The story was released in audiobook form on platforms such as Audible as part of the sixth Smurfs: Storytime Collection in 2022.
Goofs[]
- When Hefty and Handy are on the boat to rescue the others, it then cuts to Papa Smurf, Jokey, and Tracker. They can be seen behind them despite already leaving before.
Videos[]
