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"A Loss Of Smurf" is a Season 6 episode from the Smurfs cartoon show.

Characters[]

Synopsis[]

Vanity is tricked by an imp and turns into a Wartmonger.

Plot Summary[]

Vanity The Wartmonger

Vanity's "beauty treatment" gives him a change of race.

The Smurfs are busy doing their everyday work activities in the village -- sweeping, hammering, fixing roofs, and baking cakes -- when they suddenly hear Harmony's horn, which means that there's to be an assembly around the speaking mushroom for something important. The Smurfs drop whatever it is they were doing and gather around the mushroom, wondering who it is that has called for an assembly. Smurfette believes that it's Vanity that has called forth an assembly, which makes Hefty displeased at the thought of previous assemblies Vanity has called forth just for trivial reasons. Sure enough, Vanity shows up at the speaking mushroom to announce to his fellow Smurfs that he is now wearing a new hat. Hefty tells Vanity that new hats are not emergencies, but Vanity says that his fellow Smurfs would use any excuse just to get a look at him. This makes Hefty and the other Smurfs so angry that they decide to send him and his new hat on a one-way flight out of the village.

Meanwhile, Papa Smurf is out in the forest with the Smurflings doing birdwatching when Nat spots Vanity being hurled out of the village. Papa Smurf asks Vanity what's wrong, and Vanity says that he doesn't feel like the most popular Smurf anymore, that he was thrown out of the village just for wearing a new hat. Papa Smurf tries to tell Vanity that he shouldn't be calling forth emergency assemblies for trivial reasons. However, Vanity is distracted by what he thinks is the sight of a new wrinkle on his face and realizes that he must gaze into the Reflecting Pool to find out if he's really losing his handsome looks.

All alone at the Reflecting Pool inside a cave, Vanity is looking at his reflection and tearfully wondering if he's starting to lose his good looks when another person comes along, saying that Vanity is standing in his favorite spot. Vanity turns and sees a handsome-looking elf who calls himself Lofty, "elf extraordinaire", who comes to the Reflecting Pool to reflect upon his future, his past, and himself. He is curious about the mirror Vanity is holding in his hand, saying that he has never seen a reflection that he can carry with him, and asks if he could borrow it. Vanity refuses to part with his mirror, saying that he would rather see a new blemish than ever give it up.

Lofty then tells Vanity of a "magical bog bath" that he took that gave him his handsome looks, which makes Vanity say that he'd give anything just to experience it for himself. Lofty asks for Vanity's mirror in exchange for knowing about where to get the bath, and although Vanity is reluctant to part with his mirror, he realizes from Lofty's words that it's a small price to pay for not looking so plain. Lofty tells Vanity that the magical bog is past Muddy Marsh in Creepy Deepy Swamp -- a place that makes Vanity shiver at the thought of venturing into, though he sees that he really doesn't have a choice. After Vanity departs from the cave, Lofty laughs as he mentions what will really happen when Vanity takes that "magical bog bath".

Sometime later in Creepy Deepy Swamp, Vanity has bathed himself in the magical bog and has climbed out to wash himself clean by dousing himself with water from a flower cup. Soon he feels his skin tingle as he believes that the "magical bog bath" has transformed him into a handsome creature and realizes that he must return to the village to show his fellow Smurfs the miraculous change. However, as Vanity meets Brainy and Smurfette at the edge of the village as they were wondering where he could be, they run away in fright to tell Papa Smurf that Vanity has a terrible problem. Papa Smurf laughs at the "terrible problem", saying that it's just one of Vanity's trivial beauty problems. But after Vanity finds a mirror to look at his new self, he is horrified to discover that the "magical bog bath" has transformed him into a Wartmonger.

As the Smurfs gather around to see Vanity in his new hideous form, Papa Smurf scolds Vanity by saying that he should never trust the words of a stranger. He tells Vanity that he will get started on working on a cure for him immediately, though because the spell is strong and the cure is complicated, it may take several days for it to be completed. In the meantime, he tells his little Smurfs that they should treat Vanity just like he is any other Smurf. The Smurfs eagerly promise that they will stand by him through his tough times, but at the dinner table, Vanity notices that hardly any of the adult Smurfs want to sit with him and keep him company. The Smurflings, however, decide that they want to sit with Vanity, even though they are surprised to see him eat smurfberries just by tonguing them like a frog.

Later on, out in the smurfball field, the Smurflings want to play smurfball with the adult Smurfs, but Hefty tells them that they will have to sit out because they weren't chosen for a team. Brainy thinks they should let the Smurflings play smurfball with the adults, if only to teach them a lesson. As the game commences, the Smurfling team has the advantage of Vanity playing smurfball more like a Wartmonger than a Smurf, so much that Brainy has Vanity disqualified from playing smurfball because he is a Wartmonger.

By evening, Vanity visits Papa Smurf to see if has made any progress on the cure for the "magical bog bath", and Papa Smurf says that the spell is so strong that he doesn't have a clue on how to reverse it. Vanity fears that he will be a Wartmonger forever, but Papa Smurf tells Vanity to go get some sleep and that he will try again in the morning. Vanity decides to pay a visit to the Smurflings to say goodnight to them, seeing that they were the only Smurfs in the village who were nice to him. Unfortunately, as he watches them through the window of their playhouse, three of the Smurflings are making fun of Vanity behind his back. Slouchy notices Vanity watching in the window, who then becomes so sad and betrayed by his fellow Smurfs that he decides he is going to go live with the Wartmongers. The other Smurflings see Vanity run off into the forest and realize that they need to go out and find him. Nat and Snappy choose to be the ones that will go out into the forest to find Vanity while they leave Sassette and Slouchy to deal with the other adult Smurfs.

In a place called Gooey Lagoon near Pussywillow Hollow, the three Wartmonger hunters -- Slop, Sludge, and Slime -- row out into the middle of the lagoon to collect wild pond scum for King Bullrush. The leader Sludge warns his two companions not to awaken the Creepodile, which sleeps at the bottom of the lagoon, saying that if the Creepodile is ever awakened, it will not rest until it has eaten a king, and the only king that's around that region is King Bullrush himself. Suddenly they hear Vanity calling out very loudly to them, whom Sludge tries to silence, saying that he will awaken the Creepodile. Soon Vanity falls into the murky water crying out for help, which the three Wartmongers eagerly give in their rescue. However, the moment of solace is quickly shattered as a reptilian creature emerges from the lagoon and sniffs the four of them, seeing if any of them is a king, and then swims away looking for a suitable victim.

King Van Ribbity

Vanity doesn't know that there's a cost to his being made the king of the Wartmongers.

After the four Wartmongers swim to safety from their capsized boat, three of them look at the blue stranger who has joined them and wonder why he is blue. Vanity says that he has been raised in a mountain lake of pure blue water. Sludge tells Vanity that when King Bullrush finds out that he has awakened the Creepodile, he will wish that he has never returned. The three Wartmonger hunters arrest Vanity and bring him to Toad Castle, where King Bullrush sees that the Creepodile has awakened and is now wondering what to do about the legend of the monster needing to eat a king. With Nat and Snappy carefully making their way through the dangerous bog region and into the castle, they see King Bullrush briefly interrogate Vanity before stating that whoever awakens the Creepodile is to be made king. Vanity is surprised about how quickly he has been promoted to king just by showing up at Toad Castle. However, Nat and Snappy overhear that Vanity's promotion to king is to satisfy the actual legend of having to feed the king of the Wartmongers to the Creepodile, and realize that they have to save him.

Meanwhile, back in the village, Brainy notices that Nat and Snappy haven't shown up for breakfast and tells Sassette and Slouchy that he's going to give them a firm scolding. The two Smurflings in the village decide that they're going to disguise themselves as Nat and Snappy to keep Brainy from noticing that they were gone, and to further help the masquerade, they steal Brainy's glasses and place them out of reach so that he wouldn't be able to notice how different Nat and Snappy really look. However, it doesn't take long for Papa Smurf, who has finally come up with the cure for the "magical bog bath", to see through the masquerade and to find out from Sassette and Slouchy where Nat and Snappy actually are, which makes the village leader call for a search party in order to find Vanity and the other two Smurflings.

Back in the boggy region of the Wartmongers' home, Vanity is led out into the lagoon on what King Bullrush calls his "coronation boat" where proper protocol demands for him to ride out on and feed a special scepter to the Creepodile in order for him to go back to sleep. Vanity fearlessly calls out for the Creepodile to show himself, but upon emerging, the creature makes Vanity recoil in fright, landing on Nat and Snappy who were hiding under a sheet to warn Vanity that he has been set up by King Bullrush. Fortunately, the Smurflings have brought a gourd on board the boat and have it be dressed up as a king so that the Creepodile would eat it instead of Vanity while he, Nat, and Snappy abandon the ship. The Wartmongers watching from the balcony of Toad Castle watch Vanity's "demise", saying that they can't believe it "ate the whole king". With the legend satisfied and the Creepodile going back to rest, King Bullrush reinstates himself as king of the Wartmongers once again.

Meanwhile, Papa Smurf and his team of Smurfs find Vanity, Nat, and Snappy, with Papa Smurf presenting the cure to the "magical bog bath" to Vanity. He eagerly splashes it on himself, and instantly he is transformed back to his old smurfy self. On his way home, he keeps asking his fellow Smurfs if he looks smurfy again, and they keep saying that he does, though Sassette adds that Vanity looks smurfier than ever. This makes Vanity want to rush to the village to call forth another assembly just to share with his fellow Smurfs his handsome looks. Hefty asks Papa Smurf if there's anything he can do about it, and all Papa Smurf says is that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

Trivia[]

  • This is the last episode to feature the Wartmongers in production order.
  • The entire soundtrack was in 2x higher than usual in pitch octave in the syndicated version.
  • Although this mess was all because Vanity took the false advice of Lofty the elf, Lofty never appeared again after the scene where Vanity took the bog bath and as of the rest of the episode, and never appeared again in later episodes. This means that whatever happened to Lofty is unknown. In fact, Lofty never got defeated or receive karma for his actions, nor did the Smurfs think of going to find and confront him.
    • This can mark the only time in the cartoon series where a villain character never gets any comeuppance for his/her actions.

Goofs[]

A Loss of Smurf Error
  • When all the other Smurfs exclaim, "A new hat?!", only Hefty's mouth is moving.
  • For a split second after Vanity gets out of the water, his flower colors are inverted.
  • In his laboratory at night, Papa Smurf incorrectly called Vanity "Hefty".


Videos[]

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