A Mere Truffle (The Smurfs, 1981)

A Mere Truffle (The Smurfs, 1981)
Next time, if you want to do this kind of story, does not make the pacing as slow as a turtle!
Series: The Smurfs (1981) Part of Season: 2 Episode Number: 42 Air Date: November 27, 1982 Previous episode: "The Good, The Bad, And The Smurfy" Next episode: "The Stuff Dreams Are Smurfed Of"

"A Mere Truffle" is an episode of Season 2 of the 1980s Smurfs cartoon show.

Synopsis

When leading the other Smurfs to a truffle hunt, Tracker loses his memory and wanders away while the others are captured by the Truffle Trolls.

Why It Sucks

1. For starter, much like "Chlorhydris' Lost Love", the pacing is incredibly slow, especially at the first half of the episode, where it had barely anything that happen aside from Azrael trying to capture Tracker Smurf, and thus because of this, this episode is very hard to sit though.
2. It is also a bit of a torture episode for the Smurfs themself because Tracker did lose his memories, and they are all captured aside from some of the other Smurfs such as Brave Smurf or Papa Smurf.
3. Even the beginning of the episode is not that good to watch because it is incredibly slow and nothing more than pure fillers happen, which aren't even fun to look at.
4. The Smurfs themself, for most of them, they are unlikable since all they want is to get the truffles, and they even fight in the beginning because Tracker had only one that rest because of Azrael, who did almost capture him.
   • Not to mention that in one part of the episode, they kicked him out just because he said that he will find new truffles, when in reality it wasn't even his fault if he did lose his memories, and it was mostly because of the Smurfs themself.
5. The interruption of Papa Smurf experiments happen three times in the episode, which get old fast. Usually, one time is more than enough and this was abused for an experiment as a running gag. However, it ends up becoming repetitive. In a few later episodes, it was only used once.
6. This episode use the word truffle constantly in this episode as a poor attempt for a running gag , nobody stop talking about it until the end.
   • At one point, Smurfette and Greedy love truffles so much that they can't stop talking about how great they are.
7. "The Thing With No Name" is a very laughable name.
8. Papa Smurf, while still likable as always, makes the nonsensical choice of splitting the one truffle that Tracker got into tiny bits and pieces.
   • Besides, the Smurfs complained about having to share one piece of food. What they didn't know is Azrael tore a hole in the bag, explaining the loss on most of his truffles (which Tracker experienced himself).
9. Poor Tracker Smurf lost his memory in the middle of the episode and never got it back until the end of the episode. Had he regained his memory sooner, he would've helped save his friends from being imprisoned by the Evil Pigs and terrorized by the "Thing With No Name".
10. Poet and Harmony downright throw Grouchy out of the village when he say that he hate truffles, implying that the Smurfs force one another to like what they like.
11. Some poor gags, such as "How dare you eat you take our truffles, which we don't even eat!"
    • Also, the scenes where the Smurfs keep talking and singing about truffles in the beginning is somewhat tiresome and repetitive.
12. The Town With No Name tentacles turned Brainy upside down and shock him, revealing that he had truffles stashed away personality in his pocket, which is rather greedy of him.
    • It would have made more sense if Greedy was the one stashing the truffles for himself. Unfortunately, the writers at H-B thought it was a good idea at the time to use the bespectacled Smurf as the one who does bad things all the time.
13. The trolls are pretty bland villains who only kidnap the Smurfs because they don't want to get their truffles stolen, when the Smurfs didn't wanted to Steal them in the first place.
    • And also, they do treat the Smurfs like trash, and doesn't even try to ask if they're thief before, even though they are mean to be the villains of the story.
    • In addition their ways to trying to capture the Smurfs aren't even that great since all of them failed, and they don't use many gadgets to trying to capture them, in fact even Gargamel manage to capture them sometime, and the latter had actual gadgets to capture them.
    • Granted, this show don't really had the best villains (except Gargamel), but here they are just bland and doesn't even contribute much to the show (see WIS#20).
14. Azrael appear in this episode but he serve almost no purpose about this episode story except for making Tracker truffles fall, and because of that, he get scold by the Smurfs for no reasons.
15. Plot Hole: If Tracker got almost hit by Azrael, why does instead of saying that Azrael chased him he don't explain anything ? This could have probably saved him from being scold on.
16. Poor Ending: While the Smurfs saved themself, Tracker said that he could get them new truffles, but the Smurfs are angry after him and kick him off, which is a poor way to end this episode due to Tracker suffering in this episode.
    • All the other Smurfs were the ones who wanted to learn from Tracker about searching for truffles and their recklessness was the cause of losing Tracker's memory. At the end of the episode, they never felt bad about giving Tracker a concussion and instead return to work on the village dam, as if "nothing happened".
    • And another thing, Tracker Smurf going on and on about truffles at the end was meant to be a negative trait, but it felt rather forced. It was added in for the sake of comedy.
17. Poor Tracker Smurf lost his memory in the middle of the episode and never got it back until the end of the episode. Had he regained his memory sooner, he would've helped save his friends from being imprisoned by the Evil Pigs and terrorized by the "Thing With No Name".
18. This episode predates the infamous Teen Titans Go! episode "Waffles" by 32 years, though the plot of this episode is much worse than here.
19. Poor Tracker Smurf lost his memory in the middle of the episode and never got it back until the end of the episode. Had he regained his memory sooner, he would've helped save his friends from being imprisoned by the Evil Pigs and terrorized by the "Thing With No Name".
20. This episode is overall a big filler since not anything from this episode got mentionned and the Trolls villains does not appear after this episode.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Some of the Smurfs, such as Papa Smurf, Tracker and Smurfette are likable characters and are not angry to Tracker for anything unlike the other Smurfs.
2. The Trolls villains still had a good design, even if now they look similar to Ganon from the early Zelda games (despite this episode releasing in 1982, 4 years before the first Zelda).
3. The episode plot might have worked if it wasn't for the torture that the Smurfs received.
4. Good animation and voice acting as always.
5. Harmony sing really well in this episode, which unfortunately will became a continuity error in later seasons.

Trivia

• Alongside "The Box of Dirty Tricks", this episode is the one of the few to have terrible story structure and characterization for the sake of weak jokes and gags. While not as worse as "The Lost City of Yore", it was made at a time where Moral Guardians wanted the studio behind the series to play it safe and you can tell by the slightest of restrictions.

Comments

Loading comments...