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"Hopping Cough Smurfs" is a Season 4 episode from the Smurfs cartoon show.

Characters[]

Synopsis[]

Papa sends out three groups of Smurfs to find the cure for the hopping cough Gargamel gave them.

Plot Summary[]

HoppingCoughSmurfs

Papa Smurfs tries his hardest to catch the bouncing Baby throughout the village!

In Gargamel's laboratory, the evil wizard is brewing up something that he says he always wanted to give the Smurfs -- a nice deadly disease that he calls "hopping cough". While he and his cat Azrael wear masks over their faces to prevent them from catching it, Gargamel pours a vial of potion into the mixture, saying that this disease will make them cough and hop about uncontrollably, and thus will make them easy to locate and catch. He mixes the final ingredients to his disease concoction, then fills his bellows with it before taking it out into the forest unto the highest ledge, where he sprays it into the wind, saying that by sundown every Smurf will be hopping right into his clutches as he laughs.

Meanwhile, Smurfette, Nat, and Handy are having fun playing leapfrog with their friends the frogs out in the forest. Baby Smurf watches the three adult Smurfs and seems so energized that Smurfette says that he wants to play leapfrog too. Handy says that it won't be long before Baby can hop like "the best of us". Then Baby sniffs something in the air which starts to make him sick enough to cough. Handy thinks that Baby's coming down with the cold, but as Baby coughs again, he starts to hop into the air, with Nat saying it's not like any cold he's ever seen. Smurfette says that they need to take him to Papa Smurf right away, but before they can take Baby anywhere, he coughs again and again, and with each cough he makes bigger leaps, with the three adult Smurfs now chasing after him. Baby leaps with every cough into the village, where Painter tries to catch him but fails to keep him from leaping any further, until Hefty catches Baby and holds onto him real tight.

As the Smurfs gather round Papa Smurf's laboratory while the village leader examines Baby Smurf, Brainy makes his guesses as to what the blue infant has come down with. Then Papa Smurf comes out of his laboratory and says that Baby has contracted a rare and deadly disease known as the "hopping cough", something that makes the Smurfs really worried. Papa Smurf says that they need three things to cure the disease: penicillium mold from the Mold Mines, which Miner says he'll get, a vial of steam from the Demon Springs, which Handy says he'll get, and the most important of all, the tail feather of a hopping crane. Hefty is willing to be the Smurf who will go get the tail feather, but he asks Papa Smurf where to find a hopping crane. Papa Smurf says that a hopping crane will be on Bad Mountain, and he provides the map that will show the Smurfs the way. Brainy decides that he will be the one who will guide Hefty's mountain-climbing party as he takes the map. Papa Smurf says that he'll stay in the village to keep the disease from spreading, and that the disease must be cured before sundown or else all the Smurfs will have the "hopping cough". Out in the forest, Gargamel goes about with an ear horn, listening for Smurfs who have caught the "hopping cough" disease. He says that he hasn't heard any Smurfs yet, but it won't be long before he does.

As the three teams of Smurfs head off in separate directions to find each of the three ingredients for the cure, Hefty's team with Brainy and Nat is soon joined by Clumsy, who wants so much to be part of the group, but Brainy advises against it, saying that mountain-climbing requires agility which Clumsy lacks. After Clumsy tearfully departs, the three Smurfs proceed onward toward Bad Mountain. Brainy hears a rustling in the bushes and thinks it's Clumsy tagging along again as usual, but as he goes to investigate and scold Clumsy, Azrael's head pops out of the bush, and soon the three Smurfs have a cat chasing after them. Clumsy in the meanwhile hears the voices of Azrael and his master Gargamel and realizes that his fellow Smurfs need help.

Brainy drops the map to Bad Mountain as he flees Azrael, and soon Nat and Hefty find themselves trapped between a cat and a ledge with dangerous thorns at the bottom. Nat and Hefty manage to escape by clinging to the rock wall with their picks while they both catch Brainy and let Gargamel and Azrael fall into the thicket of thorns below. Hefty says that they have lost valuable time because of their having to rescue Brainy from Gargamel, who at this point is picking out thorns along with Azrael. The evil wizard says that some Smurf must have caught the "hopping cough" or else they wouldn't be on their way to Bad Mountain, but it doesn't matter to him because he can still stop the Smurfs at the Mold Mine.

Clumsy soon finds the map to Bad Mountain that Brainy had dropped and is now wondering whether he should take it to Papa Smurf or take it to Brainy. Meanwhile, back in the village, Papa Smurf has Baby bound to his cradle to keep him from hopping too far with his coughing. He sees that Baby is getting weaker and that they need to have the cure soon. As Poet looks at Baby and comes up with a poem to lament the child's condition, he also starts coughing and hopping, which to Papa Smurf means that the disease is starting to spread.

Soon, the three groups of Smurfs have found their destinations: Hefty, Nat, and Brainy are at the base of Bad Mountain; Handy, Smurfette, and Grouchy are at Demon Springs; and Miner, Vanity, and Farmer are at the Mold Mines. All three locations look rather forbidding to enter, but as they bravely proceed onward, Gargamel and Azrael are outside the Mold Mines, seeing that the Smurfs who are there are now trapped. While Hefty's group starts climbing up the mountain in search of Cradle Rock, Clumsy is now at the base of the mountain with the map, hoping to find Brainy so that he could give his friend the map. Back in the village, Painter finishes what he thinks is going to be his last painting when he comes down with the "hopping cough", and soon also does Jokey.

At Demon Springs, Handy wonders why the springs is called that as he collects a wisp of steam into a vial when he, Grouchy, and Smurfette soon see steam demons arising from the geysers, surrounding them. At Bad Mountain, Hefty sees that they are getting close to Cradle Rock, and Brainy says it's now time for the map, but Hefty sees that the map is gone. Brainy tries to follow the map from memory, only to cause himself and Nat to fall off the ledge as they are tethered together with Hefty, who manages to stop their fall just in time for Clumsy to run into Brainy with the map he was carrying.

In the Mold Mines, Miner sees the penicillium mold and has Vanity and Farmer help collect enough of it in a sack for the cure. Above them, though, Gargamel is ready to drop a boulder on the three Smurfs to keep them from achieving their goal, but Vanity spots Azrael on a ledge with his mirror and warns his fellow Smurfs. They quickly move out of the way and escape the mine with the mold as Gargamel rolls off the ledge with the boulder. Farmer says there's only a few hours left before sundown, so they better be hurrying.

As more and more Smurfs are catching the "hopping cough" back in the village, Hefty's team on Bad Mountain soon find the hopping crane and are now looking for a way to get to the creature, not to mention who will do it. Clumsy says that he wants to be the one to get the tail feather of the hopping crane, but Hefty advises against it, with Brainy adding that only Nat has the ability to persuade the hopping crane.

At Demon Springs, Gargamel and Azrael venture into this area, hoping that they will stop the Smurfs there before they get the ingredient for the cure, but soon they see that the steam demons already have the three Smurfs surrounded, so all he and Azrael have to do is just stand there and watch. But then Gargamel gets a blast of steam from the geyser he is standing on top of before he is caught into the wispy arms of the steam demon. With the steam demons surrounding the three Smurfs vanishing, they start to make a run for it, only for their way of escape to be blocked by Azrael coming straight towards them. But even Azrael isn't immune to the frightening steamy demons that pop up from the geysers to scare him. The three Smurfs now head out of the springs and toward the village, with Handy saying that they could make it before sundown.

As the number of Smurfs affected by the "hopping cough" continues to rise, Papa Smurf sees that Miner's group has returned to the village with the penicillium mold and hopes that the other teams will be successful. At Bad Mountain, the four Smurfs look down from a ledge at the hopping crane sleeping in its nest, preparing to lower Nat down into the nest. Clumsy eagerly wants to help, but as Hefty proceeds to give Clumsy the rope to tie around Nat's waist, Clumsy trips and falls off the ledge, landing in the hopping crane's nest and waking up the bird. Soon the hopping crane picks up Clumsy with its talons and takes him on a flight, with the other Smurfs telling the bird to let their friend go. As Brainy says that they'll never get the "hopping cough" cured now, he soon is infected by the disease and starts coughing and hopping. Meanwhile, Clumsy continues to fly around with the hopping crane until it hits its head on a ledge after making a sharp climb, with the both of them landing on a high ledge with no other way down.

Back in the village, as Handy's team returns with the steam from Demon Springs, the "hopping cough" is now spreading to every Smurf in the village except for Papa Smurf. He now makes up the formula from the ingredients that he has on hand from the two teams, but he says that without the tail feather of a hopping crane, there's no way that they can cure the "hopping cough" in time. Then Smurfette catches the disease and starts hopping high enough to be caught by the wind, which makes Papa Smurf and some of the others chase after her, hoping that the wind will change direction.

Back at Bad Mountain, Clumsy makes his way down from the ledge and then looks for something to eat when he finds mountain berries. As he picks the berries from the bush, a mountain goat comes from behind and butts the unlucky Smurf right in the butt. Soon Clumsy finds the hopping crane again, though this time it has one of his legs caught in a twist of vines. As he tries to untangle the hopping crane's leg from the vine, a mountain lion has found both the Smurf and bird and is now crouching closer towards them. Clumsy soon gets the bird's leg untangled, and as the mountain lion backs Clumsy toward a ledge, the hopping crane rescues Clumsy before it becomes the cat's meal.

At Gargamel's castle, the evil wizard takes a rest on his bed, worn out from his failures of catching Smurfs when he hears Smurfette's voice calling in the wind. She sees that she's floating straight towards Gargamel, which makes it rather fortunate for the wizard as he grabs a butterfly net and perches on a branch, ready to catch the helplessly floating Smurfette. Suddenly the wind changes direction, and Smurfette floats back toward the village, missing the swoop of the net and causing the branch to break and send Gargamel falling down. This doesn't stop Gargamel yet, as he now runs after Smurfette with his net, hoping to catch her this time, only to run right off a cliff and land right into Mother Nature's cauldron of slime that she was cooking up. With a wave of her magic wand, Gargamel ends up back in his own muck pond along with the cauldron.

Soon, with a tower of Smurfs in the village, Papa Smurf catches Smurfette as she floats toward their direction. Hefty's team soon returns around sundown, but unfortunately not only do they not have the tail feather of a hopping crane, they also have lost Clumsy and gained another victim of the "hopping cough". As Brainy now begins to lament that they'll never see Clumsy again, he coughs and hops up to see Clumsy arriving with the hopping crane and the tail feather they have sought for. As Papa Smurf prepares the formula for the cure with the final ingredient, Papa Smurf wonders how Clumsy got the hopping crane to follow him, and Clumsy simply says that the both of them have a lot in common, as the hopping crane demonstrates by tripping over its own talons. As to how to administer the cure, Papa Smurf has the Smurfs lined up outside his laboratory to be given a vaccination shot right in the behind (though the tool used for the vaccination isn't seen onscreen), and soon each Smurf is feeling the pain in the butt that will keep even the Smurfs who haven't caught the disease from catching it.

Trivia[]

  • The title of the episode is a play on the term "whooping cough", a disease also known as pertussis.

Videos[]

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