Crying Smurfs (The Smurfs, 1981)

"Crying Smurfs (The Smurfs, 1981)"
"The City of Frownsville" "Munchy's Sinking Feeling" & "Dark Dawn": Smurfs edition!
Part of Season: 6 Episode Number: 33a Air Date: November 1, 1986 Writer: Story by: Mark Seidenberg; Previous episode: "Greedy Goes On Strike" Next episode: "Future Smurfed"

"Crying Smurfs" is the 33rd episode in season 6 of The Smurfs. It originally aired November 1, 1986 on NBC.

Summary

Papa's enhancement potion accidentally drips on an onion and this makes all the Smurfs cry.

Why It Wept

1. Weepy Smurf is one of the worst characters in the series, even worse than Brainy and Nosey Smurf. His only character trait is by constantly weeping and hardly ever stops, even though he feels sorry for everything. His voice actress, Mona Marshall, doesn't help.
   • Thankfully, he was reduced to a minor role in his next few appearances and then disappeared altogether.
2. The strong smell potion in the onions causes all of the other Smurfs to cry in the middle of the episode. The only Smurfs not affected are Papa Smurf, Hefty and Weepy.
3. Brainy Smurf is absent for the entire episode, which feels off, especially since he's one of the important characters. Also, Grandpa, Baby, Puppy, The Smurflings and Scruple don't appear anywhere in the episode either.
4. A continuity error where Hefty has cried before; a few examples being "Smurf Me No Flowers", "Clumsy Luck", "Hefty and the Wheelsmurfer", "The Abominable Snowbeast" and "Smurfquest". In this episode, he claims to have never cried before.
5. Animation Error: Throughout the entire episode, Hefty's tattoo is seen on both arms.
6. At one point, the Smurfs cry inside of the well of all places, but there could have been any other place to cry.
   • Their tears have caused the village well to flood the village, which could've resulted the others to drown.
7. Cringeworthy and laughable dialogue such as, "Your lab was blown to smurfereens" and "I'd weep for joy".
8. The idea of miserable Smurfs in the village is a good concept, but suffered from poor execution. An episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog was better executed than this.
9. Even though a moral is about crying to express sadness and/or misery, the crying sounds of the Smurfs are still cringeworthy to listen to.
10. The syndicated version had a few scenes cut, such as Hefty encountering Weepy and Poet reciting a poem about the loss of happiness.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Good animation and voice acting, with the sole exception of Weepy Smurf.
2. The scene where Gargamel is so affected by Weepy's crying from feeling sorry for the wizard that he starts to cry as well, over the fact that no one respects him - including his fellow wizards, as well as his mother is generally sad and is the only moment where we sympathize with a character.
3. Poet's poem is still pleasing to listen to. Unfortunately, that part was removed in the syndicated version.

Trivia

• This was Weepy Smurf's only major appearance on the show. In his next few appearances, he was reduced to a minor role.
• This episode is considered one of the worst episodes of The Smurfs, mainly due to Weepy Smurf's annoying voice as mentioned above.

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