Hefty Smurf (original French name Schtroumpf Costaud) is one of the main characters of the Smurfs comic books and the Smurfs cartoon show, who has appeared on the show throughout its entire run.
Character
Hefty is considered the strongest and bravest Smurf of all who's willing to use his strength to help out his fellow Smurfs.
He spends his mornings exercising, and his house is full of work-out equipment. Hefty is also the most athletic of the Smurfs, able to climb up tall trees and bring down whatever is up there without much effort.
He is easily identified by the heart-with-arrow tattoo on his right upper arm.
He can manage to bend things that only can be bent with machines, such as metal poles.
Role In The Village
Hefty mainly carries the heavy load that others Smurfs can't. He is also one of the few Smurfs who will accept any kind of dangerous journey, making him one of the top choices to send out of the Village to retrieve something.
Personality
Hefty is known for being heroic, brave, earnest, trustworthy, confident, friendly, protective, and strong-willed. Despite his friendliness, Hefty is also prone to getting aggressive, as he is the main Smurf to give Brainy a clobbering in the comics and a toss out of the village in the cartoon. If he feels provoked or intimidated by anyone (or anything), Hefty often feels the need to either prove his strength or deliver a pounding.
At the beginning of "Hefty's Heart", Hefty has a noticeably nicer attitude than most episodes, as he is shown helping Lazy and Brainy without any irritability and sings about how he loves helping his friends while out chopping firewood in the forest.
After breaking his leg in “Hefty And The Wheelsmurfer”, Hefty is left temporarily bedbound. While at home, Hefty refuses to let his fellow Smurfs (except Smurfette and Baby) visit at first, embarrassed to be seen in such a vulnerable state, feeling miserable and lost without being able to walk around and exercise as usual.
Hefty is usually fearless, causing him to feel equally lost when he has fears of his own, such as the fear of heights he develops in "A Circus For Baby" when he accidentally gets launched onto a high tree branch while trying to practice his tightrope walking act. Oddly, he is first shown to have this fear in "The Secret Of The Village Well", as he's very nervous about being lowered into the well to find a penny. Hefty's fear of heights makes a return in "Smurfquest", in which Grandpa Smurf gives him some encouragement and a blindfold.
Relationships With Others
Hefty's closest friend is Handy. The two share a "Brains and Brawn" friendship, making work in the village a lot easier for them and everyone else.
Being ambitious and incredibly skilled in their own areas, Hefty and Handy jump at any opportunity to see who's the better Smurf through a little friendly competition. They occasionally take this a bit too far, but the two have each other's backs despite their rowdiness and teasing. This is showcased best in the special "The Smurfic Games" and episodes such as "Romeo And Smurfette".
In "Smurf The Other Cheek", Hefty visits Handy and begs to rid him of the red spot with a kick. He claims Handy is his closest friend and also refers to him as "ol' buddy, ol' pal" twice throughout the episode. When Handy knocks the spot off Hefty's nose using an indirect kicking machine, he ends up receiving it anyway. Moping on the Smurf River Bridge with Handy, Hefty admits he doesn't feel any better as his friend is just as unhappy as he was. He has Handy pass the spot back to him, then the two decide to go to Papa Smurf for help.
In “Hefty And The Wheelsmurfer”, Handy is the one to make Hefty the Wheelsmurfer and leave him with the decision of whether or not he wanted to get up and use it, as Hefty initially refused to.
Two of Hefty's other friends are Vanity and Jokey, as he also asked them for help in "Smurf The Other Cheek". Like everyone else, Hefty's worst friend is (in spite of being smarter than Hefty and his annoyance) probably Brainy.
In Season 4, Hefty has a fan in the form of Tuffy Smurf, whom aspires to be like him, yet acts far more reckless and easier to provoke than he is. In "Gargamel's Giant", Hefty comments that he's always getting Tuffy out of messes. Given Tuffy's four appearances, this is not shown again or brought up in a later episode.
Like most of the Smurfs, Hefty occasionally has a crush on Smurfette. He was the first Smurf to meet her after she was created. Hefty is also one of the Smurfs whom she has given the most affection to. Whenever Smurfette is asked which Smurf she would marry, Hefty is always one of her choices.
The two are good friends outside of any possible romantic interest, as Hefty is often seen spending time with her and Baby. He (along with the rest of the Smurfs) is always ready to defend her from forced marriages and anything else unfair and evil if need be.
In the cartoon, Hefty is frequently seen in disputes with Brainy Smurf. Mainly because Brainy loudly bosses the other Smurfs around including Hefty, often cluelessly. However, Hefty has often helped Brainy, especially in times when Brainy's life appears to be in danger. One example: in "'Tis The Season To Be Smurfy", Brainy was about to be attacked by a hungry town rat, which Hefty prevented from attacking by tying its tail to a hook.
In Other Animated Features
Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue
In the cartoon show crossover "Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue", Hefty has a line to sing in the group song, "Wonderful Ways To Say No".
In The Movies
The Smurfs and The Smurfs 2
Hefty has a brief appearance in the 2011 Smurfs movie, as his role was given over to Gutsy Smurf who is one of the movie's main characters. He does appear in the animated feature The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol as the Smurf of Christmas Future, who shows Grouchy Smurf what the future holds for his fellow Smurfs due to his refusal to participate in Christmas. Hefty also has a brief appearance in the early and late parts of The Smurfs 2, and was one of the three originally chosen by Papa Smurf to journey to modern-day Paris in order to rescue Smurfette from Gargamel (the other two were Brainy and Gutsy), but was accidentally left out as the smurfportation crystals used for traveling through time were instead ingested by Clumsy, Grouchy, and Vanity.
Smurfs: The Lost Village
In Smurfs: The Lost Village Hefty plays a much more prominent role, serving as one of the most prominent of the Smurf Village inhabitants and as part of a team that also includes Brainy (with whom he shares a mutually antagonistic relationship), Clumsy, and Smurfette. After a mishap with Brainy's Smurfy Thing Finder, Hefty tries to cheer up a down Smurfette by suggesting that they all go Smurfboarding. In the process they encounter a mysterious Smurf out in the woods, and are then captured by Gargamel, but manage to escape after learning of the existence of a second Smurf village apparently located in the Forbidden Forest by a trio of trees. Papa Smurf forbids the group to pursue the mystery and grounds them all, but Smurfette sneaks out of the village and is followed by Hefty and the others, who are determined to help her.
After encountering some of the curious flora and fauna of the forest (including Dragonflies), the group run into Gargamel, Azrael, and Monty and are driven into a tunnel network, from which they eventually escape with the help of some glow-in-the-dark bunnies including one that they name Bucky. Arriving at a bizarre, gravity-defying river, the group build a raft and set sail only to be attacked by Gargamel yet again; when his raft sinks, Smurfette and Hefty decide to help him despite Brainy's misgivings. The wizard subsequently betrays them and all four Smurfs end up in the river, going over a waterfall and landing in a small cove where Brainy takes his two friends to task for their decision to help Gargamel. The four are then captured by a group of what prove to be Smurfettes, who are the inhabitants of the village of Smurfy Grove, and then learn from their leader Smurfwillow that the "trees" Gargamel is searching for are in fact waterfalls, the image having been viewed by him upside down.
While Smurfstorm, a female Smurf who puts on as tough a front as Hefty, takes Clumsy on a ride to check on Gargamel's progress, the other three are welcomed to Smurfy Grove, where the female Smurfs are quite intrigued by their previously unknown male counterparts. Still angry at each other, Brainy and Hefty engage in a series of sabotages, each trying to make the other look bad in front of the Smurfettes, though they eventually reconcile. Hefty is then concerned when Smurfette, enamored of the village, seems interested in remaining with the Smurfettes rather than returning to Smurf Village. Stormy then confronts the group, having learned of Smurfette's origin as a creation of Gargamel, shortly before the Smurfettes ambush Papa Smurf as he arrives in search of his four charges.
Sadly, Gargamel arrives and captures all of the Smurfs in Smurfy Grove except for Smurfette, whom he leaves behind feeling that she is of no use to him. Hefty and Brainy are able to escape when Gargamel begins the process of draining the Smurfs of their inherent magical energy, and come to Smurfette's aid when she tricks Gargamel into attempting to turn her evil again. However, the act of saving her fellow Smurfs causes her to revert back to her original form of a lump of clay, which Hefty carries back to Smurf Village to be mourned by Smurfs and Smurfettes alike. However, their combined magical power, unleashed by their sorrow, restores Smurfette to life, much to the joy of Hefty and the others, who then celebrate.
Hefty Smurf's hut in the Smurfs' Village game
Smurf Videogames
The Smurfs (1994 game)
He is one of the playable characters in this game, with Greedy, Brainy, and Jokey appearing in certain other levels.
The Smurfs: The TeleTransport Smurf
Hefty is one of the playable characters in the PC game The TeleTransport Smurf.
Smurfs' Village
In the Smurfs' Village game, Hefty's hut costs 25 smurfberries. If you purchase it, he will reduce the time needed to build things in the game by half.
Smurf Life
He appears in the game by giving the player a power drink, which can give the player's smurf more storage space to store items for a limited time. The power drink will only be available to use every 24 hours.
The Smurfs 2: The Video Game (Console)
He is one of the playable characters in the game. He defeats enemies by tossing dumbbells towards them.
Appearances
Trivia
- His character was voiced by Frank Welker in the cartoon show, and by Gary Basaraba in the 2011 movie and its 2013 sequel.
- He was the first Smurf to suggest getting revenge in "Revenge Of The Smurfs", to the surprise of Papa and the others (who were seemingly uneducated on the word).
- Has protected Smurfette by masquerading as her in "Smurfette For A Day".
- Hefty appears in The Smurfs And The Magic Flute without his trademark tattoos, given that the movie was produced before the cartoon show. He goes by the name Strongman Smurf in the United Kingdom English dub.
- In the comic books since "The Jewel Smurfer", Hefty wears his heart tattoo on his right arm while in the 2011 Smurfs movie and The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol he wears it on his left arm. In the cartoon show, Hefty's tattoo can be seen on both arms in the episodes "Gargamel's Second Childhood", "Swapping Smurfs", and "Smurfing For Ghosts", to name a few.
- As Hefty did not have a tattoo until the cartoon show, he tried to masquerade himself as a rebel in the comic book version of "King Smurf" by not wearing the king's medal. Because of that, he was ambushed by other Smurfs wearing medals and nobody believed he was Hefty Smurf until he gave them a good licking.
- Hefty is the only Smurf to have a tattoo, a red heart to be exact.
- In The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol, it is revealed that one of Hefty's favorite foods is fruitcake.
- In "He Who Smurfs Last", Hefty claims to like riddles.
- When the animated series was being made, Peyo was against the Smurfs having personalized, distinguishing features, but allowed them in most cases. In the case of Hefty Smurf, he opposed a few designs, including him dressed in a leopard-print skin like a circus strongman (however, this custom was used by Handler Smurf in comic books), so it was changed to the heart tattoo.
- Other scrapped early designs for Hefty include one where he wears a white vest (as seen on some merchandise like VHS tapes by WorldVision) and a design where his hat is covered in a pattern of black triangles, with or without a white tank top and belt following it.
- The biggest difference between Hefty Smurf and Tuffy Smurf is Hefty is more about strength and brains combined together, while Tuffy has more of a 'put up your dukes' attitude. However, Hefty has been seen throwing his fists around saying "Let me at 'em! Let me at 'em!" in the past, so it's more likely Tuffy's behavior was inspired by Hefty's in the seasons prior to Season 4, or most notably, Season 1.
- In the Polish dub, Hefty is voiced by Ryszard Olesinki for the whole show (old and new dub). He later dubbed the voice of Scooby Doo in its TV airings of shows (Frank Welker eventually took the role after Don Messick passed away).