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Black Smurf redirects here. You may also be looking for the episode called The Purple Smurfs. For the original story it was based on, see The Black Smurfs.

A Purple Smurf is basically a Smurf who has been infected with the "purple disease" by either a purple fly or by another Purple Smurf, usually by biting him or her in the tail. A Purple Smurf usually hops around with gritted teeth, making "gnap gnap gnap" noises, and searching for his or her next victim. A Purple Smurf can be cured by inhaling the pollen of a tuberose blossom, causing him or her to sneeze and restoring him or her back to normal.

The Purple Smurfs made their first appearance in "The Purple Smurfs". They are based on the original comic books' Black Smurfs, who first appeared in the comic book story "The Black Smurfs". It is probably due to the nature of the characters that they were made purple for the racially cautious English-speaking audience, both for the 1981 cartoon show episode and for the English translation of the original story.

The comic book story "The Egg And The Smurfs" suggests that Grouchy's behavior has come from being the first Smurf turned into a Black Smurf and somehow some of its effects stuck with him when he was cured. This explanation does not appear in the 1981 cartoon show since "The Purple Smurfs" took place after "The Smurfette" in its history. However, the explanation does appear in the 2021 cartoon show episode "Unsmurfable Smile" as canon in that universe. In the story book version of "The Black Smurfs", Lazy is identified as the first Smurf infected with the disease.

A second appearance was later in a one-page gag where Jokey painted himself black and went around the village in full Black Smurf fashion causing panic with the others who believed that a second epidemic was about to break out. The joke however was on him as Handy Smurf started asking around who had taken his black paint, remarking that the paint will never come off. In the version that appears in the "Romeo And Smurfette" comic book, the black paint was changed to green, and in the Papercutz version that appears in "The Return Of The Smurfette", it was changed to purple.

The Black Smurf also appears in the 1994 The Smurfs video game released for multiple game systems, while the Purple Smurf version appears in the fan-created Flash game Day Of The Purple Smurf, which was created as an unofficial sequel to Smurf: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle, as well as in the Smurfs' Village game app.

The Purple Smurfs will appear in the upcoming Smurfs film, Smurfs: The Rise Of Purple Smurfs.

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