Round One: Characters. On the care bears side we have tons of care bears and care bear cousins, but mainy in the series we focused on Grams, Hugs and Tugs, a sort of staple for the younger kids. We also had the "adult" like ones, Tender Heart and Brave Heart, there were others like Lotsa Heart and Grumpy, but they were mostly down played. Then we had the four we foucused on the most, the sort of teenagery bears. Champ, Bright Heart, Cheer Bear and Treat Heart. On the smurfs side is a similure story. You had alot of Smurfs but the show mostly focused on only a few. The main smurs seemed to be, Brainy, Smurfette, Clumsy, Hefty, Handy, Greety and Vanity with Papa Smurf as sort of this voice of reason and all knowing character. Later in the series we get a bunch of kids, or "Smurflings". Nat, Snappy, Sasette and Slouchy who became more driven. Also, Grandpa got alot of focus too. So who one that round? well the Smurfs were always just more enjoyable to watch so point goes to them.
Round Two: The Villians. In the begining of the Smurfs you had Gargamel, this sort of non-threatning incompatent wizard hell bent on catching the Smurfs. He also had this useless cat named Azreal who, besides being able to scare the smurfs was almost pointless. Later on Gargamel was joined by an anoying little red head kid who's name sounds like a store brand froot loops knock-off, Scroople. On Care Bears you had a more threatning wizard, Noheart. He was a little more bad ass then Gargamel, but nothing special. The real villian was his slimy little assistant, Beastly. He's the one people remember, and why not? he had a great voice and rode around on a flying bike. Most episodes involved him trying to get the Care Bears but always failing, that is untill another character showed up. Appearently the writers didn't think beastly was a good enought character on his own so he got a sidekick. Nohearts neice Shreeky. She was more threatning then Beastly but less then Noheart. The weird thing is its like the writers knew the care bears were un interesting so most episodes were actually much more focused on Shreeky and Beastly. Care Bears win.
Round Three: Episodes. With the Care Bears the episodes follwed one of three formulas. One the cubs are getting read some sort of lame story, usially a fairy tale or some sort of safety tip. Two Beastly and Shreeky have a plan to capture the care bears, meanwhile the bears are buisy with something else. Third a child is feeling slightly depressed, one care bear goes down to earth to cheer him or her up while Beastly and Shreeky follow them around trying to mess things up. With the smurfs the episodes were a little more indavidualized. Usially the plot would stem from something magical happening and negetivly affecting the Smurfs or from a particualer character, there personality and what kind of situation could co-inside with that. Smurfs win
Round Four: Setting. In the Smurfs everyting took place in Smurf Village, a little village in the forrset where everysmurf lives in a mushroom house and collects Smurf Berries. In Care Bears everything took place in Carealot. A magical city in the clouds where the Care Bears main job was to look down on earth with a huge telescope and go down to earth when kids needed them. Care Bears win, why? well withoute the setting in the cloudes there would be no cloud cars.
Round Five: parody possibilities. Now, the Care Bears doesn't really have allot of parody possibilities because so many other entity's of care bear exist. However I know for a fact that if you walk into in group of people who grew up in the 80's or 90's and mention Beastly or Shreeky, they'll go "oh yeah, thats what it's all about", so then why, if I may ask does nobody parody this show? it's got tons of stuff you can make fun of. Think about it, which shows parody things the most? Family Guy?, yeah, Robot Chicken?, yeah. Well all those writers grew up in the 80's and have parodied much more obscure things. Now there was one Care Bears sketch I remember from Robot Chicken, it wasn't of the specific series though. Was it good? well yeah. Basically all the real Care Bears kill all the Care Bear cousins. Smurfs on the other hand? yeah they get it allot. Thats because unlike Care Bears, this cartoon was really the first thing in smurfs that was made accessible to the general public, here in North America anyway. So what smurf parodies do we get out of that? well let me just see what I can remember. The earliest one I remember is one on an old episode of Family Guy. In it every swear word is replaced with the word "smurf". See that makes sense because doesn't allot of things the smurfs say sound like there swearing? "You guys are all smurfed in the head". Another one is from robot Chicken, there have actually been a few but this is the one I remember most. Basically smurfs are getting murdered left and right and the smurfs have to figure out who's doing it. And who doe it turn out to be? Jokey. Are you really that surprised? Then there's one from Billy and Mandy. Billy starts raising these little smurf like creatures in his back yard and soon enough there totally flourishing. But then the one female in the village is challenged and starts freaking ripping heads off! Another great one was in the South park episode, dance's with smurfs. Cartman becomes the new reader of the morning announcements and takes his job way to seriously. Soon his mission is to get Wendy impeached as student body president. His platform? Wendy hates Smurfs. The best part comes when Cartman makes a foney video about how what peaceful creatures the smurfs are. He goes to live with them in smurf village and soon falls in love with Smurfette, but then "Wendy" comes and steals all the smurf berries and kills all the smurfs. When Wendy asks how the students can believe him Cartman retaliates by saying "look outside, you won't find any smurfs" it's true. Okay smurfs obviously win.
So what are the scores. Care Bears: 2 Smurfs 3, SMURFS WIN!!!
Round Two: The Villians. In the begining of the Smurfs you had Gargamel, this sort of non-threatning incompatent wizard hell bent on catching the Smurfs. He also had this useless cat named Azreal who, besides being able to scare the smurfs was almost pointless. Later on Gargamel was joined by an anoying little red head kid who's name sounds like a store brand froot loops knock-off, Scroople. On Care Bears you had a more threatning wizard, Noheart. He was a little more bad ass then Gargamel, but nothing special. The real villian was his slimy little assistant, Beastly. He's the one people remember, and why not? he had a great voice and rode around on a flying bike. Most episodes involved him trying to get the Care Bears but always failing, that is untill another character showed up. Appearently the writers didn't think beastly was a good enought character on his own so he got a sidekick. Nohearts neice Shreeky. She was more threatning then Beastly but less then Noheart. The weird thing is its like the writers knew the care bears were un interesting so most episodes were actually much more focused on Shreeky and Beastly. Care Bears win.
Round Three: Episodes. With the Care Bears the episodes follwed one of three formulas. One the cubs are getting read some sort of lame story, usially a fairy tale or some sort of safety tip. Two Beastly and Shreeky have a plan to capture the care bears, meanwhile the bears are buisy with something else. Third a child is feeling slightly depressed, one care bear goes down to earth to cheer him or her up while Beastly and Shreeky follow them around trying to mess things up. With the smurfs the episodes were a little more indavidualized. Usially the plot would stem from something magical happening and negetivly affecting the Smurfs or from a particualer character, there personality and what kind of situation could co-inside with that. Smurfs win
Round Four: Setting. In the Smurfs everyting took place in Smurf Village, a little village in the forrset where everysmurf lives in a mushroom house and collects Smurf Berries. In Care Bears everything took place in Carealot. A magical city in the clouds where the Care Bears main job was to look down on earth with a huge telescope and go down to earth when kids needed them. Care Bears win, why? well withoute the setting in the cloudes there would be no cloud cars.
Round Five: parody possibilities. Now, the Care Bears doesn't really have allot of parody possibilities because so many other entity's of care bear exist. However I know for a fact that if you walk into in group of people who grew up in the 80's or 90's and mention Beastly or Shreeky, they'll go "oh yeah, thats what it's all about", so then why, if I may ask does nobody parody this show? it's got tons of stuff you can make fun of. Think about it, which shows parody things the most? Family Guy?, yeah, Robot Chicken?, yeah. Well all those writers grew up in the 80's and have parodied much more obscure things. Now there was one Care Bears sketch I remember from Robot Chicken, it wasn't of the specific series though. Was it good? well yeah. Basically all the real Care Bears kill all the Care Bear cousins. Smurfs on the other hand? yeah they get it allot. Thats because unlike Care Bears, this cartoon was really the first thing in smurfs that was made accessible to the general public, here in North America anyway. So what smurf parodies do we get out of that? well let me just see what I can remember. The earliest one I remember is one on an old episode of Family Guy. In it every swear word is replaced with the word "smurf". See that makes sense because doesn't allot of things the smurfs say sound like there swearing? "You guys are all smurfed in the head". Another one is from robot Chicken, there have actually been a few but this is the one I remember most. Basically smurfs are getting murdered left and right and the smurfs have to figure out who's doing it. And who doe it turn out to be? Jokey. Are you really that surprised? Then there's one from Billy and Mandy. Billy starts raising these little smurf like creatures in his back yard and soon enough there totally flourishing. But then the one female in the village is challenged and starts freaking ripping heads off! Another great one was in the South park episode, dance's with smurfs. Cartman becomes the new reader of the morning announcements and takes his job way to seriously. Soon his mission is to get Wendy impeached as student body president. His platform? Wendy hates Smurfs. The best part comes when Cartman makes a foney video about how what peaceful creatures the smurfs are. He goes to live with them in smurf village and soon falls in love with Smurfette, but then "Wendy" comes and steals all the smurf berries and kills all the smurfs. When Wendy asks how the students can believe him Cartman retaliates by saying "look outside, you won't find any smurfs" it's true. Okay smurfs obviously win.
So what are the scores. Care Bears: 2 Smurfs 3, SMURFS WIN!!!
