Small-Minded Smurfs (The Smurfs, 1981)

"Small-Minded Smurfs (The Smurfs, 1981)"
More like "Small-Minded Stereotypes".
Part of Season: 9 Episode Number: 9a Air Date: November 18, 1989 Writer: Glenn Leopold Sean Catherine Derek Ernie Contreras Reed Robbins Director: Fred Kron Previous episode: Painter's Eggcellent Adventure (Broadcast order) Gnoman Holiday (Production order) Next episode: "Bananas Over Hefty" Sky-high Surprise"

Small-Minded Smurfs is the first half of the ninth episode in Season 9 of The Smurfs. It aired on November 18, 1989 on NBC.

Summary

Jungle man shrinks heads of the Smurfs, so Clumsy and his new friend monkey Chimpy must find the antidote.

Why it Sucks

1. Unlike most episodes in this Season, this episode had a good plot. Unfortunately, it suffers from mildly racist South American-like stereotypes, particularly Bongo.
2. Depending on your view, the small Smurf heads look pretty messed up.
3. A dumb gag in the beginning where Bongo shrinks a couple of men and the men hit each other until they're knocked out.
4. Brainy blames Clumsy for knocking them into the mud, even though that wasn't his fault, as he landed on a dinosaur and he was knocked away by it's tail.
5. Jokey, Grouchy, Baby, Snappy, Sassette and Grandpa Smurf are all nowhere to be seen in the episode, which is a problem in multiple episodes with specific Smurfs.
6. Papa Smurf said that Smurfs should be patient with each other, which undermines the fact that they act like humans to each other for things that aren't really a big deal, it also doesn't help that Papa Smurf sometimes does next-to-nothing whenever the Smurfs does something humans would do. This also makes him a hypocrite as he physically harms Brainy in "Cave Smurfs" and "Papa Loses His Patience".
7. Clumsy gets annoyed with Brainy Smurf like the others, knowing that his friendship with Brainy is more distant than usual.
   • This used to happen occasionally in the earlier seasons, such as "Soup A La Smurf", "Smurf Me No Flowers" and "The Good, The Bad and the Smurfy".
8. Chimpy's personality is nothing more than an expy of Clumsy Smurf's. The same goes for his monkey family, also a parody of the Smurfs.
9. The other Smurfs were reduced to minor roles until the end of the episode.
10. Bad ending: Brainy Smurf was rescued by the Smurfs, but they revert him back to a small-minded Smurf and he remains that way as the episode irises out, going so far as to quoting from an Abbott and Costello bit.
    • It also comes across as the other Smurfs hating Brainy even more than in previous seasons. In the original comics, Brainy Smurf is hated for very little reason.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Good animation and voice acting as usual.
2. Most of the Smurfs (including Brainy) were still great in the episode (except for the ending). The same goes for Chimpy, despite being a copy of Clumsy.

Comments

Loading comments...