A Mere Truffle (The Smurfs, 1981)

A Mere Truffle is the seventh episode in the second season of The Smurfs (1981).

Summary
The Smurfs love truffles, but the truffles belong to the Trolls who live next to Truffletroll Mountain and the lake where the Thing with No Name lurks.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) This episode uses the word of "truffles" constantly in this episode as a poor attempt for a running gag. Nobody stops talking about it until the end.
 * 2) * At one point, Smurfette and Greedy love truffles so much that they can't stop talking about how great they are.
 * 3) Poet and Harmony downright throw Grouchy out of the village when he says he hates truffles, implying that the Smurfs force one another to like what they like.
 * 4) * Honestly, this was done to please Moral Guardians in the 1980s (due to its groupthink vibe). Nowadays, this gag comes off as ridiculous and childish.
 * 5) The Smurfs go crazy over the one Truffle that Tracker brought home. The Smurfs would go crazy over wooing Smurfette or be affected by a spell from Chlorhydris, but never over a single piece of food.
 * 6) The interruption of Papa's experiments happens three times in the same episode. Usually, one time is more than enough and this was abused for an experiment as a running gag. However, it ends up becoming repetitive. In a few later episodes, it was only used once.
 * 7) Papa Smurf, while likeable as always, makes the nonsensical choice of splitting the one Truffle that Tracker got into tiny bits and pieces. What he could have done was tell the Smurfs to stick with sarsaparilla leaves and smurfberries until then, since they had a food pantry.
 * 8) * Besides, the Smurfs complained about having to share one piece of food. What they didn't know is Azrael tore a hole in the bag, explaining the loss on most of his truffles (which Tracker experienced himself).
 * 9) "The Thing with No Name" is a very laughable name. It would've had a more serious name, if the studio had more time to change it.
 * 10) Some poor jokes, such as the quote "How dare you take our truffles, which we don't even eat!"
 * 11) * Also, the scenes where the Smurfs keep talking and singing about truffles in the beginning is somewhat tiresome and repetitive.
 * 12) The Thing with No Name's tentacles turned Brainy upside down and shook him, revealing that he had truffles stashed away personally in his pockets, which is rather greedy of him.
 * 13) * It would have made more sense if Greedy was the one stashing the truffles for himself. Unfortunately, the writers at H-B thought it was a good idea at the time to use the bespectacled Smurf as the one who does bad things all the time.
 * 14) Bad Ending: While Tracker's memory suddenly returns, he tells his fellow Smurfs that they must be off to collect truffles, going on and on about how wonderful truffles are when he gets catapulted out of the village, leaving him to wonder what they have against truffles. Not only are the Smurfs mean-spirited, but are also hypocritical of what they like.
 * 15) * All the other Smurfs were the ones who wanted to learn from Tracker about searching for truffles and their recklessness was the cause of losing Tracker's memory. At the end of the episode, they never felt bad about giving Tracker a concussion and instead return to work on the village dam, as if "nothing happened".
 * 16) * And another thing, Tracker Smurf going on and on about truffles at the end was meant to be a negative trait, but it felt rather forced. It was added in for the sake of comedy.
 * 17) This episode predates the infamous Teen Titans Go! episode "Waffles" by 32 years, though the plot of this episode is much worse than here.
 * 18) Poor Tracker Smurf lost his memory in the middle of the episode and never got it back until the end of the episode. Had he regained his memory sooner, he would've helped save his friends from being imprisoned by the Evil Pigs and terrorized by the "Thing With No Name".

Good Qualities

 * 1) Good animation and voice acting as usual.
 * 2) Harmony sings very well in this episode, which unfortunately became a continuity error in later seasons.
 * 3) Both Tracker Smurf and Papa Smurf remain likeable in this episode.

Reception

 * It holds a rating of 7/10 on IMDB.

Trivia

 * Alongside "The Box of Dirty Tricks", this episode is the one of the few to have terrible story structure and characterization for the sake of weak jokes and gags. While not as worse as "The Lost City of Yore", it was made at a time where Moral Guardians wanted the studio behind the series to play it safe and you can tell by the slightest of restrictions.