The Lost City of Yore (The Smurfs, 1981)

"The Lost City of Yore (The Smurfs, 1981)"
More like "The Unsympathetic City of Torture".
Series: The Smurfs (1981) Part of Season: 2 Episode Number: 14 (broadcast order) 219 (production order) Air Date: October 16, 1982 Previous episode: "Johan's Army" Next episode: "The Magic Fountain"

"The Lost City of Yore" is a Season 2 episode of The Smurfs. It originally aired October 16, 1982 on NBC, with the writers of the episode remaining uncredited.

Summary

Brainy, Clumsy and Nosey were captured by two witches to find the lost city of Yore, with Gargamel and Azrael tagging along.

Why it Sucks

1. The writing of this episode is a complete mess. The story elements of a Smurf being too curious for his own good and a forbidden city with a dangerous scepter isn't executed well, especially with Gargamel and Azrael pursuing the Smurfs in this episode.
   • Speaking of Gargamel and Azrael, they are shoehorned into the plot for no reason other than to capture and/or get rid of the Smurfs.
2. The plot of finding the lost city doesn't start until 4 minutes into the episode. For story editing reasons, it would've been better if the episode started with the witches in a lake with sticks instead of Smurfette writing in her diary.
3. Not only is Nosey constantly curious, all the other Smurfs constantly blame him for everything that goes wrong. He reads in Smurfette's diary, destroyed Greedy's cooking and ruined Papa Smurf's super secret experiment. The other Smurfs were acting like humans to him, without any sympathy whatsoever, even though the Smurfs are supposed to be kindhearted and forgiving, especially with each other.
   • Ironically, the episodes prior had the other Smurfs snoop their noses into other's businesses, showing how hypocritical they are at times.
4. A few of the dialogue is also repetitive. Like Nosey Smurf asking, "What's wrong with being curious?" and saying "I didn't mean to." two times each in the same episode.
5. Also, this episode has the preachiness of morals to the extreme. The lesson about curiosity is everywhere in this episode, even when most of the Smurfs appear on screen with Nosey.
6. The backgrounds look different compared to the stuff from Hanna-Barbera in-house.
7. Nosey Smurf and the witches both have one-note personalities in this episode.
   • Even worse, the voice of Nosey Smurf sounds too similar to Frank Nelson's other roles at Hanna-Barbera.
8. Some of the scenes are drawn and/or animated poorly, like the Smurfs having separate eyes, stiff and rigid movements, etc.
9. The witches at the end of the episode shoot Gargamel and Azrael with bubbles instead of electricity, which is pretty boring.
10. Like most episodes of Season 2, the writers were left uncredited.
11. Even though Papa Smurf is still likeable, he should have explained better about curiosity by comparing the other Smurfs' behaviors from previous episodes to Nosey's. Simply saying "Curiousity is a good thing" is NOT enough.
12. Bad Ending: Smurfette blames Nosey for getting his curiosity into this mess, despite the fact that they're safe. Brainy gives out a lesson by saying, "Curiosity killed the cat". Papa corrects him by saying that curiosity is a good thing, which leads to the intellectual explaining a lecture on curiosity. The others throw Brainy out of sight, making him curious of why they would do that. Which is not a good way to end the episode.

Reedeming Qualities

1. The voice acting is still good.
2. Thankfully, this plot was never brought up again.
3. At least the animation is mostly new, hardly having any recycled material.
4. Papa Smurf is still likeable for most of the episode.
5. Gargamel and Azrael are fairly likeable villains, despite being shoehorned into the plot.
6. The backstory about the wizard of Yore's dangerous scepter reducing him to dust was pretty interesting.

Trivia

• One of the earliest episodes to have a "random events" plot. The same thing happened to the last Christmas special, "'Tis the Season to Be Smurfy".

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