Return to Recap: The Smurfs.
During Papa Smurf's absence on a long trip to the mountains to get some more euphorbium, the Smurfs scramble to find who should be leading them. One nameless aspiring Smurf decides to compete against Brainy and makes promises to his fellow Smurfs in order to gain votes. After gaining a landslide victory in an election, he installs himself as the reigning monarch of the village and becomes a tyrant.
Tropes associated with this story include
- Alas, Poor Villain: King Smurf doesn't die, but when all the blame on the disaster that befallen the village falls on him, he just bows his head in shame and sets out to repair all the damage he did. The others join in and the village starts to recover from the civil war.
- Balcony Speech: King Smurf gives one after entering his newly-completed castle. Only Brainy Smurf remains to give King Smurf praise for it.
- Battle-Interrupting Shout: Papa Smurf does this upon his return to the Smurf Village.
- Call-Back: To "The Black Smurfs" as one of the Smurfs during the big battle near the end of the story bites another Smurf in the tail.
- Civil War: King Smurf's despotism drives some of the Smurfs into underground dissent and eventually open rebellion.
- Democracy Is Flawed: When Papa Smurf is away, the Smurfs argue who should be the new leader. In the first round of voting, everyone votes for himself. The second round ends with a Smurf elected (by making empty promises) who installs a monarchy with himself as the king.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Hefty tries to disguise himself as a rebel Smurf by removing the medal he was wearing and hiding his halberd out of sight, only to be jumped on and ambushed by three medal-wearing Smurfs who thought they caught a rebel. Hefty tries to tell them who he is. One of the Smurfs dares him to prove it, and Hefty obliges by giving all three of them a serious beatdown before he walks away upset.
- Edible Ammunition: King Smurf's forces retaliate against the rebels by hurling tomatoes at them.
- Epic Flail: When the rebels led an assault against King Smurf, one Smurf was carrying a flail, although the metal ball had no spikes. No one was seen getting hit by it.
- Getting the Boot: Brainy when he tries to reason with King Smurf after Jokey becomes his prisoner.
- Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Hefty Smurf jabs his pointer finger into the chest of the character of King Smurf in protest of the latter character's demand for respect at all times.
- Gold-Colored Superiority: King Smurf wastes no time showing his "superiority" as the chosen leader of the village by wearing a gold-colored suit, later adorned with royal regalia.
- The Golden Rule: Quoted by Brainy near the end of the story when he and his fellow Smurfs decide to help King Smurf clean and fix up the village.
- Gold Makes Everything Shiny: King Smurf's outfit is gold colored, which the other Smurfs can only see as being yellow.
- Got Volunteered: King Smurf announces that he's looking for volunteers to build a wooden wall around the village... and those who don't volunteer will be sent to prison.
- Graffiti of the Resistance: The rebel Smurfs paint graffiti all over Smurf houses that defame and denounce King Smurf, which irritates him to no end. It even goes so far as someone somehow putting a "Down with King Smurf" note on the back of his cape.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: While no human characters actually appear in this story, Papa Smurf is able to shame all of them by telling them they're acting like human beings. The moral was pretty clear.
- Hypocritical Humor: King Smurf admonishes his captain of the guard, Hefty Smurf, for failing to have a sense of humor when dealing with Jokey Smurf playing one of his usual "surprise" jokes on him. Then after King Smurf pardons Jokey Smurf, he becomes the victim of Jokey Smurf's prank and immediately has the prankster sent to prison.
- Institutional Apparel: Jokey Smurf goes from wearing a regular white hat and pants to a prison-striped hat and pants when he becomes King Smurf's prisoner. When Jokey escapes and Brainy is captured and put into prison, Brainy gets the prison-stripes treatment.
- "Kick Me" Prank: King Smurf gets "Down with King Smurf" pinned to the back of his cape after seeing the village being defaced with graffiti saying the same thing.
- Ladder Tipping: The rebel Smurfs attempt to break through King Smurf's defenses by climbing up a ladder, but King Smurf's forces douse the ladder with glue, causing the rebels to get their hands and feet stuck on the ladder long enough to get tipped over.
- Landslide Election: The nameless Smurf who becomes King Smurf wins the election by an overwhelming majority, with his opponent Brainy Smurf only getting two votes (one of them from himself) to prove how unpopular he was with his constant nagging and moralizing.
- Last Villain Stand: With his castle destroyed and most of the Smurfs turned to the rebels' side, King Smurf makes a final stand by surrounding himself with his remaining loyal guards. The rebels cry out, "Surrender!", and King Smurf yells, "SMURF!", so the rebels decide to charge... until Papa Smurf arrives and yells, "STOP!"
- Less Embarrassing Term: King Smurf's outfit isn't yellow, but gold. However, his outfit does sparkle when he first shows it off, so it may simply be factual.
- Medium Awareness: Grouchy during the village-wide Smurf-versus-Smurf battle scene, who doesn't fight but stands there and lists all the various sound effect words that he hates.
- No Name Given: The Smurf who became King Smurf originally wasn't given any name except Smurf.
- Precision F-Strike: Parodied in the original English version of the story, where one Smurf tells Brainy Smurf to "go to smurf" with his orders.
- La Résistance: A resistance group forms against King Smurf's tyranny. At first, they don capes and masks, but they just keep their normal Smurf costumes after making a secret base in the forest.
- Reverse Psychology: When the King and his soldiers are looking for the rebel camp, they encounter a series of signs, saying "The camp is not in this way" "Smurf back before it's too late", "No. You're on the wrong smurf" and "Beware — do not look up!" Naturally, they go that way and look up, and they end up falling into a lake with a sign telling "Told you so.".
- Rightful King Returns: Papa Smurf plays this role in the story.
- Sticky Situation: King Smurf's forces douse the rebel Smurfs' ladder with glue, causing them to stick to the ladder.
- Storming The Village: The La Résistance group does this near the end of the story.
- Too Dumb to Fool: King Smurf tries to fool Dopey Smurf into voting for him, but because Dopey always does the wrong thing when asked for, King Smurf insistantly asks him to vote for Brainy Smurf. Dopey Smurf repeats to himself constantly to vote for Brainy Smurf and when election day comes, Dopey actually votes for Brainy Smurf, being the only one who voted for him apart from Brainy himself.
- Trash the Set: King Smurf's castle is blown to pieces by a bomb near the end of the story.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm
- Word, Schmord!: In the original English translation, Papa Smurf returns and sees his little Smurfs in the final battle with King Smurf ready to let him have it and stops the fight, asking what's going on. They turn and innocently ask if he's got the euphorbium that he left the village for, and he replies "euphorbium smurfphorbium"
