Seollal Blues

Seollal Blues is an episode of Season 3

## Characters

* Hoyoon
* Dong-Chouel
* Halmeoni-Chouel
* Lee-Choi
* Mr. Chouel
* Ms. Chouel
* Young-Chouel
* Swoople
* Jimmy
* Harrison
* Joey
* Chang-Ho Chouel
* Mr. Choi
* Sid-Jeon
* Train driver
* Harabeoji-Chouel
* Hana-Chouel (does not speak)
* Nari-Chouel (does not speak)
* Iseul-Chouel (does not speak)
* Eun-Chouel (does not speak)
* Seok-Chouel (does not speak)

## Plot

Dong-Chouel discovers his grandmother's great grandson who was separated during the Korean War

## Summary

It's a snowy day for the Chouels, the family are assigned a Secret Magpie (but have to draw again when Swoople tampers with the names as a "Seollal Joke"). Dong-Chouel's Secret Magpie is shown to be Halmeoni-Chouel has to get a present for Halmeoni-Chouel, who is normally very forlorn during this time.

While engaging in a snowball fight, Lee suggests to Dong-Chouel that he should get Halmeoni a mug for her gift, but Dong-Chouel believes that is not "special" enough. So Sid-Jeon suggests that he should just ask him straight-up, to which Dong-Chouel agrees. Arnold is then awkwardly trying to find out what Halmeoni wants for Seollal without exposing herself as his "Secret Magpie." Dong-Chouel and Swoople soon hear the story about Halmeoni's lost grandson:

20 years ago, Halmeoni lived in a small village in South Korea with her son named Hoyoon. Despite her optimism, she was well aware of the war in the North growing closer and closer to her village, that she knew eventually the two had to leave home for a better life in Mapo. During the mass chaos of refugees trying to escape the country, the U.S. soldiers could only make room for one more passenger on the helicopter. So Halmeoni allowed Hoyoon to escape to America for a better life, separating the family indefinitely. According to Halmeoni, it took him about 7 years for her to move to Mapo and specifically chose this city since she heard the soldier say that he was taking Hoyoon to that specific city. Unfortunately, the two have yet to meet and Halmeoni's only desire is to see her Grandson again to know that he is safe and happy.

The next day, Swoople, Jimmy, Harrison and Joey attempt to locate Hoyoon through government records, but is rebuffed by the city archivist, Mr. Choi. Eventually he and the four pets work out a deal; they do all Mr. Choi's Seollal shopping and he will give him the information. They nearly complete the list, but fall short in getting a pair of Dr. Plum's Signature Snow boots, which Mr. Choi wants to give his friend. Without the critical item, he refuses to help the pets in their search despite all the stores in the city being sold out of the boots.

On Seollal, As Swoople, Jimmy, Joey and Harrison arrive, but the train takes off, leaving them stuck. they head towards the train. but the train driver scrams Swoople and the others out, but they didn't listen to the Train driver, Meanwhile, Dong-Chouel is downtrodden over not getting Hoyoon and his grandmother back together. Halmeoni is revealed to not receive a Secret Magpie present, but understands. Dong-Chouel starts to tell Halmeoni that Swoople and the others are on the way here, but then the door bell rings and Chang-Ho answers it, only to find Hoyoon at the door. Hoyoon comes in and is reunited with his grandmother. Dong-Chouel cannot understand how the reunion happened, but Sid-Jeon tells him that it was a "Seollal Miracle" that needs no explanation, and maybe a "Seollal Angel" was looking out for him

## Production

Tom Ruegger came up with the idea of exploring Harmeoni-Chouel's backstory and got the approval from Hanna-Barbera. However, getting the episode approved for CBS proved difficult. Network executives objected to the "heavy" subject matter as well as the depiction of a specific war, and rejected the episode when it was only halfway complete in production. However, an executive at CBS brought it home and showed it to her son. The boy's reaction after watching Harmeoni-Chouel's story of her separation from her son prompted the executive to approve the episode

Due to the episode's sensitive nature, the producers worked closely with June Foray to ensure its faithfulness to the historical events depicted. Being a children's show, the Korean War was never mentioned by name, but the team was committed to alluding to it in a "poetic" way, through a sequence complete with dramatic violin and guitar by Hanna-Barbera's primary composer Hoyt Curtin, Curtin cited this episode among his favorites to score for. To ensure that Harmeoni-Chouel's character speaks with an authentic accent, during the recording process Bill and Joe would rewrite any lines that June Foray felt were difficult or seemed uncomfortable for him to say

## Trivia

* This is one of the few episodes to relate to a real life event such as the Korean War, although this is never explicitly stated in this episode
* In the episode's original broadcast and DVD, This episode originally had a dream sequence of Dong-Chouel lying from his bed in the house to North Korea,
	+ However, in syndicated airings of the episode, an alternate scene appears where Dong-Chouel sees the destruction of a village during his dream, Also, Swoople notices Harmeoni-Chouel's great grandson is going to Dong-Chouel's house, these edits was made by Hanna-Barbera themselves
* This episode never reran on Cartoon Network until May 1997.
* The scene where Dong-Chouel walks home from Lee's house is accompanied by a brief rendition of the song, When Love Passes, a Korean song fittingly with the scene, is about a person who was separated from a war, The rendition of When Love Passes is sung by Lee Moon-sae,
* The episode begins a running gag in which Swoople gets his holidays mixed up. In this episode he celebrates St. Patrick's Day on the day before Seollal and Easter on Seollal.
* Ki's Crazy Train cassette isn't seen in this episode, This is most likely due to the seriousness of this episode.
* The book adaptation of this episode is entirely illustrated by Albert Uderzo, Nic Broca, Bob Singer and Art Leonardi