"Predictable Smurfs" is a Season 7 episode of the 1980s Smurfs cartoon show.
Characters
- Clumsy Smurf
- Papa Smurf
- Gargamel
- Scruple
- Azrael
- Grandpa Smurf
- Brainy Smurf
- Flighty Smurf
- Greedy Smurf
- Lazy Smurf
- Hefty Smurf
- Dreamy Smurf
- Smurfette
- Painter Smurf
- Vanity Smurf (Does not speak)
- Harmony Smurf (Does not speak)
- Unnamed Smurfs
Synopsis
Gargamel has set a time trap to capture the Smurfs on their regatta, but the regatta is delayed thanks to Clumsy.
Plot Summary
As the story begins, the Smurfs sing a variation of the Smurf song as they each have their own boat docked by the river, ready for a race that is soon to happen. Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf both come to the riverside, commenting that it wouldn't be the first day of spring without the annual Podboat Regatta, with Grandpa saying that they have been having these races since he was "a young whipper-smurfer". The first boat they examine is Brainy's, which is made from a pumpkin. Brainy seems proud of his efforts despite the fact that his boat is sinking as he reads from his latest book on boating. Clumsy comes racing to the dock, apologizing to Brainy for being late, but Brainy tells Clumsy he's just in time to help his friend bail out water from his boat. Clumsy tries to help by picking up a bucket, but the bucket ends up falling on top of Brainy's head. Brainy tells Clumsy to go help some other Smurf, and Clumsy decides to do what Brainy says, although he ends up causing another bucket to land on Brainy's head.
Clumsy tries to help Flighty set up the sail for his boat but becomes so confused with Flighty's uncertainty of how he wants the sail to be set up that Clumsy ends up getting tangled up in the sail. Clumsy struggles to get himself free, but in the process, he gets catapulted from Flighty's boat, bounces off the sail of Vanity's boat, and ends up landing in Greedy's boat as the village chef is trying out his regatta sailboat cakes. Greedy asks Clumsy to watch over the cakes he's baking while he goes out into the forest to get more smurfberries, telling him to make sure the needle on the heat meter doesn't go into the red. Clumsy says that he will before Greedy takes off. However, Clumsy is distracted by Dreamy's request to untie his sailboat from the dock, which he goes to untie, but as he does, the wind pulls on Dreamy's boat until the rope is taut and the sailboat begins to break. Clumsy hears Greedy's oven whistle as the heat meter goes into the red, and the oven explodes, launching Greedy's batch of sailboat cakes into the air, puncturing Vanity's sail, flying into Lazy's mouth as he sleeps, and even knocking Greedy flat on his butt.
A group of disgruntled Smurfs gather around Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf to voice their complaints about Clumsy ruining things at the dock, but Papa Smurf tells them to calm down, saying that Clumsy is only trying to help. Brainy says with Clumsy's "help", they will never get their boats ready for the Regatta. Grandpa Smurf says that they should be more patient with Clumsy, since he only means well. None of the Smurfs feel reassured by those words, with Dreamy saying that Clumsy will "sink us all" as he pours out water from the brim of his captain's hat.
Meanwhile, in Gargamel's castle, Scruple is doing some cleaning while the evil wizard is looking through his books to find something that will help him destroy the Smurfs. He soon finds a scroll which he says is a lunar calendar which tells him the phases of the moon and the changes of the seasons, and he finds out from it that the following day is the first day of spring (Scruple incorrectly guesses that it's his master's birthday). He combines that knowledge with his study of another opened scroll, a Smurf observation chart, and with those two things makes a prediction that the Smurfs will all be gathered together on the River Smurf where they will take part in a little boat race. Gargamel says that he, Scruple, and Azrael will take part in the events as well, a prediction that leaves Scruple wondering as one of the scrolls rolls back over his nose.
Back on the river, Clumsy is having a hard time getting any Smurfs to want him to help them get ready for the race. Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf notice this as they watch, with Grandpa Smurf suggesting to the frustrated little Smurf that it's time for him to build his own boat. And so Clumsy starts building his own boat, though it looks rather haphazardly built at first. Smurfette and Hefty both offer some help with Clumsy's boat, and Clumsy thanks them, though Smurfette gets splattered with yellow paint, and Hefty ends up being catapulted into a sand bar, landing with his head stuck in the sand.
Soon, the race is about to begin, as most of the Smurfs have gotten their boats ready to sail on the river. Most, that is, except for Clumsy, whom Papa Smurf wonders about. Smurfette realizes that it's almost noon, when Papa Smurf is about to start the race, and Brainy alleviates Smurfette's fears by telling her that Papa Smurf always starts the race on time. Further down the river, though, Gargamel is setting up his Smurf Snatcher, a contraption with a net ready to scoop up Smurfs from the river. Gargamel says that when the sun reaches its zenith, that's when he will start the timer on the Smurf Snatcher. Scruple asks Gargamel what would happen if the Smurfs don't get to their spot on time, and Gargamel reassures his pupil that they will, giving him a bunch of charts that he has used to calculate every possible factor in the Smurfs reaching the evil trio's location on the river.
Meanwhile, Clumsy has his boat ready to race. He throws in a bag of his rocks for good luck when Flighty comes and tells Clumsy that the race is about to start. However, the bag of rocks weighs down Clumsy's boat and causes it to slide down the slope toward the dock, with Clumsy and Flighty both riding in it. At the dock, the Smurfs are getting impatient waiting for Clumsy to get ready, and Papa Smurf decides he has given Clumsy enough time to get ready, and signals for Harmony to play the starting signal. But before that happens, Clumsy's boat knocks both Papa Smurf and Grandpa Smurf off the dock, with Grandpa Smurf landing in Smurfette's boat and Papa Smurf landing on the treadmill part of Hefty's boat.
Soon, the signal is played, and the Smurfs are off racing against each other on the river. Further down the river, Gargamel hears the sound that signals to him that the Smurfs have started their race, and so he starts the timer of his Smurf Snatcher. Clumsy is surprised to find that he and Flighty are ahead of the others, but Flighty is seeing that they are also sinking, and suggesting that they should get rid of the bag of rocks that is weighing them down. Meanwhile, Hefty and Papa Smurf are both surprised at seeing Clumsy being ahead of the other boats, with Papa Smurf saying that no one could have predicted that. Painter, who is busy painting a picture on the sail of his boat, comments that watching Clumsy sailing on his boat is making him seasick. Indeed, Clumsy's boat is weaving this way and that on the river's surface, with Flighty paying more attention to deciding which rock he's going to throw overboard than to where they're going. Soon, Clumsy's boat leaps over a rock that they bump into, causing a line to be thrown from the boat until it latches onto a nearby log and drags it along.
Further down the river, Scruple notices that the timer's sandglass is nearly empty, and that the Smurfs have not yet reached their spot. Gargamel quiets down his apprentice, saying that the Smurfs will reach their spot soon. But as Clumsy's boat continues to sail down the river, the log that his boat drags along causes the Smurfs to stall as none of their boats are able to get past him, with Brainy complaining about Clumsy's unreliability. Gargamel notices that his Smurf Snatcher is starting to activate, and so he tries to halt its process as none of the Smurfs have reached their spot yet, but Gargamel ends up being catapulted by the machine right into the net that he had set up for the Smurfs. Soon, as the Smurfs pass around a bend in the river, the log that Clumsy's boat drags along gets caught by a rock, causing Clumsy not only to lose his bag of rocks, but also his lead as the other Smurfs' boats ends up passing him. Most of the Smurfs end up passing right underneath the evil wizard as he watches helplessly caught in his own trap and his pupil laughs at his master's misfortune.
Meanwhile, Clumsy and Flighty both work together to get themselves unstuck from the rock that the log they're dragging along has been stuck behind. Soon, as the two Smurfs pull with all their might, the log jumps over the rock, and Clumsy's boat is back to sailing in the race. They pass by Gargamel after he falls into the river when Scruple undoes the knot that ties the net to the rest of the Smurf Snatcher, but as Gargamel gloats about his prediction being right on the nose, he gets hit in the back of the head by the log Clumsy's boat is dragging along.
Soon, Clumsy's boat reaches the end of the race, and the Smurfs give three cheers to Clumsy when he and Flighty arrive. Clumsy is bewildered by why the Smurfs are cheering for him since he came in last and ended up losing his rock collection, not to mention that they almost got caught by Gargamel. Grandpa Smurf says it's because of Clumsy that the race was delayed long enough so that they didn't get caught by Gargamel. Brainy then praises his friend Clumsy for his being unreliable, which makes Clumsy happy until he wonders who won the Regatta. It turns out that Lazy, who was sleeping in the hammock of his boat and propelling his sail with his snores, was the one who won the race. Papa Smurf then gives Clumsy the Regatta trophy by request of Lazy, who says if it weren't for Clumsy, he would have been sleeping in Gargamel's cooking pot. Clumsy is pleased to receive the trophy and begins to tell Brainy that from now on he will be a more reliable Smurf, but a rope catches around his leg and causes him to fall into the river, splashing water into Brainy's face. Papa Smurf laughs, saying that the one reliable thing they can count on with Clumsy is that he will always be Clumsy.
Goofs
- When Clumsy's boat returned to the dock where the regatta started and Clumsy asks Flighty why the other Smurfs are cheering them, Flighty's tail is white instead of blue.
Videos
