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"Scruple And The Great Book Of Spells" is a Season 7 episode from the Smurfs cartoon show.

Characters[]

Synopsis[]

When Scruple finds the Great Book of Spells in Gargamel's cellar, he longs for the power to become the world's most powerful sorcerer.

Plot Summary[]

The Smurfs have gathered around in Farmer's fields at the night of the Harvest Moon, singing the Smurf song as Poet recites his latest ode and Painter tries to do a painting of Farmer and his crops. While the Smurfs cheer at the bountiful produce of Farmer's fields, Painter is having a hard time trying to complete his painting with Farmer not standing perfectly still. Papa Smurf and Greedy come along to comment about how well Farmer's produce has turned out, with Greedy taste-testing the berries on Farmer's smurfberry bush. Farmer gets so upset that Greedy won't wait until the following day to pick and eat the berries that he chases the village cook away. Later on, before he goes to bed, Farmer gives his crops one last watering, saying that he will see them at harvest time.

Meanwhile, in Gargamel's castle, Scruple is being sent away by his master to gather firewood despite the fact that he has gathered more than enough firewood, all for the purpose of Gargamel wanting to have some private time with the Great Book Of Spells, since it is that time of the month for it to awaken. After the evil wizard recites the incantation to awaken the book, it opens and asks him what he wants. Gargamel says that he wants to be able to catch the Smurfs, and so the book has him undergo a ritual where he wears a suit made of fish and jumps around as if he had fleas, and once the ritual is performed, the book tells Gargamel to gather a list of ingredients.

Out in the forest, the Dean Of Wizards is taking three of his young students on a small walking trip for them to test out their levitation powers with the simple test of lifting up rocks. Soon the three students see Scruple carrying firewood and decide to have fun with him by using their levitation powers to give the wizard's school dropout a lift before letting him drop to the ground with his firewood. As the three students go their own way and laugh at Scruple's misfortune, the young apprentice scowls at the students and says that he'll show them by someday being a powerful wizard.

Scruple returns to Gargamel's castle with the firewood, ready to give his master a piece of his mind, when he hears noises coming from its cellar. Scruple puts his ear to the cellar door and realizes that Gargamel is talking to somebody down there, but suddenly the door opens, and Scruple is flung behind a chest while Gargamel emerges from the cellar with his list. He tells Azrael that he must gather those ingredients for the Great Book Of Spells before Scruple returns. After Gargamel and Azrael leave, Scruple decides to go down into the cellar to find out about this Great Book Of Spells, only to roll down the stairs after he slips through the cellar door. The Great Book Of Spells sees that there's another person who wants to use it and tells Scruple to speak in rhyme so he can use its power. Scruple speaks to the book in rhyme and then asks it to make him a powerful wizard. The book gives him a list of ingredients to gather, which Scruple says will take hours, but seeing how important it is to get it done as soon as possible, he quickly leaves the cellar to get himself going on the task.

By morning, the Smurfs are up and ready to go into Farmer's fields to start the harvesting. Handy gets on board his Handy Harvester, eager to try it out, but as he starts up the machine, Lazy is found inside one of its scoops. Hefty tells Farmer to "Keep up the smurfy work" as he watches his fellow Smurfs as he and the other Smurfs pass by him on their way to his fields. Meanwhile, in Gargamel's castle, Scruple has gathered up all the ingredients that the Great Book Of Spells has asked for, and the book now tells Scruple to sit inside the tub full of ingredients mixed with water from a stinky pond. Scruple reluctantly bathes himself in the water, and suddenly the bathtub disappears as the young apprentice now finds himself holding a powerful magic wand. Eager to test it out, Scruple takes the magic wand outside and casts a spell on the rooster to keep quiet, and suddenly the wand transforms the rooster into a frog. Scruple is so happy to see that the wand works, he says that he will be so powerful that people will have to make statues of him. The wand immediately grants Scruple his desire and causes a giant iron statue of himself to appear from the ground.

In the Smurf Village, the crops in Farmer's fields shrivel up and die as the wand has sucked up all the iron from the ground to create Scruple's statue. The Smurfs gasp at the sight and wonder what could have caused it. Papa Smurf tells his little Smurfs that he will examine the plants and soil in his laboratory to find out, hoping he will find a way to reverse it, but Brainy is just too quick to lay all the blame on Farmer for planting too many crops. Handy tells Brainy that they shouldn't jump to conclusions as he tries to comfort Farmer for this calamity happening.

Meanwhile, Gargamel is getting upset at the thought of having to spend all night looking for clammy moss for the Great Book Of Spells when he found out that it was available right at Sludge Creek Hot Spring. He then sees Scruple's statue standing outside his castle and asks his apprentice what is the meaning of it. Scruple tells Gargamel that the statue will be a shrine for wizards to gather around and visit his hovel to pay him homage, and Gargamel doesn't like that Scruple is claiming his own residence for himself. Scruple decides to humble his master by using the wand to make him "go fly a kite", and while Gargamel is airborne, the young pupil creates a lightning storm to strike the wizard and send him falling into the river for his amusement. Gargamel asks where Scruple got the magic wand, and Scruple says that he got it from the Great Book Of Spells. This makes Gargamel even more angry for his apprentice making use of his private magic book, but Scruple keeps Gargamel from doing anything against him by making the ground open up below him, threatening to send him underground if his master doesn't comply and do whatever he says. Gargamel pleads for mercy, saying that he will comply, and so Scruple closes the ground back up.

Back in the Smurf Village, Papa Smurf discovers alarming news that the soil has lost all its minerals, especially its iron. Again, Brainy is quick to blame Farmer for this catastrophe, but Papa Smurf tells him and his little Smurfs that Farmer simply did his best, an opinion not shared by Greedy. Poet asks Papa Smurf if there's anything he can do about the situation, and Papa Smurf says that maybe Mother Nature will know what to do. As the village leader goes to pay Mother Nature a visit, Handy and Sassette walk with Farmer, who is now blaming himself for the ruined crops, and try to encourage him by saying there will be other crops to plant. Farmer says that maybe he can find another field to cultivate.

Meanwhile, Gargamel is busy gathering hot bath water from the springs for Scruple to have his bath, which he grumbles at the thought of getting while his apprentice is now taking advantage of him. Back in the castle, Scruple is enjoying his bath when Gargamel arrives with more hot water. He has his master fill up the tub and then go iron his new clothes, which the magic wand creates, so that he can look his best when he goes to pay the wizard's school a visit to get his diploma. Gargamel scoffs at this, saying that he didn't even get his own diploma, but Scruple tells him that it's because he didn't have a magic wand. The evil wizard decides to go ask the Great Book Of Spells about some way to overpower his ungrateful apprentice, but Scruple has already anticipated what Gargamel was going to do and uses the wand to keep his former master from going into the cellar to use the book, slapping the door in Gargamel's face repeatedly.

As Handy, Sassette, and Farmer test out various plots of land in the forest to see which would be good for planting a new crop, with one area being too dry and another being too rocky, Scruple is now wearing his new clothes and ready to give the Dean Of Wizards and his former fellow students a taste of his power. Suddenly Gargamel snatches the wand out of Scruple's hand and tries to use it against him, only to find out that the magic wand doesn't work for Gargamel. Scruple laughs at his former master's failure to overpower him, saying that the magic wand only obeys him, and soon Gargamel is made to pull a rickshaw in order to get Scruple to the wizard's school. Along the way, Gargamel stumbles over a Smurf-sized wagon near the hot springs, which can only mean to him that Smurfs are nearby, which Scruple's magic wand easily finds and captures inside a spherical cage. Gargamel is pleased to see that Scruple's magic wand is good for something, but Scruple has better things to do with his time as he transforms his rickshaw into a horse and carriage before riding off. Meanwhile, Gargamel is relishing the thought of having lunch with the Smurfs he has captured inside his cage.

The three wizard's school students seen earlier watch as Scruple arrives at the school's main entrance gate with his horse and carriage and decide that they're going to cool the red-headed failure down with a bucket of water. But Scruple turns their nasty prank against them when his magic wand makes the falling water rise and soak the three students instead. The young pupil calls for the Dean Of Wizards to appear, and when he shows up at the school's entrance, Scruple demands for him to give him his diploma. The Dean Of Wizards says that in order to get a diploma from the school one must earn it, and so he tests the boy by casting a tornado towards him, which Scruple easily blocks by creating a wall with his magic wand. The elderly wizard realizes that Scruple has too much gall, and so he casts a powerful fireball to blast Scruple away, telling the boy that it will be a cold day in summer before the school ever gives him a diploma.

Scruple lands in Gargamel's castle, grumbling at the Dean Of Wizards' words and deciding that he's going to show the wizard's school "a cold day in summer". The magic wand grants Scruple's request and causes a big glacier to arise from the ground, which becomes so big that the young apprentice has to leave the castle in order to get out of its way. As impressive as the glacier is, Scruple tries to use the wand to keep it from growing out of control, but the wand gets stuck on the frozen glacier and then breaks in two, leaving the boy without any magical power to control. While Scruple tries to outrun the growing glacier that now demolishes his statue, Gargamel is ready to have a Smurf barbecue when the sudden change of weather catches up to him, freezing him and his cat in place while the three Smurfs escape from the trap and also try outrunning the glacier. Fortunately, the hot springs is slowing the advance of the glacier, but the three Smurfs know it's only a matter of time before the entire forest is frozen, so they decide to head over to Mother Nature's house to inform Papa Smurf.

Scruple also gets the idea of visiting Mother Nature with the hope that she would have the power to stop the glacier from freezing over the entire forest. But ahead of Scruple, Handy, Farmer, and Sassette have already reached her house and saw that it is too late: the sudden cold weather has frozen both Mother Nature and Papa Smurf. The three Smurfs run into Scruple, who confesses that the whole thing was all his fault because of the magic wand he created with the Great Book Of Spells. Sassette says that they better get to the book, but Scruple says that it's buried under a ton of ice, and if they can't get to the book before sundown, the book will shut itself up and be unusable for a whole month. Handy realizes that this means the whole forest will remain frozen for a month, but fortunately Farmer has an idea: the Smurfs and Scruple work together on building a pipeline from the hot springs so they can melt the ice surrounding Gargamel's castle.

As the glacier continues to advance toward the Smurf Village, Hefty and the Smurfs remaining in the village try to build a barricade to keep it from advancing, but unfortunately it doesn't work, and soon Brainy is frozen in place as he tries to get his books to a safe place. Just before sunset, the pipeline melts a big enough hole so that Scruple and the Smurfs can get down to the cellar to ask the Great Book Of Spells. Scruple and Sassette slide down the frozen stairs into the cellar, and Scruple tries to ask the book for a new wand, but Sassette asks the book instead to get rid of the ice. Scruple doesn't want the young Smurfling to try interfering with his request and tries to silence her, but the other two Smurfs join Sassette and repeat her request in rhyme. The Great Book Of Spells tells the two Smurfs to cackle like a chicken twice, and as they obey the book's command, the book grants their request and the ice soon melts while the Smurfs in the village see the glacier retreat. Scruple sees that his hope of getting a new wand is gone as the Great Book Of Spells closes up its covers for a month's rest, and even worse, Gargamel shows up to get his hands on Scruple to make him pay. The three Smurfs use this opportunity to escape from Gargamel's castle while leaving Scruple to deal with his angry master.

Back in the village out in Farmer's fields, the Smurfs apologize to Farmer for blaming him for the crop failure, and Papa Smurf says that his irrigation idea has saved the village. But Farmer is still mourning the fact that he is left without any crops to harvest. Mother Nature tells Farmer that the glacier has turned over enough minerals to keep the fields fertile for years to come, which means that Farmer can start planting new crops for the fall. Mother Nature decides to not let the Smurfs wait until fall for new crops and with a wave of her own wand makes a new bountiful crop appear in Farmer's fields that are ready for harvest. Brainy says that he is glad to have saved his copies of his Quotations books from the glacier, which Sassette is eager to take a handful of, if only because they will let her reach the smurfberry bushes -- a thought which makes Brainy furious while the other Smurfs laugh.

Goofs[]

  • Farmer's crops were affected by the depletion of iron in the soil due to Scruple creating an iron statue of himself near Gargamel's hovel. However, other plants in the forest were not affected by the iron depletion, especially those who are nearby Farmer's crops.

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