An Animated Adaptation of The Smurfs comic book story "The Black Smurfs" (original French title Les Schtroumpfs Noirs), with the Black Smurfs changed to purple due to Executive Meddling .
In the story, Papa Smurf has all his little Smurfs go work on the bridge, and all his little Smurfs comply...that is, except for Lazy, who just wants to take it easy and sleep. Papa Smurf will not have Lazy slacking off and sends him out into the forest to chop wood. As he goes to cut down a tree, Lazy is pestered and bitten by a purple fly, which turns him into a Purple Smurf that hops around the forest and goes "Gnap!" When Papa Smurf doesn't see Lazy return, he sends Brainy to go find him, and when Brainy finds him, he alerts Papa Smurf to the fact that Lazy has been turned into a Purple Smurf.
Soon the other Smurfs spot Lazy and capture him, tying him up and bringing him to his house while Papa Smurf tries to figure out what the cure was for the last case of the Purple Smurfs that happened when he was barely 100 years old. But Lazy doesn't stay captive for long — he bites Hefty's tail and turns him into a Purple Smurf. Papa Smurf now has to work on a cure before the rest of the village is infected. During the two tests that he does on the Purple Smurfs that he has his little Smurfs captured, though, Papa Smurf ends up causing more of the Smurfs to be infected.
Finally, after only two tests, Papa Smurf changes tactics: he has his little Smurfs go into the forest to capture the purple fly responsible for the Purple Smurf disease. He goes with them and single-handedly manages to capture the purple fly with a butterfly net, though it does require a few Smurfs to stop Papa Smurf from being dragged along by the fly. In his laboratory, Papa Smurf feeds the purple fly a tuberose blossom, and sees that the fly sniffs the flower, sneezes, and turns blue, realizing that tuberose pollen is the cure for the disease.
While the other Smurfs go and collect as much tuberose as they can, Hefty as a Purple Smurf sneaks into the village and uses blue paint to disguise himself as a normal Smurf so he could infect the other Smurfs without them noticing. Soon Smurfette notices that the Purple Smurfs are coming in droves toward the village, and so Papa Smurf has the remnant of his little Smurfs armed with bellows filled with tuberose pollen to spray at the Purple Smurfs. Unfortunately, this only slows down their approach as the Purple Smurfs that get turned back to blue are reinfected by other Purple Smurfs. Eventually Papa Smurf is the only normal Smurf left and is now without pollen, so he goes to his laboratory to get more, only to run into Hefty who bites Papa Smurf in the tail and turns him into a Purple Smurf.
But just as Papa Smurf becomes the last Smurf to be infected with the disease, the fire in his laboratory causes an explosion which releases a cloud of tuberose pollen that covers the whole village, turning all the Purple Smurfs back to normal. Papa Smurf sees this and is glad that all his little Smurfs are back to normal again. As the story closes, Jokey plays a joke on the other Smurfs by pretending that he is still a Purple Smurf, which only earns him a boot in the rear.
Tropes associated with this episode include
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The Purple Smurfs were originally black in the comic books. The dye job even extended itself to the English translation of the original comic book story, and earlier to a one-page gag where Jokey disguised himself as a Black Smurf to play a prank on his fellow Smurfs.
- Adaptation Expansion: Smurfette became part of the cartoon episode adaptation.
- Adapted Out: The Smurf who constantly brought back a butterfly instead of the purple fly in the original comic book story was removed, since the character that he became in the cartoon show, Clumsy, was already bitten by a Purple Smurf.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Or in this case, Papa Smurf became a Purple Smurf.
- Butt Biter: The purple fly and the Purple Smurfs. However, unlike the original story, the actual butt-biting is never shown.
- Deus ex Machina: The jar that contained something explosive which the fire heated up, making Papa Smurf's lab explode and unleash a giant cloud of tuberose pollen.
- Dude, Not Funny!: When all the Smurfs have been cured of their illness, they hear another Smurf's voice yelling "Gnap! Gnap!". Expecting an uncured Purple Smurf, Papa Smurf and some of his fellow Smurfs run towards the voice... only to find out that Jokey Smurf had just pranked them. The other Smurfs are not amused, and boot him off the village as a result.
- Getting the Boot: Jokey at the end.
- Get Out!: Papa Smurf to his little Smurfs when he sees the Purple Smurf disease spreading.
- Got Volunteered: Papa Smurf sees that his little Smurfs are reluctant to go out into the woods to capture a Purple Smurf after what had happened the first time, so he chooses three volunteers to get him one.
- The Mole: Hefty as a Purple Smurf uses blue paint to disguise himself as a normal Smurf so he could infect other normal Smurfs without being noticed. A Purple Smurf ends up mistaking him for a true normal Smurf and bites his tail.
- Named by the Adaptation: With the exception of Papa Smurf, Brainy, and Jokey, all the Smurfs present in the original story are now given actual names.
- Patient Zero: In the cartoon episode, Lazy was the first to be infected with the Purple Smurf disease. In the original comic books, the Smurf that would become known as Grouchy was the first, which would account for his grouchy behavior.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The Purple Smurfs are equated to being like zombies with an infectious, yet thankfully reversible, condition.
