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"A Hovel Is Not A Home" is a Season 3 episode from the Smurfs cartoon show.

Characters[]

Synopsis[]

Gargamel tries to capture the Smurfs with the help of his Great Book of Spells in order to buy himself a bigger home.

Plot Summary[]

A Hovel Is Not A Home 001

Gargamel just has too much stuff and too little space for it.

One day around twilight in Gargamel's castle, the evil wizard is fumbling through his belongings looking for his powdered fish scales, complaining that it's getting difficult to find anything in that place and that he needs to have the fish scales to complete his formula by the night's full moon. Frustrated that he couldn't find the fish scales, Gargamel furiously pounds on the table, splattering a bit of a potion on his face and then on Azrael's. Meanwhile, Hefty, Brainy, and Smurfette are carefully riding a raft through Gargamel's slime pond in order to reach the lily pads to get the fungus that Papa Smurf needs for his formulas. As they reach a lily pad and collect the fungus from it, Smurfette says that they should be getting back to the village because it's getting dark, but Hefty tells her not to worry because there's a full moon that night. 

A Hovel is Not a Home

Gargamel sees the full moon in the sky and then goes on to say that he needs a bigger home that's befitting of his collection of books and spells. Suddenly he has the answer to his problem: he will consult the Great Book Of Spells. Going down into the cellar and reciting the words to make the book awaken, Gargamel asks it to give him a much bigger home for both him and his cat. The Great Book Of Spells gives Gargamel a ritual to perform which involves drawing a diamond in the dust, eating bread with a moldy crust, and standing on his elbows while reciting an incantation. After the ritual is complete, Gargamel goes back upstairs to see his new house. He at first is disappointed to see that everything in his castle is still the same, but the Great Book Of Spells prompts him to go outside, and there he sees a castle identical to his own but much bigger -- in fact so big that Gargamel could barely even get the front door to open.

The three Smurfs have finished getting the fungus they need and are ready to head back to the village when Azrael appears and sees them. Hefty quickly rows the raft away before the cat tries to pounce on them only to fall into the slime pond. Smurfette laughs as the three Smurfs make it safely to land, telling Azrael that it serves him right. In the meantime, Gargamel is in the cellar with the Great Book Of Spells wondering how he's going to get the bigger house that he wants and then saying he's going to buy it. The book asks how Gargamel is going to get the money for the house, and Gargamel says that he needs six Smurfs to turn base metals into gold and that all he needs for that is a big Smurf catcher. The book has Gargamel go through another ritual, this time to tear up his wizard's hat, then do a waltz with a slime-covered cat, which he does when he sees Azrael. The book tells Gargamel that he now has his Smurf catcher, but the evil wizard doesn't see him. Suddenly, an invisible hand picks up the evil wizard by the robe's collar, and Gargamel realizes that his Smurf catcher is invisible.

The following day, Gargamel takes his Smurf catcher out into the forest to catch Smurfs, handing it a net and saying that he will stampede the Smurfs right into it. Soon the evil wizard finds the Smurfs in a rocky ravine chipping away at the rocks in order to collect enough mica for Vanity's mirrors. He tells the Smurf catcher to wait at the other end of the ravine and then causes a big rock to roll down into the ravine to get the Smurfs in it to flee. Sure enough, the Smurfs see the rock rolling towards them and flee for safety, but the other end of the ravine is blocked by an invisible man holding a net. Papa Smurf tells his little Smurfs to jump into the river, and so they escape through the river while the rock gets caught in the Smurf catcher's net. Gargamel sees that his prey has escaped and scolds the Smurf catcher for letting them get away, but the Smurf catcher gets angry at Gargamel for throwing a rock at it and so decides to drop the rock right on top of the wizard even as he tries to escape through the river.

Gargamel returns to the Great Book Of Spells and blames it for the worthlessness of the Smurf catcher. The book tells Gargamel that the Smurf catcher was invisible, but his net wasn't. Gargamel then asks for a different kind of Smurf catcher, one that is capable of blending in with its surroundings. The book has Gargamel perform a ritual of doing a tap-dance on a wooden pail within a square, and soon after the ritual is complete, Gargamel sees that all he gets for his troubles is a bucket of water. A watery hand then grabs Gargamel, and the book tells him that he now has a Water Chameleon to control.

Later on, a group of Smurfs are at a beach on the riverside, ready to enjoy a day of cooling off in the water, when Clumsy sees Gargamel sitting in a rowboat out in the river. Papa Smurf tells Clumsy to pay the evil wizard no mind, that he can't do anything as long as he is out of reach. But Gargamel is just waiting for the right moment to unleash his Water Chameleon, which he drops into the water to seek out and catch Smurfs. Clumsy becomes its first victim, then Vanity, then Hefty, then Poet, and then Brainy, all of which are tossed into Gargamel's sack. Smurfette almost becomes the Water Chameleon's last victim, but she grabs onto a tree root near the water and calls out for Papa Smurf, who responds by picking up a fiery stick to fend it off until it grabs the stick and dissipates. The Water Chameleon then reforms and goes after Gargamel, grabbing the sack of Smurfs from him and tossing them to safety before tormenting the evil wizard.

Gargamel returns to the Great Book Of Spells to demand for a creature that's not afraid of fire, but the book tells him that he has used up his day of making wishes and so it is its time to rest. Gargamel decides to create this creature by himself, and so outside his castle, he tries to conjure up one that's made of fire. Unfortunately, he ends up causing a wall of fire to appear near his house, and soon Gargamel is frantically at work getting water from the slime pond to put out the fires spreading on his roof. With the fire now extinguished, Gargamel seems pleased to have saved his home and Azrael's that he stands on the roof and says, "be it ever so cluttered, there's no place like...", before he falls through the hole in the roof and mutters, "...home".

Trivia[]

  • This is one of the few episodes before Season 9 that doesn't feature the Smurf Village.
  • This is one of the few episodes where the Smurfs aren't the main focus.

Goofs[]

  • Smurfette's hat turns yellow at one point when the Smurfs run away from Gargamel the second time.

Videos[]

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