"Papa's Family Album" is a Season 5 episode from the 1980s Smurfs cartoon show.
Characters[]
- Papa Smurf
- Nat Smurfling
- Snappy Smurfling
- Slouchy Smurfling
- Sassette Smurfling
- Brainy Smurf/Brainy Smurfling
- Gargamel
- Azrael
- Mother Nature
- Baby Smurf
- Handy Smurf/Handy Smurfling
- Hefty Smurf/Hefty Smurfling
- Hotap
- Kloog
- Flutterby
- Clumsy Smurfling (Does not speak)
- Grouchy Smurfling (Does not speak)
- Harmony Smurfling (Does not speak)
- Painter Smurfling (Does not speak)
- Vanity Smurf/Vanity Smurfling (Does not speak)
- Greedy Smurf (Mentioned only)
- Bigmouth (Mentioned only)
- Unnamed Smurfs
Synopsis[]
Papa Smurf shows the Smurflings a family album and tells some stories about Brainy's generation.
Plot Summary[]
As the story begins, Mother Nature was concluding her visit with the Smurfs, thanking them for a wonderful dinner that was put on by Greedy using her wild smurfberries. With a swish of her magic wand, Mother Nature instantly transports herself out of the village and straight toward the door of her own house. However, her entrance does not go unnoticed, for Gargamel and Azrael watch her go into her house, with Gargamel saying that Mother Nature can go straight to the Smurf Village anytime she wants to with her magic wand. All the evil wizard is waiting for is the chance to get Mother Nature's wand so that he'll have it in one hand and Smurfs in the other.
At night, the Smurflings are out of their beds and helping themselves to sneaking cookies out of Greedy's kitchen, trying to keep as quiet as possible so as not to awaken the other Smurfs. But all too soon, Brainy catches them red-handed in the act and is ready to tell Papa Smurf all about it when he sees Papa Smurf is inside Greedy's kitchen helping himself and the Smurflings to the cookies. Brainy didn't expect Papa Smurf to be engaging in cookie pilfering, but Papa Smurf explains that once a week, Greedy leaves out cookies for some Smurfs to grab without waking him up. He says that it's like a little game that helps the Smurflings learn how to move quietly and also how to work together.
Brainy offers to join them on their next cookie pilfering adventure, but the Smurflings say Greedy only makes five cookies, and besides, Brainy wouldn't know how to be quiet. As the Smurflings head to their playhouse with their cookies, Brainy says he can't wait for them to grow up to be just like he is, though Snappy would rather not want to grow up to be like Brainy. At the playhouse, Papa Smurf tucks the Smurflings into their beds and promises to show them his family album so they can see what the adult Smurfs were like when they were Smurflings.
Meanwhile, outside Mother Nature's house, Gargamel sees that the guardian of nature has gone to bed and won't be going out again that night. He tells Azrael to howl in fear so that Mother Nature would be drawn out of bed by the sound of one of her creatures being in pain, giving some examples of what would make the cat howl in fear as inspiration before just simply demanding him to howl. Soon Mother Nature awakens to the sound of painful howling and goes out of her house to find out where it's coming out, distracting her long enough for Gargamel to sneak into her house and look for where she keeps her magic wand. He opens a chest and finds out that she keeps four special wands. He decides to take all four of them and use them to make himself the most powerful wizard in the whole world. However, using the wands is trickier than he could imagine, as his first attempt to transport himself to the Smurf Village using one of the wands causes him to crash into the roof of his house.
By morning, Brainy decides to spend a day with the Smurflings so that they will learn how to respect him, but as he approaches the door of their playhouse, he could hear a lot of rough housing going on inside. Hoping that this would be his opportunity to teach the Smurflings about respect, he opens the door and is ready to scold them when a pillow hits him in the face, and he sees that Papa Smurf is in there having a pillow fight with the Smurflings. Brainy wonders what Papa Smurf is doing, and he answers that he is just making sure that they get their morning exercise. Brainy sees how ingenious a plan Papa Smurf has in getting the Smurflings to respect him, which is why he is hoping to spend a day with them so that they will learn to respect him -- a thought that makes the Smurflings groan. Papa Smurf tells Brainy that he was planning to show them the family album that day, and that Brainy is welcome to join them.
In his house, Papa Smurf shows the Smurflings pictures of the adult Smurfs when they were just babies, and how some Smurfs knew what they wanted to be right from the start -- as Painter started painting, Handy hammered pegs into holes, Hefty exercised with baby bottles, and Vanity was looking at himself in the mirror -- and how other Smurfs figured out what they wanted to be -- as Harmony did when he played with a toy horn that Clumsy and Grouchy passed on. However, Papa Smurf said that there was one baby Smurf that he was most concerned with, and it was baby Smurf who couldn't see where he was going until Papa Smurf gave him a pair of glasses, and immediately that baby Smurf decided that he wanted to read books. Slouchy asks if Papa Smurf himself was a baby, and Papa Smurf says that he was, but the family album doesn't go back that far.
Meanwhile, at Mother Nature's house, the guardian of nature wakes up to a bird visiting her windowsill, to which she answers that she was sleeping in because she was up half the night looking for a wounded kitty. But after she turns away from the window, Mother Nature looks in her chest and sees that all her magic wands are gone. This makes it an urgent matter to visit Papa Smurf for his help, but without her magic wands, she now has to run through the forest in order to find the village.
Inside Papa Smurf's house, the village leader tells the Smurflings of the time when the adult Smurfs were Smurflings, which was long before humans came into the forest, but there were still many dangers lurking about. One particular danger was an evil imp wizard by the name of Hotap, who sent his head goblin Kloog to find the Smurf Village, where at that point in the story there were engaged in a game of smurfball with Papa Smurf serving as the referee and Brainy was trying to point out the rules of smurfball so that there would be fair play among the participants. Soon Hotap sees that Kloog is flying circles around what must be the Smurf Village, and so he sends his swarm of goblins to go and capture all the Smurfs. Papa Smurf barely has time to tell his little Smurfs to go into their Smurf houses before he and the other Smurfs are all captured. The goblins take Papa Smurf into a deep hollow chasm and dump him in there, with Hotap telling Papa Smurf that he has found a formula with which he intends to turn Papa Smurf's little Smurflings into gold. Papa Smurf asks to be united with them so that he can share their fate, but Hotap refuses to do so, saying that Papa Smurf's magic powers are well known and that he would rather his adversary be placed somewhere that he would be helpless.
Fortunately, as Papa Smurf's story continues, one of the Smurflings eludes capture, as Brainy with his book is just too heavy for the single goblin to continue carrying and ended up dropping the bespectacled Smurfling to the ground. He tries to find shelter or at least a way into the caverns to rescue his fellow Smurflings, but he only causes a swarm of bats to come flying out. Then as two goblins drop from the sky in order to capture Brainy, the bats cause the goblins to behave rather batty, giving Brainy a moment of escape. In the meantime, Papa Smurf finds out that the walls of the chasm are just too smooth and wonders how he's going to get out when he decides to try blowing his whistle, creating a crack in the wall with which he used to climb his way out. At that point, Brainy had just reached the outside of Hotap's lair and quietly sneaked in to see that his fellow Smurflings were now on a conveyor belt of a smelting machine, ready to be turned into gold. Hotap scolds his two chief goblins for letting one of the Smurflings get away because of the bats scaring them, and that gives Brainy an idea: he goes into the cavern he just left and claps his book shut loudly enough to awaken the bats. They swarm into the lair and cause all the goblins to fly away while Brainy jams his book between the gears of the smelting machine, stopping it dead and making the Smurfs on the conveyor belt cheer.
But then, Hotap sees Brainy and uses his magic to loosen the book from the gears, turning it into a fearsome snapping jaw creature that chases after Brainy. Hotap laughs and says he wishes that Papa Smurf was here to see the end of his little Smurflings, which is when Papa Smurf materializes, saying that he had to stop at his village to get some magic of his own. With one spell Papa Smurf reverses the motion of the smelting machine gears, causing the little Smurflings to then move away from being dropped into the vat of the formula. Hotap tries to cast a spell of his own at Papa Smurf, which Papa Smurf deflects and causes it to hit the machine, which makes it start to collapse. Hotap tells Papa Smurf he may have won this time, but it will not be the last he sees of Hotap, before the imp hides behind his cape and vanishes. Papa Smurf and most of his little Smurflings escape Hotap's lair before the smelting machine explodes, and shortly after Brainy follows with the snapping jaw book still chasing after him until Papa Smurf uses his magic to turn it back into an ordinary book. And so, Papa Smurf and his little Smurflings return safely to the Smurf Village, which ends his story.
At the present point in time, the four Smurflings are amazed at how smart and brave Brainy was in rescuing his fellow Smurfs, which made Brainy answer that he already knew what he was going to be in his future. But soon Papa Smurf gets word from his other adult little Smurfs that Mother Nature has just entered the village. He goes out and listens to her saying that her magic wands are gone, which makes Papa Smurf worried for her, though Mother Nature says that only a master wizard would know how to use them, and it's only the red autumn wand that has power in the present point of the year. Mother Nature says someone must have taken them when she went out into the forest to find the poor cat that was howling. Papa Smurf could only imagine who that cat really was and who it belonged to.
But just as Papa Smurf answers, "Gargamel", the evil wizard shows up with all four of Mother Nature's wands in his hands, showing that he knows how to use them well. First, he uses the wand to capture all the Smurfs present (except for Brainy and the Smurflings) and place them along with Mother Nature inside a bird cage. Then, he uses the wands to create a pot with which he intends to boil a Smurf that he's going to eat, and that Smurf is going to be Brainy. While Gargamel is distracted, Papa Smurf tells Nat's pet butterfly to tell Nat what his plan is, and Nat receives the information and tells Brainy that Papa Smurf needs him to make up a special backwards spell in his laboratory.
Soon, with the spell ready, Brainy has the Smurflings carefully lower him down over the Smurf house where the four magic wands have been placed while Gargamel is busy checking the pot to see if it is ready for cooking a Smurf. Then Brainy casts the spell to make whatever Gargamel wishes on Brainy to happen to him instead, and as soon as the spell has been cast, Gargamel picks up the wands and calls for Brainy to be placed in his pot. Instantly, Gargamel appears in the pot, and it is so hot that it sends the evil wizard screaming in pain away from the village. The Smurflings let go of the rope holding Brainy as they catch the wands that fell from Gargamel's hands, leaving Brainy falling through the roof. With the wands safely back in Mother Nature's hands, she sets herself and the Smurfs free from the cage. Papa Smurf wants to know where Brainy is so he can thank him, and Brainy emerges from the house he fell into, all sooty and with his leg tangled in the rope that trips him.
As the Smurfs do a merry circle dance after Mother Nature's departure from the village, the Smurflings try to make amends with Brainy for letting go of the rope, but Brainy says that nothing they can say will ever make things better. Then the Smurflings offer to take him on a cookie pilfering adventure where he doesn't even have to be quiet, and Brainy decides to take them up on the offer.
Trivia[]
- Many foreign DVD releases (as well as the iTunes edition) carry the syndicated Smurfs Adventures repackaging of this episode, as opposed to the rest of the episodes, which remained uncut (although this episode also uses the modified Season 1 intro sequence and credits for foreign markets).
- Smurfette does not appear anywhere in this episode nor appeared as a Smurfling. The reason for the latter is because she was never a baby (except for "Smurf Van Winkle" and "Smurfy Day Care" which were both caused by accidents) and was created by Gargamel.
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