"Dreamy's Pen Pals" Reinterpreted

Dreamy gets a rather "rude awakening" when he sees the Swoofs he visited the second time turn back into Smurfs!

This is a complete outline of how the cartoon show episode "Dreamy's Pen Pals" would have been interpreted in the history of the Smurfs in the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf story series:

1. Three years after the events of "The Astro Smurf" take place, Dreamy starts writing letters to the Swoofs, wondering how they were, if they ever still thought of him, whether he would see them again, and such.

2. Dreamy gets into the habit of writing these letters on a somewhat regular basis, despite the fact that he hasn't received a single reply from the Swoofs. Nonetheless, Courier the mail carrier Smurf continues to receive these letters, despite the fact that they were beginning to fill up his mail sorting office.

3. Some months later, Papa Smurf notices when Courier comes around to deliver Papa Smurf's mail that he keeps looking at a letter that Dreamy has written. Courier reveals that his office is filling up with Dreamy's letters because he couldn't deliver them to his intended recipient. Papa Smurf has Courier open up one of those letters and finds out that Dreamy is writing to the Swoofs when he reads it.

4. The other Smurfs, meanwhile, notice that Dreamy is starting to feel downtrodden because he hasn't received a single letter back from his "pen pals". Eventually they learn that Dreamy is writing to the Swoofs, and they know that the Swoofs don't exist because they were a creation of Papa Smurf's magic spells that transformed all of the Smurfs except for Dreamy into them.

5. Brainy in particular wants to tell Dreamy the truth about the Swoofs not being real, but is prevented from doing so by his other fellow Smurfs, realizing that it would break Dreamy's heart if he ever found out the truth. Brainy in turn prevents Clumsy from accidentally blurting out to Dreamy that the Swoofs don't really exist.

6. Dreamy is beginning to feel disappointed, and wonders if it was ever really worth the effort to continue writing to the Swoofs if he wasn't going to receive a single reply from them. This disappointment makes Dreamy feel so alienated that he no longer wants to do anything with his fellow Smurfs.

7. Papa Smurf and the other Smurfs, including the Smurflings (who became part of the village about three years after "The Astro Smurf" took place), notice Dreamy's lack of interest in doing anything with his fellow Smurfs. They hold a special meeting to decide what to do. Smurfette suggests that they should try to fulfill Dreamy's fantasy of seeing the Swoofs again. Brainy counters this idea with the idea of just telling Dreamy the truth about the Swoofs, but the other Smurfs immediately shoot Brainy's idea down as being flat out insensitive.

8. Papa Smurf thinks that Smurfette's idea is a good idea, and has some ideas in mind on how to implement this idea. Of course, one of the Smurfs brings up the fact that they had to dismantle Dreamy's ship and carry it all the way to the secret volcanic mountain Papa Smurf knew about and then reassemble it there when they first fulfilled Dreamy's fantasy of travelling to another world to see the Swoofs. Papa Smurf was pretty much aware of that fact, and has already come up with a solution that wouldn't require having to make the long trek again to that mountain.

9. One day Courier arrives at Dreamy's house with a letter addressed to him. Dreamy finds out that it was from the Swoofs! They were longing to see him again after three years of his departure from their planet. He is so excited about this reply, he goes and tells all his fellow Smurfs, including Papa Smurf, about his wanting to travel to the stars again to see the Swoofs. They are all happy that Dreamy has received a reply and that he now wants to rebuild his spaceship to travel back to the Swoof planet. Everybody, that is, except for Brainy, who still thinks that Dreamy should be told the truth.

10. Nonetheless, Papa Smurf is pleased that Dreamy took the bait, knowing that it was he himself who actually penned the letter that supposedly came from Grandpa Swoof. Now the next thing was to get things ready for Dreamy's next trip to the Swoof planet.

11. Since Handy had used parts from Dreamy's original spaceship to build his first smurfplane in the EMPATH story "I Believe I Can Fly" (in the second part which was an adaptation of the Peyo story "Smurf Plane"), Handy decided to rebuild the thing from scratch, using the plans Dreamy came up with to design the thing. Dreamy leaves the rebuilding in Handy's capable hands while Hefty takes Dreamy out into the forest for some physical regimen to get him into shape for his journey.

12. In Handy's rebuilding of Dreamy's spaceship, he added new features that would simulate the effect of it taking off from the ground. He included a vibrating platform that would cause the spaceship to shudder and shake, and also a scrolling picture of clouds that Painter had painted that would appear outside one of the cockpit windows to simulate the visual effect of the ship lifting off into space.

13. Meanwhile, in Papa Smurf's laboratory, Papa Smurf was busy with Brainy and Clumsy working on a new spell formula that would do more than just transform the Smurfs into Swoofs. Papa Smurf called this spell the "reality bubble", since it would also transform the village and the immediate surrounding area into a simulated reality that would make the whole place look like the Swoof Village. However, the "reality bubble" spell was rather complex, so Papa Smurf warned Brainy to follow all the spell's instructions to the letter.

14. Though Brainy tried to faithfully follow all the instructions for the "reality bubble" spell with all its ingredients, he realized that it would take a great deal of time to follow everything to the letter -- in fact, more time than he thought the Smurfs would be able to keep Dreamy unaware of what was going on. Realizing this, Brainy decided to take a few shortcuts here and there to make sure the spell would be ready to cast when Dreamy came to the village.

15. Eventually Hefty came back with Dreamy dragging behind him, looking rather exhausted from the workout regimen. He saw that the spaceship was all built and ready for him to take off in. Dressing up in his Astro Smurf uniform and helmet, Dreamy climbed up the ladder of the ship to the cockpit and made his universal goodbye to every Smurf gathered around to see him go. Dreamy then started pedaling away, and the propeller beneath his ship started to spin.

16. Papa Smurf gave the cue to Handy to activate the "new features" on Dreamy's spaceship -- the shaking platform and the scrolling clouds. Dreamy saw and felt from the cockpit that he was again lifting up from the ground. Soon the exhaustion he felt from the physical regimen started to make him feel rather sleepy, and he soon drifted off to sleep.

17. Once Papa Smurf and the other Smurfs saw that the propeller of the spaceship slowed down to a stop, indicating that Dreamy fell asleep, he then turned to Brainy, who came out of Papa Smurf's laboratory to tell him that the "reality bubble" spell was ready to be cast. Using a special activation potion, Papa Smurf transformed not only all his little Smurfs (except for Dreamy in the cockpit) into Swoofs, but also the entire Smurf Village and its surrounding area into the Swoof Village. Everything now looked ready. Now all they have to do is wait for Dreamy to wake up.


18. After a while, Dreamy wakes up and leaves his spaceship to find himself back on the Swoof planet. Somehow the landscape looks a bit different than how he last remembered the planet looking. Dreamy decides to go out and explore, hoping to find the Swoofs again.

19. In his exploration, Dreamy encounters two Swoofs just like he did the last time he had visited the planet. In fact, the two Swoofs he encountered were the very same ones -- the one who wore glasses (which was Brainy), and the one who got his loincloth stuck on his spear (which was Clumsy). But now they no longer pose a threat. They rejoice in being the first Swoofs to see him again. Dreamy follows them into the Swoof Village, which like the surrounding area of the planet looked a bit different from how he last remembered it.

20. Grandpa Swoof comes to greet Dreamy, glad to see him again after three years. He tells Dreamy that he has received all the letters Dreamy has written, but he and his "little Swoofs" have been so busy with having to travel from one remote place to another to resettle their village, that they didn't have the time to try writing a reply.

21. Dreamy notices that there were now five new young Swoofs that have become part of the Swoof Village -- four Swooflings and a baby Swoof. Grandpa Swoof tells Dreamy that these came from another village of Swoofs in another remote area of the planet, who somehow became the only survivors of a perilous disaster that wiped out that entire village. They brought along a pet that they have found along their journeys -- a pet that somehow resembled an alien dog (which, in reality, was Puppy transformed by the "reality bubble" spell). The Swooflings had heard about Dreamy's first visit to their planet, and had so much wanted to meet him in person.

22. Grandpa Swoof decides that they should host a party in honor of Dreamy's return to the Swoof planet. The other Swoofs begin to celebrate with tribal instruments, food, and a fire dance. The Swooflings wanted Dreamy to play with them as they leaped across the fire. He decides to go along with them. Everybody has a happy time, though they were secretly hoping that Dreamy didn't have any plans for wanting to "stay on the planet" like he did the last them he visited them.

23. Unfortunately, Brainy's "spell shortcuts" begin to take effect. In parts of the village near the outskirts, the Swoof huts begin to transform back into Smurf mushroom houses. Nobody notices this at first, since most of the Smurfs-turned-Swoofs were busy in the center of the village celebrating Dreamy's return to the Swoof planet. But soon, some Swoofs were starting to transform back into Smurfs.

24. Dreamy was busy playing with the Swooflings and their alien pet dog when he starts to notice the alien dog transforming back into Puppy -- the transforming effect looking like a hologram disappearing from around the person or object. The Swooflings were stunned as well, and are unable to give an explanation as to why this happened. Dreamy has a feeling that something strange is going on, and decides to talk to Grandpa Swoof about this.

25. But as Dreamy reaches Grandpa Swoof to tell him what was going on, he sees the huts around the center of the Swoof Village turning back into Smurf houses of the Smurf Village. Even Grandpa Swoof is stunned to the point where he could offer no explanation for what he was now seeing happening. Then Dreamy sees Grandpa Swoof transforming back into Papa Smurf right before his eyes!

26. Soon the "reality bubble" finally bursts, and the entire village and its surrounding area changes back into the Smurf Village, and all the Smurfs transformed into Swoofs change back into Smurfs. Dreamy is left in total shock, realizing that his second visit to the Swoof Village was all an illusion, an elaborate hoax played upon him. Papa Smurf tries to tell Dreamy that all he and his other little Smurfs wanted to do was to make Dreamy happy again, that all his writing letters to his "pen pals" was not for nothing.

27. Of course, Brainy takes full advantage of this situation to finally tell Dreamy what he felt the village should have told him all along -- that the Swoofs never really existed in the first place. This news makes Dreamy so mad that he went inside his house and shut himself inside, not wanting to speak with anybody. It also made the other Smurfs so mad at Brainy for being so callous, they gave him another well-deserved boot to the village limits!

28. Of course, not all is entirely lost for Dreamy, though this would be the set up for the events that took place in "Where No Smurf Has Gone Before": while Dreamy is busy sulking away in his house, he receives a knock on his door. He opens and finds an alien roughly resembling a Swoof, but with a different skin color and a different type of hairstyle, outside his door with one of his letters to the Swoofs. Dreamy thinks this is probably a sick joke from Jokey until he sees the spaceship this alien appeared in outside his house -- a saucer-shaped ship that looked like it was made of rocks! The alien identified himself as a Sweef, hoping to correct the writer of the letter he had accidentally received, but also in the hope of being Dreamy's new "pen pal". Dreamy was somewhat happy that his letter writing had somehow paid off!


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