Smurf On The Wild Side
From Smurfology
"Smurf On The Wild Side" was a four-part episode that appeared in Season 7 of the Smurfs cartoon show. It is considered that season's premiere episode.
Contents |
Summary
Act 1
It is nighttime, and Gargamel and Azrael are patiently waiting behind a bush waiting for a Smurf to fall into one of the evil wizard's traps. He is using a hose to communicate with his apprentice, Scruple, who is busy sleeping until his master awakens him, saying that he's supposed to be on the lookout for Smurfs. Scruple just simply "hangs up" on Gargamel and tries to go back to sleep when he sees and hears various things in the forest: a hooting owl, some passing lizards, a wolf howl, and soon the cry and silhouette of a tiny blue figure swinging on a vine. He soon looks for this figure and sees a pair of eyes looking back at him from behind the brush. Scruple fearfully calls back to Gargamel, trying to tell his master what he saw, when that "something" ends up swinging right out toward him, causing him to run off and leaving Gargamel with nobody to speak to on the other end. Soon, though, Gargamel hears the cry of this "something" that knocks him over a log, making the evil wizard curse his apprentice and promising to make him collect ring wart for a week, two weeks, and even a month.
The following day, some Smurfs are out in the forest collecting acorns, with Brainy complaining about why they need to collect them, and Smurfette telling him yet again that Greedy needs them for his smurfberry acorn surprise. Soon Nat sees something looking at him from inside a bush, and curiosity gets the better of him as he goes to take a closer look. The "something" makes the bush shake rather threateningly until it is revealed to be a harmless squirrel. As Brainy relaxes and tries to reassure the little Smurflings, the squirrel passes along an acorn to a pair of blue hands behind another bush.
Then Smurfette finds an acorn that she has difficulty trying to pull from the crook of a tree. Brainy and the Smurflings join her in helping the pull the acorn out, but as they do, it sets off a trap that they find themselves captured in. The trap also awakens and alerts Gargamel, who has been sleeping in the forest, and soon he approaches his captives in wicked glee over his first catch of the day. Sassette tells "Pappy Gargamel" that he can't treat the Smurfs like they were his breakfast, but right after he says, "And who is to stop me?", we hear the cry of the mysterious roamer of the forest, who emerges to swing into action.
Gargamel is caught by surprise by the "mysterious roamer" being a Smurf who, wearing nothing but a leaf-woven Smurf hat and a loincloth, hits the wizard right in the nose and then lands on Azrael's head, causing the net of Smurfs to be dropped. The group of Smurfs are just as curious when they see Azrael get scared by this "wild Smurf's" fearsome animal noises before sending a cart of acorns in the direction of the terrible twosome to send them falling off a cliff with a load of rocks dumped on them. The squirrel nibbles through the net and lets the captured Smurfs out to safety, but soon he and the "wild Smurf" depart back into the forest, leaving the curious Smurfs with the need to tell Papa Smurf about him. Meanwhile, Gargamel furiously says that the Smurfs have now gone too far!
Back in the village, the rest of the adult Smurf population responds in utter disbelief to what Brainy, Nat, Sassette, and Smurfette have told them about this "wild Smurf" they saw. They all say that it's not possible that there should be a Smurf like that. Papa Smurf himself seems to agree with that -- unless that Smurf happens to be "the lost Smurfling" which, many years ago on the night of a blue moon, he tells his little Smurfs, was a baby Smurf that Papa Smurf expected to receive on a rainy stormy night. However, when the stork finally reached the village, all that was left was a carrying sack with a rip and no baby Smurf inside it. Papa Smurf spent the night and several days looking through the forest for this lost baby Smurf, but came home with nothing but tears, so he had to assume the worst had happened. The other Smurfs wonder if that "wild Smurf" was "the lost Smurfling" from many years ago, and all Papa Smurf can say is that they can only hope.
At Gargamel's castle, Scruple is busy washing his master's dishes when he walks in the front door, seriously injured and disgusted enough to toss all his laboratory equipment into the stove, apparently giving up on ever chasing and catching Smurfs. The one thing that's now on his mind, as Scruple can see, is destroying the Smurfs. Meanwhile, out in the forest, Nat and Smurfette lead Papa Smurf and Handy out in the spot where they have last seen the "wild Smurf". Handy still thinks the two Smurfs who saw him were dreaming, but as they watch quietly from behind a bush, they first see the squirrel appear before the pile of acorns, and then see the "wild Smurf" jump out behind him. Handy is now amazed, as is also Papa Smurf, who now recognizes him as "the lost Smurf".
Papa Smurf jumps out from behind the bush to greet him, but that scares the "wild Smurf" and sends him scurrying away with the squirrel until they end up in one of Gargamel's traps. Unable to break him out, and with him still acting more like an animal than a Smurf, Papa Smurf suggests that the best course of action is to simply take the "wild Smurf" back to the village just as he is. It is there that Papa Smurf safely releases him after extending him a hand full of smurfberries that he eats without harming Papa Smurf. The "wild Smurf" leaps up to Papa Smurf and licks his face, which disgusts some of the Smurfs watching this. Realizing how much like an animal he is in his behaviors, Papa Smurf decides that the best name to call him is Wild Smurf. As for his squirrel companion, the only name they could hear Wild say amongst his squirrel talk is "Chitter".
As Papa Smurf now reminds his little Smurfs that Wild was the "little lost Smurf" that he told them about, Smurfette asks how Wild managed to survive out in the forest all those years. Papa Smurf answers that Wild must have been raised by a family of squirrels, the mother squirrel being an ancestress of Chitter. But Papa Smurf says that Wild doesn't have to live in the forest anymore, and as the adult Smurfs decide to help Wild become welcome at home in the Smurf Village, Papa Smurf has the Smurflings take Chitter to Farmer's fields. As both Smurf and squirrel part ways from each other, Wild looks longingly at his squirrel companion and friend.
In Gargamel's castle, Gargamel was mapping out locations in the Smurf forest where he frequently ran into Smurfs and made a circle on the area where the village is most likely to be. Scruple sarcastically says that it's basically half the forest, but Gargamel doesn't care if it's half the world, and soon pounds both his map and the map table into pieces to prove that point.
Back in the village, the adult Smurfs are having a challenging time trying to get Wild to be more like them: first by trying to give him a bath, next by trying to make Smurf clothes for him, then by trying to teach him how to talk. Meanwhile, the Smurflings want to play with him, yet none of the adult Smurfs want him to do that. Instead, they have Wild attend a party held on his behalf, where they see him dig in face-first into Greedy's smurfberry acorn surprise before Grandpa Smurf offers him a spoon, which he tries to eat. When Jokey does a salute to the new "smurf of honor" by letting off twenty-one of his "surprises" to go off like fireworks, the other Smurfs are impressed, but Wild ends up hiding behind a chimney, scared of the noise. Brainy thinks at that point that the party is over.
Soon Papa Smurf and Smurfette have Wild set up in his own Smurf house, where he can spend his first night in the village sleeping in a warm bed. After they leave, though, Wild ends up sleeping on the floor until he sees a light shining through his window. The light is coming from the Smurflings' house, who are busy talking about what Wild could teach them if any Smurf would let him have the chance. Soon they hear Wild outside their house, howling like a dog...as so do other Smurfs, who wonder when he's going to get used to Smurf life in the village. Papa Smurf only hopes that it's soon.
Out in the forest at this time, Gargamel finds an anthill that he tries out two glowing formulas on just to see what it will do. As Azrael watches, the anthill grows and grows until it finally erupts into a volcano. Gargamel chortles with glee as he sees that his glowing formulas work with just a drop, waiting to see what the whole vials will do once he uses them.
Morning comes, and Wild is the first one awake. He goes around the village, crowing like a rooster, which irritates the other Smurfs as they awaken to the sound. Soon Wild sees one of Handy's inventions and plays around with the controls until it finally starts with him chasing after it. It wrecks a village well, Painter's painting of the well, a few Smurf houses, and Smurfette's flower garden along its path. Finally it scoops up Wild before it stops dead near another Smurf's house, with Handy releasing Wild from the scoop.
The other Smurfs gather around Wild, pronouncing him as too uncivilized to live in the village with them, when Wild sees his squirrel companion and ends up running off with him. This pleases Brainy, but it makes Nat so upset that he decides to run off into the forest to live with Wild. He tells the other Smurflings about his desire and has them come along with him, promising them that they could live free without having any adult Smurfs to tell them what to do, particularly Brainy.
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
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Background Information
- This is the second four-part episode of the series that introduces a new main character to the Smurfs cast. The previous one was Season 6's "Smurfquest", which introduced Grandpa Smurf.
- A Wild Smurf origin story was eventually created and published as a Smurf comic book in Europe around the early 2000s. The Wild Smurf character in that story would vary from his cartoon show counterpart in that he would be able to fully talk in Smurf language instead of squirrel talk. Also, the adult Smurfs in Papa Smurf's flashback story about "the lost baby Smurf" in that version of the origin story were still adult Smurfs in that flashback, rather than baby Smurfs that grew up to be adult Smurfs.