Return to Recap: The Smurfs (1981).
Can a leopard change its spots? Or is a bad animal always a bad animal, even if it temporarily shows its good side?
That's the scary few moments Natural Smurf is faced with when he treats Azrael for a foot wound, only for the cat to (predictably) turn on him, and that not every creature is worthy of the title "All Creatures Great and Smurf."
The Smurfs have an unlikely, unwitting ally in their corner to thank for saving their hides: A silver-fanged growler, a vicious wolf-like creature that Gargamel is hoping to use to hunt down and kill Smurfs. Gargamel obtains the animal from the wild, hoping to train it in his latest effort to defeat the Smurfs, but when he tries — nicely and not-so-nicely — to get Azrael to become friends with the growler, all the cat does is run away in terror. Gargamel also has problems controlling the growler, as the growler continuously shows more interest in cats than he does Smurfs; he also turns (more than once) on his new master as he wants to be out in the wild rather than take verbal abuse from the old wizard.
Meantime, Azrael decides he needs to prove his own worth and find a few Smurfs, and the perfect place is a Smurfberry bush, but instead he gets his leg caught in one of Gargamel's iron traps. Natural finds Azrael yowling in pain and, even though they are enemies, he has an obligation to nurse his broken leg back to health.
Azrael is brought to the Smurf village for rehabilitation, and seems to be bonding with the Smurfs ... until he hears Gargamel calling for him. That breaks Azrael out of his peaceful state of mind, and he immediately pounces on Nat. Just as he is about to use his one good paw to claw the Smurf apart and seriously injure, if not kill him ... Azrael sees the growler.
The Smurfs take cover, sure that the growler will tear all of them apart. But as it turns out, the growler is interested ... way more in Azrael. The cat, limping on its injured paw, manages to flee, as Gargamel is trying in vain to get the growler to whoa.
This episode provides examples of
- Androcles' Lion: What Nat Smurf mistakes Azrael not striking while he had the chance to do so, mainly because Azrael feared for his life at the coming presence of Gargamel's silver-fanged growler.
- Beware of Vicious Dog: Azrael heeds this advice to the hilt, knowing that the growler, a vicious wolf-like creature, could pose a very real threat to his life.
- The Farmer and the Viper: What the story actually is and would have turned out to be if it weren't for the silver-fanged growler.
