The Smurfs/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement: A lot of people know the Smurfs. The original comic book series, Johan and Peewit? Not so much.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: King Smurf doesn't die, but when all the blame on the disaster that befallen the village falls on him, he just goes to his home and returns with a broom and a bucket, to begin repairing all the damage he did. Then you feel sorry for him and the other Smurfs too, so they decide to help him to repair the village
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Smurfs, with how their society works, their lookalike costumes, and leader with a red hat could be seen as a symbol of Communism. In turn Gargamel could be seen as a symbol of Capitalism (especially considering initially he wanted to capture a Smurf for a potion to make some gold). See also Wild Mass Guessing.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: In the Animated Adaptation, and the books since The Baby Smurf, Gargamel begins appearing in every story, even if his presence is unnecessary for the plot, which several times results in BLAMs.
  • Dork Age: from "The Baby Smurf" to "The Strange Awakening of Lazy Smurf" the slapstick and social parody were toned down (in fact, it begins earlier, with the secondary stories of the album "The Smurfic Games"). "The Finance Smurf", the last album made before Peyo's death, and those that follow it, recover these parts that made the book successful.
  • Epileptic Trees: A disturbing amount of them contradict the show's continuity (just look at the conspiracy theories surrounding Smurfette).
  • Hollywood Homely: Smurfette started off as this before her magical makeover.
  • Incest Yay Shipping: Papa Smurf and Smurfette get constantly shipped together.
    • But Smurfette is a creation of Gargamel, therefore, unlike the other Smurfs, she doesn't have any family connection with Papa Smurf.
      • Not biological incest, but more on the lines of like Brady Bunch sibling incest. Papa Smurf still bears the title of his name, so the trope still fits.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: It's a running meme that the Smurfs are communists, and in 2011, there was a children's movie accused of being communist propaganda... except that it was The Muppets, not The Smurfs.
  • Lighter and Softer: No like there's so much to do, but the cartoon certainly is compaired to the comic book. For instance, in the cartoon the Smurfs never broke out into brawls between each other and never used Symbol Swearing.
  • Hollywood Homely: Smurfette started out as this. Papa Smurf fixed her up, of course.
    • Well, she looked just like a male Smurf with long hair and a dress. In the original comic book, the Smurfs decide to reinforce her insecurities because they found her annoying.
  • Moral Event Horizon: King Smurf is thought by the Smurfs to have crossed it when he decided to throw Jokey Smurf into jail after receiving Jokey's explosive present.
  • More Popular Spinoff: to Johan and Peewit.
  • Motive Decay: Gargamel originally wanted to get the Smurfs so he could use them in a potion to make the Philosopher's Stone. But as he faced defeat after defeat, he came to personally despise the Smurfs so much he decided to make them suffer or cause them humiliation.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Smurfs had their share of creepy adventures. Like The Black Smurfs, where the Smurfs were being turned into evil black versions of themselves that could say nothing but "G'nap!", and bit each other on the tail to spread the infection. Or the animated Christmas Special where they rescue two children and Gargamel from an evil wizard, who conjures a wall of fire around himself, the kids, and the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, only to fade away screaming in defeated despair under the Smurfs' repeated singing of a sappy holiday song.
    • Worse was the ending of The Black Smurfs. Papa Smurf had been bitten. The only reason anyone was cured was cartoon physics, with the fire spreading the antidote as a gas rather than diluting and burning it on the ground. Otherwise they'd all still be that way.
    • There's also the episode All Work and No Smurf, in which overworked Smurfs begin to transform into various inanimate objects. Talk about And I Must Scream.
      • Actually they still had mouths and spoke, which arguably makes it worse.
    • And then the episode where Brainy Smurf gets turned into a monstrous Werewolf-Smurf creature from a scratch from a magical plant.
    • Whatever you do, don't say "Kaplowey"! It'll make whatever you're pointing at vanish. People included. (At the end, using the word on the magic scroll that empowers it reverses the effect and things begin reappearing...but a) who knows what dangerous things it might have been used on? and b) sooner or later the scroll will reappear too!.
  • Recycled Script: The Smurf Menace (comic book) begins with the Smurfs being in conflict and fighting each other, so Papa Smurf decides to use his magic to bring an enemy towards them, so that they unite each other and become peaceful again. Just like in Smurf VS. Smurf.
  • Rule 34: Smurfette. 'Nuff said.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: Happens a lot of times to Brainy Smurf, even though he's supposed to be a Know-Nothing Know-It-All.
  • Unfortunate Implications:
    • The first ever Smurf story was "The Black Smurfs", and the idea of evil black-skinned Smurfs has become quite... politically incorrect. The animated adaptation made them purple.
    • When Smurfette was evil, she had black hair and a big nose just like the other Smurfs have. When she was turned good, she became a blonde, her nose got smaller.
      • She was never evil to begin with in the original comic, but she was much more of a ditz when black-haired.
    • Some nerd annoys you with his talk? Why, extreme violence to shut him up is apparently completely okay!
    • In the movie, Odile and her mother are both Latina. Odile is the president of a cosmetics company. Both Odile and her mother are obsessed with beauty, fashion, and youth. Vain Latina stereotype, anyone?
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: Maybe it's only this troper, but he finds Brainy Smurf sympathetic because (at least in the comics) despite his constant nagging, he often has a point and is victim to brutal physical violence when the other Smurfs are annoyed... without them getting any chastizement for this, even though the Smurfs are supposed to take pride into being more peaceful than humans!
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political?: The Smurfs (whose society can somehow be described as an "utopia") have been mistaken for a metaphor:
    • of a Communist society. Think about it. Never do you see one "Consumer Smurf" buying from a "Shopkeeper Smurf", the fruits of the community's labor is divided evenly amongst the community. Each Smurf has their own job, and any attempt at trying a different job typically ends in disaster. Gargamel comes off as a metaphor for capitalism, wanting to make money no matter the cost or what he destroyes in the process. And topping it off, their leader wears red.
      • Also noting that the leader looks like Karl Marx.
    • of the KKK. A hundred critters in pointy white hats living in what amounts to a secluded commune led by a wizard with a pointy red hat. Hmm. It should of course be noted that it was made by a Belgian, and the KKK esoteric imagery is mostly unknown in Europe.
    • The Smurfs are actually a patriarchal conservative utopia. They live in a static and autarchic rural agrarian system, away from evil technological and social progress. They are ruled by a wise, benevolent, kind but stern patriarch who lays down the law and without whom anarchy and chaos engulf the village.
    • There have been two explicitly political issues. One is "King Smurf" (The Dutch translation even called him the Smurführer). The other one, "Smurf versus Smurf", is a satire of Belgium's linguistic division.
    • Some can see Gargamel as the stereotypical image of Jews in Middle ages (despite having a normal nose, no beard, and no accent) and later on: short (Gargamel actually isn't short, he seems to be because he's) slouchy, with back-hair and big curved nose. He is chasing after the innocent Smurfs and he wants to either make gold out of them, or eat them (cartoon only for this one). In addition, the story of Smurfette: She was initially an evil creation of Gargamel and was black-haired with a big nose. After her transformation into Smurfette, she has blond hair and blue eyes, and she is a kind and good-hearted woman. In one episode Gargamel kidnapped her and put a spell on her so she turned evil again, and she resumed her black-haired appearance. When she turned good again, she also resumed her blond hair again. All of of this can be explained by very very older literary tropes like Uglyness Equals Villainy and Dark Is Evil, among others. Gargamel is just your usual sorcerer and it requires much effort to see him as a Jew.
    • Maybe not "much" effort to see him that way, but a little. After all, not only does he have the stereotypical hooked nose and an obsession with gold but his cat has a Hebrew name. However, any anti-Semitic tropes in the Smurfs can be seen as less inspired by National Socialism and more inspired by the fact that Jews have been scapegoats & strawmen throughout much of their history.
      • In the movie he does not even have a hook nose. Plus he has straight hair rather than the stereotypical Jewish curly hair. So maybe they were either being very sensitive and tried very hard to not show the possible stereotypes, or they truly are not seeing this possible unfortunate implication at all.
      • Fundies put the "fun" in fundies by claiming that the principal Smurfs represent the seven cardinal sins while Papa Smurf represents the devil and that Gargamel is a Catholic priest; thing is, his clothes do look like those of a priest...
        • Then again, the clothing color scheme of the Smurfs does seem to suggest Papa Smurf being the high priest/kinsman redeemer (red) who keeps his little Smurfs free and pure from sin (white).

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