"The Tear Of A Smurf" is a Season 3 episode from the Smurfs cartoon show.
Characters
- Jokey Smurf
- Grouchy Smurf
- Azrael
- Priscilla
- Papa Smurf
- Gargamel
- Smurfette
- Brainy Smurf
- Hefty Smurf
- Vanity Smurf
- Painter Smurf
- Clumsy Smurf
- Dreamy Smurf
- Lazy Smurf
- Poet Smurf
- Baby Smurf (Does not speak)
- Greedy Smurf (Does not speak)
- Tracker Smurf (Does not speak)
- Harmony Smurf (Does not speak)
- Chlorhydris (In Priscilla's story)
- Unnamed Smurfs
Synopsis
A hag captures Jokey, Grouchy, and Azrael in order to free herself from a curse.
Plot Summary
In a small house somewhere in the forest, a sad-looking hideous hag sings a lament to herself about lost love and beauty. Then she recites an incantation before a magic crystal that shows her the image of Azrael chasing Grouchy and Jokey through the forest. The hag seems very pleased by this discovery and commands the crystal to freeze the motion of the three beings it has on display.
Elsewhere, Gargamel is just returning home from another failed excursion he went on with Azrael, cursing the cat and even cats in general as he reaches his door to find that Azrael is no longer with him. Gargamel yells for him but he does not come, so Gargamel curses him again and goes inside, slamming the door in anger.
Later that evening, Papa Smurf and a few others arrive at Gargamel's hovel looking for Jokey and Grouchy, who have gone missing, thinking that Gargamel may have captured them. After quietly searching his hovel, they don't find the missing Smurfs, but they do find Gargamel searching the place high and low for Azrael as he continues to call for him in vain. The Smurfs leave undiscovered as Gargamel keeps calling for his missing cat.
Later that night, the same hag recites another incantation to her magic crystal that causes Azrael and the two Smurfs he was chasing to reanimate and be teleported directly to her. The cat and two Smurfs become mutually confused by their new surroundings and just stare blankly at their captor while she laughs maniacally.
Meanwhile, Gargamel is still searching for Azrael, looking everywhere for him in his hovel. He calls and calls, and even announces that he has Azrael's favorite for supper to get him to come, but it's no use.
Back at the hag's place, she has both Smurfs and Azrael imprisoned in separate cages as she mutters to herself that she finally has what she has been searching for so many years.
The next day, Gargamel takes to the forest looking for Azrael again, this time with a fishbone held high to attract the cat as he continues calling for him.
Meanwhile, a group of Smurfs from the village lead by Papa Smurf are continuing their own search for their lost brethren. Eventually, the enemies they pass by each other on opposite sides of the river. Once they see each other, Gargamel immediately accuses the Smurfs of having done something to Azrael and demands to know what it is. Papa Smurf in turn accuses Gargamel of taking his two missing Smurfs. They begin to argue and make threats, with Gargamel saying if he had two Smurfs he would eat them, and Papa Smurf saying if he did that it would be his last meal. Then Gargamel steps into the water shaking his fist above his head, proclaiming that if the Smurfs don't tell him what they've done with his cat, then he will have them all for supper. Papa Smurf warns him not to take another step, and Gargamel puts his other foot into the water, getting angrier, and mocking the Smurfs for threatening him. Papa Smurf warns him again not to come any closer and tells his Smurfs to be ready to run. Gargamel demands again to know where his cat is as he steps further into the water and goes under for a second, not expecting the sudden drop-off, and then just flails about as the Smurfs escape.
Back at the hag's place again, she is looking through a spell book and talking about how all she needs are three whiskers from a yellow cat and a Smurf's tear to get rid of some curse she has had. She gazes at a picture on the wall of a younger, prettier woman that was apparently her before she got cursed, and she tells the Smurfs that she needs one of them to cry for her so she can break the spell. Then she goes to Azrael and plucks three of his whiskers off, causing him to growl and rub his face in pain. The hag, who as it turns out is not evil, apologizes to him for doing that, while the Smurfs scoff at the idea of crying.
Meanwhile, Papa Smurf returns to his village, sadly telling the rest of the Smurfs that they may have to face the possibility of the two missing ones never coming home.
Then the hag begins to tell her prisoners the sad story of how she got cursed by her own mother, the evil sorceress Chlorhydris, in the hopes that it will be enough to make them cry.
In the Smurf Village, the rest of the Smurfs are in the process of sadly collecting some items of the missing ones for what appears to be a memorial service for their lost, and presumed dead, comrades.
And Gargamel is back home again, slumped in his chair with depression as he reluctantly admits to himself that he actually misses his cat. Then he hears some meowing at this door and races to it, calling Azrael’s name hopefully, only to find it is just a stray cat that he doesn’t recognize. Gargamel shoos it away in anger and slams the door closed, totally disinterested in having a new cat.
The hag, whose name is Priscilla, continues her story of how her mother, none other than the witch Chlorhydris, was so evil she wanted to rid the world of all love. When Priscilla was little her mother would break her toys and not allow her to have any pets. Then her hateful mother did something to her father, who was always kind and loving to his daughter, that made him disappear forever. Then later in life when the girl fell in love with a prince who intended to marry her, her mother made him disappear too.
Meanwhile, Gargamel is sleeping in his bed and dreaming about trying to shoo Azrael out of the bed. Then he wakes up calling for his lost cat hoping it really is him, only to find that Azrael is still gone, which makes Gargamel very sad.
Priscilla concludes her story by telling of her mother placing a curse on her that made her ugly so that no one would ever love her again, and how she had to endure the mockery of the peasants afterward that eventually drove her from the city. But to her dismay neither of the Smurfs have shed a tear, because the two Smurfs she has are usually immune to sadness. Jokey asks if they can go home then, and Priscilla agrees sadly, apologizing to Azrael again for taking his whiskers and wishing that she could give them back.
While the other Smurfs look on, Papa Smurf performs the memorial service for the two lost Smurfs by dropping some flowers into the river and watching them float away as he recites a sad poem in their honor to say goodbye to Grouchy and Jokey.
As Priscilla prepares her crystal to return her captives to their rightful places, the two Smurfs look into it and see what the others are doing, and they hear Papa Smurf’s words of mourning. As a result, both Jokey and Grouchy start crying uncontrollably with tears gushing out of their eyes. Seeing this, the hag takes a drop of the tears and adds them to her potion that she has already placed Azrael’s whiskers in and says that she forgives her mother. Then she is instantly transformed back into the beautiful woman she used to be much to her happiness, which is shared by Jokey and even Grouchy and Azrael. Then the two Smurfs and Azrael jump through the crystal and are returned to the same place in the forest where they were taken from, with the cat resuming his chase like nothing had happened.
Eventually, the two Smurfs escape from Azrael and return to their village where Papa Smurf happily recounts all of his Smurfs, seeing that they are all there now. Meanwhile, Azrael returns to Gargamel, who goes right back to being his old self again as soon as he is back, cursing and grumbling sourly as he always does with his cat prancing behind him like nothing is wrong, a clear sign that everything is back to normal.
Trivia
- This episode reveals that Chlorhydris has a daughter, as well as having had a husband, who clearly is not her fiancée Manfred the Magnificent. This is her daughter Priscilla's only appearance in the series, and we are not told what happened to her after she regained her beauty, or if she ever was able to bring back her father or her suitor.
- This is the second time Jokey and Grouchy cried together, the first time being in "The Last Laugh".
- This is one of the few episodes where Grouchy shows his caring side of him as he and Jokey watched the other Smurfs crying thinking they were dead.
- In the syndicated version, The scene where Azrael chases The Smurfs and Jokey leaves a surprise for Azrael is cut.
Goofs
- When Papa Smurf declares Grouchy and Jokey presumably dead, Smurfette cries, "Say it isn't so!", but she is seen smiling before breaking down.
- Jokey says he has never cried, despite him crying before in "Sir Hefty", "The Magnifying Mixture", "The Abominable Snowbeast", "The Last Laugh", and "Once In A Blue Moon".
Videos
