"One Good Smurf Deserves Another" is a Season 2 episode from the Smurfs cartoon show.
Characters[]
- Clumsy Smurf
- Handy Smurf
- Gargamel
- Azrael
- Papa Smurf
- Smurfette
- Jokey Smurf
- Brainy Smurf
- Farmer Smurf
- Hefty Smurf
- Grouchy Smurf
- Greedy Smurf
- Harmony Smurf
- Vanity Smurf (Does not speak)
- Unnamed Smurfs
Synopsis[]
Handy saves Clumsy from Gargamel, so Clumsy wants to help Handy to return him a favor.
Plot Summary[]
Handy and Clumsy are being chased by Gargamel out in the forest, and as the two Smurfs pass by a tree, Handy warns his friend to look out for the root, but Clumsy doesn't and gets snatched up by Gargamel's net. Handy dives into a hollow log for safety and watches as the evil wizard prepares to eat a fresh Smurf sandwich with Clumsy as the meat. Handy realizes that he has to save his friend from the danger of digestion, so he whistles to get the attention of Gargamel's cat Azrael. The cat runs toward the hollow log and gets stuck in it while Handy escapes through a hole. Then as Gargamel is about to sink what's left of his teeth into a six-inch Smurf sandwich, Handy sinks his teeth into a Gargamel's foot sandwich, causing Gargamel to yell in pain and let go of his lunch. The two Smurfs escape through a gopher hole that takes them straight to the village.
Thank smurfness nobody got to see Gargamel eat a live Smurf.
As Handy and Clumsy catch their breath from their escape run, Clumsy is so grateful for Handy coming to his rescue that he says he's going to repay him. Handy tells him that it's nothing, that he'd be willing to do it for any Smurf, and then goes into his house to rest. Clumsy, however, still intends to repay Handy's kindness, and so on the following day, he tries to make breakfast in bed for the village builder, who finds himself rather reluctant to accept Clumsy's acts of kindness even as he becomes a victim of them.
Greedy makes better meals than he does.
He tells Clumsy that he has a lot of work to do in his shop, but Clumsy is willing to give him a hand in anything he wants done. Handy asks Clumsy to get some screws from the work bench, and Clumsy takes a screwdriver and undoes the screws in the work bench, causing it to collapse. Handy then gives Clumsy some sandpaper to sand down a board while he works on Farmer's new scarecrow. Clumsy keeps sanding the board until it becomes too brittle, and then sands through the floor itself until he causes water to erupt from the ground.
Soon, Handy shows Farmer the completed automatic scarecrow, and Clumsy shows up noticing that a rock is in front of the scarecrow. Handy warns Clumsy not to remove the rock, but he does, and soon the scarecrow is already plowing through the cornfield heading straight for the village, with Handy and Farmer chasing after it. The Smurfs run for safety inside their own houses as Handy warns about the runaway scarecrow, and Grouchy falls into a mud puddle as the scarecrow rips through his clothesline. It takes a group of Smurfs with lassos to bring the scarecrow to a halt, and afterward Clumsy is just eager to find out what Handy would want to him to do next. Handy is so frustrated with Clumsy's wanting to help him with anything that he tells his friend he doesn't want to do anything for him and to just forget about Handy has done for him.
Clumsy feels so sad, as if Handy has just rejected him as a friend, and the other Smurfs look at Handy as if he had hurt Clumsy by not wanting him to do anything for him. Handy relents and asks for Clumsy to go collect some wood for him, which hopefully would get his friend out of his way for a while as he figures out what to do with Clumsy. Smurfette says there's only one Smurf who can solve this situation without hurting Clumsy's feelings, and while Brainy assumes she's talking about himself, she confesses that it's Papa Smurf that she meant.
In Papa Smurf's laboratory, the village leader tells his little Smurfs that they will need to set up a situation where Handy appears to be in danger so that Clumsy will be able to rescue him. Brainy tells Smurfette that's what he was thinking all along, but that just earns him a quick flight out of the village. Soon at the village dam, the Smurfs are preparing for a situation where Clumsy will come to Handy's rescue by having the village builder appear to be trapped under a log that has been purposely cut to hide the fact that Handy actually isn't in danger.
Handy then calls out for help, and Clumsy responds by rushing to the dam to rescue his friend, but it takes a while for Clumsy to get there, and when he does to see Handy trapped under a log, he pulls out sandpaper and starts sanding the log. Smurfette is cued by Papa Smurf to mention the rope that the log is attached to, that somebody needs to pull it. Clumsy goes to pull the rope, but it's a rope that's attached to a gate that lets loose a pile of logs that roll down a hill. Handy gets out from under the log and dives to push Clumsy out of the path of the rolling logs. Clumsy is again grateful for the rescue and says he will have to pay his friend back double, which only makes Handy groan.
The Smurfs try another scenario by the river, this time by having Handy pretend that he's having trouble swimming to safety and that he needs Clumsy to safely bring him to shore. Again, Handy calls for help, and again Clumsy rushes to try saving his friend, but he doesn't know how to swim. Smurfette says that he can take the rowboat out into the river, and so Clumsy gets in the rowboat and starts swinging the oars like crazy while Smurfette and Jokey try to push the rowboat into the water as they get sprayed on by Clumsy's rowing. But then the boat does get into the water and Clumsy is rowing too fast, causing him to crash into the rock and get carried downstream toward the waterfall. Handy rides a small log down the river to rescue Clumsy before he goes over the falls, and after Clumsy grabs the log and Handy rows them both to safety, Clumsy is again grateful and even more indebted to his friend.
Handy is all too eager to put himself in the arms of a real dangerous monster.
With the Smurfs now sneezing from their second failed attempt to have Clumsy rescue Handy, Papa Smurf comes up with a new idea: to have a fake monster capture Handy so that Clumsy can come and scare it off. Handy already has the perfect invention that could be used for the fake monster: the automatic scarecrow. Soon the fake monster is all set, though Hefty sees that the axle on one of the wheels needs one more whack and goes to get a rock near a cave to pound the axle in a bit more. From the cave, a similar looking monster emerges and starts heading toward the village. The Smurfs see this monster and think that it's Handy's fake monster, and even Handy himself is fooled into thinking that it's the fake monster as he leaps into the real monster's arms and calls out for help. But soon Handy realizes that this monster is all too real, as it now has a tight grip on him and it has also eaten one of Greedy's cakes, and now he's really calling for help.
The Smurfs also see for themselves that the monster that has Handy is a real one and not the fake and are soon scared off by it. However, Clumsy realizes that he still needs to repay Handy and so he bravely confronts the monster by grabbing its foot, but the monster just kicks Clumsy away until he lands near the fake monster. He sees the rock in front of the fake monster and removes it, causing it to roll forth down the hill and straight toward the real monster, who then thinks it's a real monster and tosses Handy away before it makes a run for the forest.
Handy is now impressed that Clumsy has saved his life, and Clumsy now sees that this makes them even, which makes Papa Smurf glad to see this situation resolved. However, Brainy now sees that it's Handy who needs to repay Clumsy and tries to explain it to Papa Smurf, who just hurls him out of the village before he realizes for himself it does make everyone even.
Trivia[]
- The 2021 TV series episode, "Kitchen Klutz" involved a similar premise, but with a new twist. Chef acquires Clumsy to be his assistant for saving his life, but soon discovered that he set him up just so he would think the latter is a hero. To be fair, Clumsy technically set him up out of carelessness, not out of spite.
- Additionally, an episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh called "My Hero" also had a similar plot to both Smurfs episodes with a unique twist starring Piglet and Tigger (who was also voiced by Paul Winchell).
- While escaping from Gargamel and Azrael, Handy and Clumsy entered a hole that belongs to a gopher. However, gophers are native to North and Central America, not Europe (which is the background of the Smurfs cartoon series), so that gopher should have not appeared at all.
Videos[]
