Gargamel's Time Trip
From Smurfology
"Gargamel's Time Trip" was an episode that appeared in Season 5 of the Smurfs cartoon show.
Summary
Papa Smurf and the Smurflings are walking through the forest, happily singing the Smurf song, when Gargamel decides to "drop in", so to speak, wearing glider wings and carrying a pot with him to scoop up Smurfs. As he dives down toward the Smurfs, Papa Smurf tells his little Smurflings to run toward Gargamel -- which they do except for Sassette, who is pleased to see her "Pappy Gargamel". As Papa Smurf grabs Sassette out of the way just in time, Gargamel misses them and ends up falling to the ground, cursing the Smurfs and saying they have been trouble ever since he first met them. Gargamel wishes he could go back and do it all over again when he realizes something -- there is a way for him to actually do that, and that way is right there in his forest.
That night, as Papa Smurf tucks his little Smurflings into bed, Sassette is sobbing because she feels Gargamel hates them. Papa Smurf tries to comfort her by saying that being hated by Gargamel is just part of being a Smurf. Sassette wishes that Gargamel could be their friend, which Papa Smurf agrees to, but sadly tells the little Smurfling that being a "friend" just isn't what would describe Gargamel. Meanwhile, the evil wizard is trying to break into Father Time's workshop with a set of keys when he finds one that opens the door, allowing him entry while the time guardian is gone. Searching through Father Time's books, Gargamel finds the one that talks about how to travel in time, and in it, he finds the most obvious solution of all -- and that is by using Father Time's hourglass which is lying right on the table for him to grab.
As Sassette decides to sneak out of the tree stump playhouse and go to Gargamel's castle to make him see it would be better for him to stop chasing Smurfs and be friends with them, Gargamel reads from Father Time's book about time traveling that they must not let themselves be seen by anybody when they are in the past or else the time spell will be broken. After reciting the incantation, the hourglass sucks Gargamel and Azrael in -- and they find themselves in their own castle, at the time when Gargamel was just a baby. The evil wizard realizes he's gone too far into the past, but before he could do anything, he hears his infant self crying, and the sound of his mother coming. Ducking into the closet, Gargamel watches as his mother holds her infant son, saying someday he will be successful and that he will be able to take care of her. Gargamel looks back into Father Time's book and decides he will jump ahead to his school days when he first met the Smurfs, and make sure that that time it will be them, not him, who will fail.
Back in the village in the present, Papa Smurf is sleeping when Father Time pays him a nightly visit of importance -- someone has broken into his workshop and stole both his hourglass and his book of chants. Papa Smurf knows that it takes a wizard to make use of both things, and the only wizard they could think of who would do that is Gargamel.
As they both head to his castle, Sassette is already there seeing "Pappy Gargamel" inside his "night light", not knowing that he is really traveling through time in Father Time's hourglass -- and is now preparing to jump ahead to at least an hour before he first met the Smurfs. Soon he finds himself outside the sorcerer's school, watching his younger self with his pet kitten Azrael as they leave the school, saying that the Dean of Wizards has told him that his magic project had better be spectacular or else he could face a future of selling used cauldrons. Realizing that his younger self is heading toward the Great Oak Tree, where he first met the Smurfs, Gargamel says to his cat that they must get there before he does.
Soon Gargamel has a rock hanging off a branch of the Greak Oak Tree, right over the spot where he first remembered the Smurfs standing on, preparing for the moment that the Smurfs would arrive, singing their Smurf song. As Gargamel continues to hide, his younger self walks past the oak tree still pondering about his project when his kitten Azrael sniffs and spots something hiding behind some grass. It is a Smurf, and soon Azrael tackles Brainy to the ground, allowing the younger Gargamel to get a better look at his catch and to figure out what it is.
Back in the present, Sassette is still seeing the past unfold in the hourglass, and she decides to go get Papa Smurf when she realizes she might get into trouble for leaving the village alone. She rushes quickly out the door, but Father Time arrives before she could leave, and Papa Smurf is with him, wondering what Sassette is doing there. As she humbly answers that she wanted to make friends with Gargamel, Father Time notices what Sassette has told Papa Smurf -- that Gargamel is in the hourglass right at this moment, trying to change time by hurting the Smurfs. Unfortunately, there isn't anything they can do but hope that somebody in the past will see Gargamel of the present being there.
Back in the past, Gargamel watches his younger self realize that what he caught was a Smurf, a necessary ingredient for the formula for turning base metals into gold. He decides to go home with his prize catch when Papa Smurf of the past trips him, rescuing Brainy and apologizing to the wizard for hurting him. Present-day Gargamel sees that the Smurfs are now standing on the stump that his rock is hanging over, and now he just needs to let the rope loose and smash them where they stand -- when a younger Bigmouth encounters him, asking where the river is so he could go swimming. As the older Gargamel ends up going back to the present, the rock now falls on the younger Gargamel as he chases the Smurfs away, promising that he will find them no matter where.
As present-day Gargamel returns to the present, seemingly suffering a headache from his younger self's getting beaned by the rock, he comes face to face with the time guardian himself. Father Time sternly tells Gargamel that he has a punishment for wizards who dabble in time travel, and as he turns Gargamel's head into a cuckoo clock, Sassette tells Father Time that she deserves the same punishment as Gargamel for breaking Papa Smurf's rule of not going over to Gargamel's castle. This makes Father Time wonder what to do, with Papa Smurf reluctantly agreeing with whatever the time guardian comes up with.
Soon in Father Time's workshop, Gargamel and Sassette are working together, polishing all of Father Time's clocks and making sure that they are so shiny they could see their faces in it. Meanwhile, Papa Smurf and the boy Smurflings just watch, unable to do anything to help since Sassette wanted it this way -- so she could be with her "Pappy Gargamel" doing something useful together. Though Sassette is glad for the way she is spending time with Gargamel, he on the other hand just sees what a rotten time this is.
Background Information
- This episode seems to establish, at least in the chronological history of this show's storytelling universe, what would motivate Gargamel to destroy the Smurfs with the creation of Smurfette in the Season 1 episode "The Smurfette".