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"Now You Smurf 'Em, Now You Don't" is a Season 1 episode from the 1980s Smurfs cartoon show.

Characters[]

Synopsis[]

Handy brings a magic crystal ball to the village, but it captures Greedy and Vanity when they touch it.

Plot Summary[]

Trolls

They're trolling for Smurfs!

Greedy, Handy, and Smurfette are busy playing smurfball with each other on a picnic when they lose the ball going downhill. Handy goes after it, but instead of finding the smurfball, he finds a crystal ball that produces "smurfy colors". They decide to take it back to the village with them.

Down below in a cave, a group of trolls are working hard, some on getting their sun shields ready, and one on keeping their furnace well-fed with coals. The leader of the trolls, Crag, gloats in that the Smurfs have taken the bait, and that soon they'll have plenty of blue slaves to help them, the thought of which makes them all snicker in devilish delight.

Back in the village, Greedy is feeling his stomach giving him great discomfort, which Papa Smurf says is just too full of food. As Greedy tries to guess which of the foods he ate is making him feel that way, Papa Smurf warns him to stop because he's making his fellow Smurfs sick. He tells Greedy to get some rest while he whips up a home remedy for him. As everyone turns to leave Greedy's house, Handy gives his fellow Smurf the crystal ball to look at to make him feel better. As Greedy does, he sees himself in the ball with every sort of goodie he has ever tasted. As he touches the crystal ball, ready to taste what he's seeing, he finds himself transported to a dark place where he is greeted by wicked trolls smiling wicked smiles and a "welcome, slave".

Vanity has just entered Greedy's house carrying a picture of himself to cheer up his fellow Smurf when he sees that Greedy isn't there, but his crystal ball is. As Vanity looks into the crystal ball, he sees himself being showered with flowers, making him see that this was like looking into a mirror, but better. But as Vanity touches the crystal ball, he also finds himself transported to the same dark place that Greedy went to. He sees Greedy there and asks what he is doing there before wondering the same about himself. But his wondering is cut short when the trolls immediately put Vanity to work right alongside Greedy in feeding the furnace, telling him "Less talk, more work".

Meanwhile, Papa Smurf is delivering a bowl of broth to Greedy to get him up and about when he sees that no Smurf is "up and about". Farmer's field is abandoned, Hefty has left off chopping wood, and Smurfette has stopped painting the side of her house. As to where those Smurfs are, they're in Greedy's house looking at whatever they want to see in his crystal ball: Smurfette in a beautiful garden, Hefty being stronger than he ever dreamed, Farmer having the biggest crops. They're all crowded around the crystal ball, unaware that the trolls are watching them through a giant crystal ball in their cave, just hoping for one of them to touch the ball they gave them.

They continue to struggle with each other when Papa Smurf enters Greedy's house, telling his little Smurfs to give Greedy some air, but then seeing that Greedy is absent, and that a crystal ball on his bed is present. Handy says he had found it, and Smurfette tells Papa Smurf that they could see their fondest dreams in it. As Papa Smurf tries to dismiss the crowd, though, he sees his fondest dream in the crystal ball: himself leading the Smurfs in total peace and harmony.

The trolls continue to watch on their end, hoping for a Smurf to touch the ball, but they just continue to struggle with each other until they cause the crystal ball to shatter. Greedy and Vanity see this as a good sign, that the trolls won't be able to kidnap any more Smurfs, but the troll leader tells one of his underlings to put out another crystal ball, saying that the Smurfs will be back for more since they like what they see.

Now You Smurf 'Em, Now You Don't471

Greedy, Vanity, what are you doing here?

After sending the disappointed Smurfs back to their duties, Papa Smurf pulls Handy aside and tells him to go see if he could find another one of those crystal balls, secretly hoping to see how his dream would turn out. As Handy goes back to the place where he found the first crystal ball, he conveniently finds another in the same spot, near a cave. But then he also hears sounds of working from within the cave. He enters it and finds Vanity and Greedy held prisoner by trolls and forced to do slave work.

The two captive Smurfs tell him that the crystal ball sucked them into this place, warning him to get out while he can. But the troll leader briefly captures Handy before he makes a run for it with the crystal ball. The trolls try to stop Handy, but as they reach the exit, the sunlight forces them back into the cave. The troll leader says that that Smurf will warn the others, and so he comes up with a plan.

Handy makes it to the village with the second crystal ball, but prevents Papa Smurf from touching it, telling him that it's a trap to capture Smurfs. As Handy fills in the details, the trolls burrow their way around the village, kidnapping Smurfs one by one: Hefty, Brainy, Smurfette, Farmer, and many more. Papa Smurf has Harmony signal the other Smurfs to come, but only Jokey and Grouchy show up. Papa Smurf asks where everybody is, and Grouchy answers that they have disappeared. Jokey thinks it's a joke, but soon he disappears as the burrowing trolls have now reached their spot. Then Papa Smurf feels a hand pulling his leg: it's the trolls capturing more Smurfs. The few remaining Smurfs save Papa Smurf from being pulled under, but as they do, Papa Smurf notices that the trolls don't like sunlight.

As Harmony and Grouchy uselessly try to escape the trolls by climbing up a tree, Handy and Papa Smurf retreat to his laboratory, where Papa Smurf figures out that if the crystal ball can send Smurfs down to their cave, it should also send sunlight. Setting up a magnifying lens to focus sunlight into the crystal ball, Papa Smurf uses it to blind the trolls as he and Handy enter their cave to free the other Smurfs.

But as Papa Smurf and Handy work to break the slave chains binding the Smurfs, a cloud cover blocks the sunlight, and the trolls are able to see again, only to see the Smurfs escaping. They grab the chain and pull the captured Smurfs back towards them, while the Smurfs try to dig in to keep the trolls from drawing them closer. Soon the sunlight returns, again blinding the trolls until they end up breaking the master crystal ball, leaving them powerless to do anything but to retreat further underground without any slaves to work with and with their secret revealed.

With the crystal ball the Smurfs have no longer showing them their dreams, Smurfette has come up with a new use for the ball: a game very similar to bowling. Soon every Smurf wants to have a turn playing, but Papa Smurf shows up and tells them they can play when their chores are done. Though every Smurf does leave the Smurf house, they end up seeing Papa Smurf trying out this new game and enjoying it. Papa Smurf then says that all work and no play does make Papa a dull Smurf.

Goofs[]

  • In one scene where Vanity is telling Handy about the crystal ball, his flower is yellow instead of pink. Coincidentally, this was the original color for Vanity's flower in the comics.

Videos[]

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