"Good Neighbor Smurf" is a Season 3 episode from the Smurfs cartoon show.
Plot Summary
It is an ordinary day in the Smurf Village, and the Smurfs are happily singing the Smurf song as they do their chores: Vanity hanging out laundry, Handy fixing the village well, Grouchy washing windows (though without the singing), Farmer watering his crops. And then Brainy comes along and tells Farmer he should plant his crops in alphabetical order, then he tells Grouchy that his water is not soapy enough and his cloth is not soft enough. Basically, Brainy is being such a busybody minding other people's businesses that Papa Smurf reminds him that he has to fill the water tank on the fire truck. Brainy rushes off to perform that task, then he runs into Handy and causes him to fall into the water before he runs off into the forest and forgets what he was supposed to do. At that moment, dark storm clouds appear and rain starts to pour down. Every Smurf runs for cover as they hear thunder, with Brainy coming in all soaking wet, though glad that the lightning hasn't hit anything yet.
But then a lightning bolt strikes Brainy's house, and the fire brigade is quick on the job to get the fire truck out and ready to hose down the fire. But because Brainy forgot to fill up the water tank, only a tiny drop comes out of the hose, and though Papa Smurf calls his little Smurfs to form a bucket brigade, Brainy's house becomes a smoldering shell. This makes Brainy wonder what he's going to do now, and his fellow Smurfs say they'll help build him a new house. Soon they are on the job, but as usual Brainy has to come in and offer suggestions, to which they respond by hurling him out of the way.
Papa Smurf asks how the construction is coming along, and Brainy says it's going fine, but now he needs to know where he's going to sleep. Papa Smurf then tells his little Smurfs about Brainy's predicament, that he needs a place to stay for a few days. Handy offers to be the Smurf to put Brainy up in his house, and soon Brainy sees that Handy is building a corn picker for Farmer inside his house. Handy tells Brainy that he's going back to work and warns Brainy not to touch the corn picker. But Brainy, curious about Handy's invention, decides to tinker with it a bit, and soon it is off and running, crashing through the wall of Handy's house and ripping through a line of laundry before crashing into a tree. Handy becomes so mad with Brainy for not heeding his instructions that he tosses him out of his house.
The next Smurf to take him in is Vanity, who shows Brainy all the pictures and head sculptures of himself in his living space, but as he goes out, he tells Brainy not to touch a thing. Unfortunately, Brainy doesn't heed Vanity's advice and decides to remodel his friend's living space according to his own desires, even remaking all the images of Vanity into those of Brainy's likeness. Vanity returns to his house and finds that Brainy changed everything in it, which makes him back away from the hideousness that his own living space has become, only to back into a head sculpture of Brainy that knocks down all the others like dominoes and ultimately leaves Vanity's house a wreck. Brainy barely has time to defend himself before he gets thrown out again.
Brainy finds this wherever he goes to bunk with someone: first with Greedy (ruined his smurfberry pudding), then with Painter (ruined his painting), then with Jokey (messed with one of his pranking toys and caused an exploison), then with Harmony (played the trumpet terribly). In fact, every Smurf doesn't want Brainy to stay with them because they say he's a terrible house guest, and they bring this up with Papa Smurf when Brainy finally meets with him after he's thrown out of the last Smurf's house. Papa Smurf sighs and tells Brainy he can stay with him, which makes the Smurf intellectual feel relieved that at least somebody is willing to take him in.
However, Brainy finds that he can't sleep with the noise of Papa Smurf's chemicals percolating in his laboratory. Brainy decides to tinker with the chemicals to find out what Papa Smurf is doing with them, but soon he creates fumes and causes sparks to fly, which wakes up Papa Smurf as he runs and finds himself transformed into Grandpa Swoof. Papa Smurf yells at Brainy, who is cowering in his bed in fear of what the village leader would do to him now. After transforming back to his original appearance, Papa Smurf has a talk with Brainy, telling him that as a house guest he must abide by the host's rules no matter how much he doesn't like them, and although he can sympathize with Brainy's desire for wanting to be helpful, he tells Brainy that nobody would want him as a house guest if he doesn't change his behavior.
At this point Brainy decides that he's going to live out in the forest since he sees that no Smurf, even Papa Smurf, would want him as a guest. He finds a cave that at first seems unoccupied until he stumbles over a groundhog sleeping in it. He asks the groundhog if he minds having him a house guest, and though the groundhog seems to grumble as if voicing an objection, Brainy interprets it as permission and starts to settle in, already becoming an annoyance to the groundhog and forcing him to go deeper into the cave just to get some peace and quiet.
Again a storm cloud forms over the Smurf Forest, and as the Smurfs rush for cover, Papa Smurf asks Smurfette if she's found Brainy, and Smurfette says that she couldn't find him. Papa Smurf realizes that Brainy must have made good on his threat to leave the village, and so forms a search party to go find him in the forest. Meanwhile, Brainy is sitting in the cave feeling cold and lonely while his fellow Smurfs are warm and dry, and wonders if he owes everybody an apology before he decides to rest and wait until morning. But then water drips into the cave, and the roof begins to collapse, causing Brainy to flee.
Outside the cave, the Smurfs find footprints leading into it, which meant that Brainy must be in there, so they go inside to look. They find out that he is no longer in there, but then rocks fall right over the cave's entrance, blocking their way out, and Papa Smurf gets hit in the head by a rock from the ceiling collapsing. While Smurfette and Vanity see if Papa Smurf is all right, Hefty and Greedy lift up a log and use it to brace the ceiling to prevent it from completely collapsing.
Brainy reaches the village and knocks on a few Smurfs' doors, including Papa Smurf's, to find out if anybody is there. Then Poet, Painter, and Clumsy find him and tell him that Papa Smurf has taken a few Smurfs to go look for him and that they must have gone into the caves. Brainy realizes that they must now be in the one he had left and and goes back out into the forest with some Smurfs, only to find the entrance to the cave is now blocked. Brainy calls out to the Smurfs in the cave to see if they are all right, and Smurfette responds by telling him Papa Smurf is hurt and the ceiling is about to collapse. Brainy's fellow Smurfs start to dig through the rocks, but Brainy sees that they'll never reach the others in time and goes off to look for another way in.
He sees a groundhog hole and goes in to find the same groundhog he met earlier, asking if he knows a way to the cave that he was in. The groundhog leads Brainy to the cave, and soon the trapped Smurfs see Brainy and follow him out the same way he came in. The ceiling then collapses, and the Smurfs outside the cave fear the worst until they hear Brainy coming from the groundhog hole, cheering as they see he has brought the other Smurfs out to safety.
Back in the village, Papa Smurf and Smurfette commend Brainy for his quick thinking, saying that this time he really was Brainy. He then proceeds to tell them that he has learned his lesson, which makes the others wonder if he has learned anything for the better. But soon they realize that the "lesson" he learned is that the other Smurfs should be more considerate of him as a house guest now that he is a hero, and this makes the other Smurfs give him an all-expense-paid trip out of the village, leaving him to mutter that the Smurfs haven't learned a thing.
Quotes
(Montage begins; angle on Greedy's house)
Greedy: ...You ruined my smurfberry pudding, Brainy! (throws him out of the house)
Brainy: (to himself) It could've used more salt.
(Cut to Painter's house)
Painter: ...Brainy! My painting! It's ruined! (throws him out of the house)
(Cut to Jokey's house; there is a big explosion inside)
Jokey: ...That's not funny, Brainy! (throws him out of the house)
(Cut to Harmony's house; we hear Brainy playing the trumpet, which sounds terrible even by Harmony's standards. Brainy is thrown out of the house)
Harmony: ...You call that music!?
Notes
- In the syndicated version of the episode, the whole part where Brainy temporarily stays in Vanity's house has been edited out.
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