Return to Recap: The Smurfs (1981).
An Animated Adaptation of The Smurfs comic book story of the same name (original French title Le Cosmoschtroumpf), with a bit of "The Flying Smurf" (original French title Le Schtroumpf Volant) thrown in.
In the story, the Smurfs celebrate Dreamy's birthday, and Dreamy makes a wish that he would be able to travel to the stars. To that end, he tries at least two different methods of flying — one with a big kite that he sails into the sky that suddenly turns stormy, and one with a flying magic broom. When neither of those methods work, Dreamy embarks on the most ambitious method of making his birthday wish come true by building a spaceship that operates on pedal power attached to a propeller at the bottom of the ship. Unfortunately, try as he might, Dreamy is unable to get his spaceship to launch.
It is then that Papa Smurf has an idea on how to fulfill Dreamy's birthday wish. First, he has Handy tell Dreamy that he fixed what was wrong with the spaceship and that it is ready for launch. Second, Papa Smurf gives Dreamy a raspberry potion to drink before he takes off. Third, he gets his little Smurfs to rock the ship and create smoke while Dreamy pedals the ship to make it look like it was heading into outer space. While this happens, though, the raspberry potion starts to make Dreamy sleepy to the point where he dozes off at the controls. With Dreamy now asleep, Papa Smurf has his little Smurfs dismantle the ship while he prepares a potion in his laboratory which will be used when they transport Dreamy and the ship to the inside of an extinct volcano. After the Smurfs reach their destination and put Dreamy back into the reassembled ship, Papa Smurf reveals his potion that will turn the Smurfs into cavemen-type beings called the Swoofs.
Soon Dreamy awakens inside his ship and finds that he has landed on a mysterious planet. Happy that his birthday wish has come true, Dreamy goes outside the ship to investigate, but is stopped by two Swoofs who bring him to their leader Grandpa Swoof to see what will be done with him. Grandpa Swoof decides to extend the hand of friendship to Dreamy and invite him to a party that was held on his behalf. During the party, Dreamy says that he likes being with the Swoofs so much that he decides that he's going to stay with them forever. Unknown to Dreamy, though, this would disrupt the plans of the Smurfs, and so they decide to make Dreamy desire returning home instead by having him endure a series of tests that they say will prove whether he is worthy of becoming a Swoof. By the time where the Swoofs explain what the final test would entail, Dreamy decides that he would be better off going home and so goes back into his spaceship where he falls asleep again. After that, the Swoofs turn back into Smurfs again and transport Dreamy and his spaceship back to the Smurf Village, where he wakes up and sees his fellow Smurfs greeting him. Papa Smurf asks Dreamy if he intends to make any other trips into outer space in the future, and while Dreamy says that the idea sounds tempting, he realizes that there's no better place for him to be than back home with his fellow Smurfs.
Gargamel has a minor role in this episode as he uses a crystal ball to try finding the Smurfs, whose presence the Smurfs disguised as Swoofs find out about, and Papa Smurf dispatches by creating a thundercloud that chases Gargamel away.
Tropes associated with this episode include
- Action Girl: Smurfette has a minor part as one when she rescues Dreamy from being attacked by Azrael.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Grandpa Swoof originally had black hair in the comic book version, but now has white hair in the cartoon. Also the Swoofs themselves change from orange to green, a change which was later picked up by Papercutz in the reprint of the original story.
- Adaptation Expansion: This version of the story adds Gargamel to the mix, as well as Dreamy's attempts to fly to the stars prior to creating the smurfship.
- Adaptation Name Change: The Swoofs were originally called the Schlips in the French comic book story.
- Adapted Out: Parts of Astro Smurf's tests to become a Swoof (him fighting another Swoof and him using a stork to fly to the top of a mountain to get edelweiss) were left out of this adaptation.
- Are We There Yet?: One of the various episodes that have the "Is it really that much farther, Papa Smurf?" Running Gag included in it.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Done by Papa Smurf to his little Smurfs when they ask one Are We There Yet? too many.
- Birthday Beginning: The story begins on the day of Dreamy's birthday.
- Blame Game: Or rather, the Blame Chain, as when Astro Smurf climbs up what's supposed to be a greased pole effortlessly and Grandpa Swoof finds out that it wasn't greased, one Swoof blames another for not greasing it, and that Swoof blames another, and so on.
- Broken Masquerade: Gargamel comes close to doing this, but fortunately the Smurfs disguised as Swoofs warn Papa Smurf in time and have Astro Smurf sent to his quarters for his protection while he goes to deal with the evil wizard.
- Cats Hate Water: Azrael is very reluctant to cross the stream that Gargamel is following the Smurfs over.
- Chekhov's Volcano: Averted. The Smurfs think the volcano may be in danger of "waking up", but it does not.
- Composite Character: Dreamy combines elements of Flying Smurf in the early part of the story with his first two attempts to fly.
- Crystal Ball: One used by Gargamel to find the Smurfs wherever they are, which he ends up losing before the story ends.
- Epic Fail: The Smurfs try to devise some really difficult tests to convince Dreamy to go back home, but most of them fall flat; they tell him to climb a pole, and intend to grease it, but Brainy puts Lazy in charge of that, and it doesn't get done. They tell him to swim across a lake carrying a rock, but the rock is pumice, which floats.
- Fauxtastic Voyage
- Flying Broomstick: One of Dreamy's attempts to travel to the stars is by creating one.
- Happy Birthday to You!: Played straight, though it is noticeably out of tune.
- Make a Wish: Dreamy's wish does come true, just not in the way that he expected it to.
- Perma-Stubble/Tribal Face Paint: The off-color rings around the Swoofs' mouths could be interpreted as either. Even more surprising is that Smurfette as a female Swoof also has it!
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Gargamel did not appear in the original version, and was included here to give an added risk of Dreamy Smurf catching onto the plan; he was driven away quickly, and really wasn't necessary for the story as a whole.
- Slipping a Mickey: Papa Smurf puts one in the raspberry juice to make Dreamy fall asleep for his journey to the world of the Swoofs. Surprisingly, the drugging for the return trip doesn't appear in this adaptation, but it does save us from the additional druggings that Astro Smurf was put through in the original version.
