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"The Smurfette" is the first episode (and the thirty-first in airing order) of Season 1 of the 1981 Smurfs cartoon show, and the show's premiere episode.

Characters

Locations

Synopsis

Gargamel creates Smurfette to destroy the Smurfs and sends her to the village.

Plot Summary

Gargamel rants and raves from the tower in his castle toward the giggling he hears from within the forest, the happiness he feels that he so dearly despises, the happiness he knows is coming from the Smurfs. With a desire to destroy that happiness, Gargamel studies a chart he has of a Smurf to examine their weaknesses, and stumbles upon one possible weakness he can exploit: their big hearts. Taking a lump of blue clay and combining it with various ingredients such as crocodile tears, sugar and spice, but nothing nice, half a pack of lies, the chatter of a magpie, and a hard stone for a heart, Gargamel brings to life his weapon for destroying the Smurfs through their hearts -- a Smurfette.

The next day, Hefty leads a group of male Smurfs into the forest to gather smurfberries, having every Smurf choose a direction to go off in for this task, when Hefty hears the voice of a female crying. He then sees what appears to be a short black-haired female Smurf sitting on a mushroom all by herself. The female says that she's a Smurfette and that she was looking for a way to the Smurf Village. Hefty says that he'll take her there, but Smurfette wants him to carry her there -- which he does, over his shoulder.

At the village, Smurfette tells Papa Smurf about her being all alone in the forest when he invites her to stay, setting her up in her own Smurf house. Inside, she secretly contacts her master Gargamel through her compact, telling him that she is now in their village. Gargamel now instructs Smurfette to go and capture their little blue hearts, warning her not to fail him. Stepping out of her house, Smurfette knocks Handy out with the door and makes Clumsy pound Brainy into the ground instead of the post when she turns his attention towards her. Smurfette decides to try a more subtle approach: a picnic.

Sometime later, while the Smurfs are busy gathering up wood in a cart, Hefty receives an invitation to a picnic by Smurfette, which he ends up turning over to Harmony, claiming to be too busy. Harmony, using the same excuse, turns the invite over to Vanity, who then turns it over to Grouchy, then to Brainy, then to Greedy, and then they all decide to part ways, leaving the invite on the ground for Papa Smurf to pick up. Papa Smurf looks at it briefly and then realizes he has important work in his laboratory, so he discards the invite. Meanwhile, Smurfette waits in the forest by a picnic blanket, wondering if any Smurf is going to show up, when Jokey does with one of his surprises, which explodes when she opens it.

Unsmurfette
Smurfette as she originally appeared...
Smurfette Cartoon 3
...and as she currently appears.

Smurfette decides that her next plan of attack, instead of luring them out, would be to flood them out. Going up to the dam, she entices Greedy with a delicious cake she has made by having him open the flood gate to the dam, which initially he refuses to do, but ultimately, he gives in. But before he could close up the dam, Smurfette forces the gate to remain open, fighting with Greedy for control over the switch. Soon the switch breaks, and Smurfette falls into the gushing waters. Papa Smurf and several other Smurfs head toward the dam, rescuing Smurfette as she is being carried away by the waters while Greedy seals the gate closed.

Afterward, Smurfette faces judgment in a court case as she is about to be carried off to be punished, when Papa Smurf asks her if she has anything to say on her behalf. She then bursts into tears and confesses that she was a creation of Gargamel sent to destroy them, and that she deserves to be punished for her actions. This makes the other Smurfs, including Grouchy (and Hefty, who, at first, wanted to beat her up) feel so sorry for her, that they start to cry as well. Papa Smurf comforts the sobbing Smurfette by telling her it's not her fault she was made by an evil wizard, to which Smurfette says that she wishes she could be a real Smurf. Hearing this, the other male Smurfs now recoil in surprise, saying that it's impossible for her to become a real Smurf. Papa Smurf, on the other hand, is willing to give it a try and takes her into his laboratory where, using his magic, he puts her into a sleep while he uses various ingredients for her transformation. Then... "And now with the power of all I command, Smurfette, become Smurf, and before me stand!". Papa Smurf says... and the change is now complete.

The male Smurfs are all waiting outside Papa Smurf's door, waiting to see if Papa Smurf would succeed in his task, and, emerging from his lab, he does... a long blond-haired female Smurf greets them. The greeting she gets from her fellow Smurfs is more favorable: they all come to her bearing gifts, all of them wanting her to be near each of them, which soon leads to fighting among themselves. Meanwhile, Smurfette tells Papa Smurf that, even though she now looks like a Smurf, she doesn't feel like one. Papa Smurf tells Smurfette that that part is one she'll have to manage on her own, and she'll know what to do when the time is right.

TheSmurfette(episode)promo

Promo for the episode on many DVD releases.

Back in her own house, Smurfette is busy freshening up when her compact glows, showing the face of her former master Gargamel, who now sees that Smurfette has changed. Smurfette reacts negatively to Gargamel at first until he tells her that he only wants to fulfill her wish to pay back the Smurfs for their kindness, by offering to throw a surprise party for them by the great oak tree. All Smurfette had to do was invite them there, which she does to a very eager crowd of Smurfs, who then follow the red carpet into an opening by a tree. But the surprise is on them when it is revealed to be a trap by Gargamel, and not only do the Smurfs suspect that Smurfette was still up to no good -- real Smurf or not -- Smurfette realizes that she has been tricked herself. She wonders what to do now when she hears Papa Smurf tell her that she'll know what to do when the time is right.

Soon, Gargamel and Azrael face a lone masked Smurf who challenges them to chase him. Azrael gives chase to the Lone Smurf, but he proves himself to be too quick and agile for him to catch, and soon sends Azrael right back into Gargamel while he frees his fellow Smurfs from Gargamel's trap. Then the Lone Smurf challenges Gargamel and Azrael to chase him up a tree, which they do until they end up falling down from it, leaving them unconscious. After the Smurfs had all safely escaped, the Lone Smurf appears onto them and reveals himself to be... Smurfette! The other Smurfs are truly convinced that she is a real Smurf at last.

Back at Gargamel's castle, the evil wizard sits injured and blaming Azrael and the Smurfs for his failure when he hears a knock on his door. It is a horrid-looking female human who's looking for Gargamel, which makes Gargamel want to run from her, swearing to the Smurfs that he shall have his revenge on them. Back in the village, though, the Smurfs celebrate Smurfette becoming one of them at last, and Grouchy is seen secretly scrawling a love heart on a Smurf house, mumbling "I love the Smurfette, too" and then adding "But I hate for anybody to know about it" before walking off.

Trivia

  • This episode is based on the original comic book story of the same name. Of the differences that existed between the original version and its cartoon adaptation, one of them was that Smurfette was changed into a real Smurf by "plastic smurfery" by Papa Smurf in the original story, whereas she was changed by magic in the cartoon version. Another difference was that Smurfette at the end of the original story chose to leave the village instead of staying as she did in the cartoon version. It was around the time of "The Olympic Smurfs" that Smurfette finally begins to live in the village. She did appear in another comic book story when the Smurfs receive a letter from her, saying she will be visiting them, making all the Smurfs happy. But by the end of the story, when they ask her who she will take for a spouse, she says that she prefers not to and leaves again to the forest but promises to come back when the time comes which they are sad again, after which Papa Smurf cheers them up with a celebration.
  • This is the second animated adaptation of the comic book story. The first was a TV special that was produced and broadcast in Europe by TVA Dupuis in 1969.
  • As far as the cartoon series is concerned, there is no real story that precedes this one as far as what would motivate Gargamel to go after the Smurfs with a Smurfette until Season 5's "Gargamel's Time Trip", where a 10-years-younger Gargamel first meets the Smurfs. In the original comic books, the only story known to have preceded "The Smurfette" was "The Smurfnapper", where Gargamel's motivation to get even with the Smurfs came from his being defeated by the Smurfs when they rescued a lone Smurf Gargamel had captured for the formula to turn base metals into gold.
  • This marks the first time we see a Smurf dressing as a character of the opposite sex. Hefty would later do the same, posing as Smurfette in "Smurfette For A Day".
  • Smurfette's un-smurfy self would return in Season 7's "Smurfette Unmade". Luckily, Smurfette returned back to normal.
  • This is the first and very rare time that Smurfette is shown with her hat off (when she's taking off her disguise at the end of the episode).
  • In some foreign markets, the first part of the episode is paired with "The Smurf's Apprentice" while the second part is paired with "Vanity Fare".
SmurfetteTwoParterPutonghuaEpisodeCard

The Putonghua episode card of the international two-parter version of the episode.

  • In the Putonghua dub, which used the international two-parter version of the episode, the first part is interestingly named "冒牌蓝精灵" (The Fake Smurf) and the second part is named "蓝妹妹" (which is the Putonghua name for The Smurfette), and the translated episode name appeared on the first few seconds of the episode in the first part, or in the Vanity Fare episode card in the second part.
  • When Greedy says "No!" after Smurfette leaves to go find another Smurf who could help her with the dam, his hat briefly comes off, revealing that Smurfs are bald.
  • Handy's voice matches Lazy's in this episode, as Michael Bell voices both characters.
  • Jokey's voice (in this episode and a few others from Season 1) is higher than it would be in future episodes. The main reason for this difference is because Ronnie Schell voiced the character in this episode and not June Foray.
  • A few animation sequences from this episode are very frequently re-used in the future, such as Clumsy and the other Smurfs cheering after Papa Smurf says Smurfette can stay in the village and them reacting to her new look, along with scrambling to get her gifts.
  • This is the pilot episode of the Smurfs. Like many other character-introducing episodes in the series, it was aired out of production order by NBC, hence it being the 27th aired and Smurfette being seen in many episodes prior.

Goofs

  • In the shot where Handy and Brainy are crying, Clumsy can be heard crying instead of Handy.
  • After Smurfette (as The Lone Smurf) gets away, Gargamel says to Azrael "Don't just do something, stand there!" instead of "Don't just stand there, do something!".
  • When Grouchy says "Not in a million smurfs.", he is voiced by Arte Johnson, the voice of Devil Smurf.
  • When Harmony is given Smurfette's picnic invitation by Hefty, he is heard speaking in Dreamy's voice.
  • After Brainy says "Unthinkable!", his next line is dubbed over by Frank Welker (using his voice that will later become Poet's voice) rather than Danny Goldman, saying "No one's ever become a Smurf, before!".
  • In the beginning, Hefty's voice is too high. Also, after he says, "Wait a minute!", his next line is dubbed over by another actor than Frank Welker, saying "I meant everybody pick a different direction!".

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