History YMMV / TheAmazingWorldOfGumball

* {{Woolseyism}}: In the Brazilian Portuguese dubbing of "The Boss", Gumball says Chanax invented pão de queijo, also known as Brazilian cheese buns, instead of cheesepuffs.

* CriticalDissonance: For a long time, "The Girlfriend" was touted as the worst episode in the series, to the point many fans invoke FanonDiscontinuity and being a major contributing factor in Jamie being a divisive character. In the years since it first aired however, while not a ''liked'' episode, its more seen as SoOkayItsAverage, with the claims it was teaching a horrible aesop about being quiet and sticking through an abusive relationship being refuted as called out ''InUniverse'' as not working, and really Darwin being too stubborn to do anything compared to Gumball's more justified horror at Jamie's behavior, the episode even siding with Gumball by his behavior being what causes Jamie to realize her behavior, with Darwin meanwhile getting beat up by Jamie for his idea coming across as CondescendingCompassion. Nowadays, rather than reviled, its more seen as a [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot wasted opportunity by not involving Nicole or Penny in the episode]], or an overhated mediocre episode.

** Penny is very adorable, and becomes even more so as a shapeshifting fairy.

** Alan, a cute NiceGuy who loves everyone and everything.
** Really, most of the female characters come across as this in some way or another. Special mention going to Anais.

** The episode "The Parents" is often accused by detractors of having Nicole {{easily forgive|n}} her parents despite the years of abuse they put her through, despite the entire point of Gumball's song at the end of the episode, "If It's Too Hard To Forgive", being that even if she ''can't'' forgive them for what they did, holding on to a grudge was just hurting her, she ''did'' still love them, and it's better to give a fresh start rather than wallow in hate before it's too late, as it nearly was had the Senicourt's not stopped at the intersection. This is punctuated by her final line: "I don't want any excuses, I just ''want you back''." They hurt each other a lot, but rather than focus solely on the bad and forget the good, they chose to give each other a fresh start.

** The episode "The Parents" is often accused by detractors of having Nicole {{easily forgive|n}} her parents despite the years of abuse they put her through, despite the entire point of Gumball's song at the end of the episode, "If It's Too Hard To Forgive", being that even if she ''can't'' forgive them for what they did, holding on to a grudge was just hurting her, she ''did'' still love them, and it's better to give a fresh start rather than wallow in hate, punctuated by her final line "I don't want any excuses, I just ''want you back''."

** Rachel Wilson, Tobias' sister. Despite only having one major role, being written out of the show due to the staff members disliking her, and being a jerkass to the other characters, Rachel remains very popular among the fandom; usually relating to her relationship with Darwin and her aforementioned disappearance.

*** Human Penny designs usually depict her as either white or AmbiguouslyBrown (both for her in her shell and out), but in more recent artwork she is depicted as a DarkSkinnedBlonde (especially since her human form in "The Inquisition" has brown skin).

* {{Woolseyism}}: In the Brazilian Portuguese dubbing of "The Boss", Gumball says Chanax invented [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P[=%C3%A3=]o_de_queijo pão de queijo]] instead of cheesepuffs.

* ItWasHisSled: Penny is a shapeshifting fairy underneath her shell and Gumball and her finally become an OfficialCouple.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball Has its own page.]]

* [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball Alternate Character Interpretation]]

** Many early humanized fan arts depict the Watterson as white with hair appropriate to their color, although recently giving Nicole and Gumball brown skin (depicting Nicole as either Blasian or Black, with Gumball being mixed with white) and Richard and Anais having light skin has been popular, with the exception of Darwin who is usually always depicted as black with an orange jacket (since all of Darwin's voice actors [Kwesi Boakye, Terrell Ransom Jr., Donielle T. Hansley Jr., and Christian J. Simon] have been black, and the fact that Darwin is adopted).

* AccidentalAesop: For "The Wicked", trying to force someone to pay for their actions will just get ''you'' in trouble. [[LaserGuidedKarma Karma]] ''will'' get them in the end, you just gotta be patient.

*** Darwin was initially the biggest one, as his naïve and dim personality (at least compared to Gumball and Richard who were only ''slightly'' smarter than him) made him either funny and adorable, or excessively annoying. His divisiveness worsened in Season 2, where he TookALevelInJerkass and started to get involved in ShipToShipCombat among fans. Season 3 and onwards toned down his jerkassness and marginally increased his intelligence, [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap winning over some of his detractors]], but Darwin still remains a divisive character for all the other reasons.

* HilariousInHindsight:
** Gumball was a blue dog (rather than a blue cat) in his original design, as seen in the early reel. 10 years later, [[WesternAnimation/{{Unikitty}} a Cartoon Network show had a blue dog as major character (though not the protagonist) in its final design]].
** [[http://cartoondude95.deviantart.com/art/The-Nurse-294560853 This picture]] drawn by a fan shows an older Teri being a nurse at Elmore Hospital. Then comes "The Virus," which reveals that Teri is an intense germaphobe and that her mother is a doctor.
** Many of the show's characters were originally Ben Bocquelet's rejected marketing mascots. The Wattersons eventually became a product mascot... by being ripped off by Chinese goat milk company Miracle Star. [[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS5E11TheCopycats The show had a field day with that one]].
** The main antagonist of The Console is the titular console itself, the [=GameChild=]. Coincidentally, the console also existed in real life as a Game Boy knock-off.
** Gumball openly stated in The Money [[TemptingFate how he feels about]] selling out. Fast forward to a 2017 AT&T commercial advertising all their services [[IronicHell where Gumball appears]] while talking.
** A scene in "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS2E9Halloween Halloween]]" shows Gumball and Darwin (as ghosts) briefly (and unsuccessfully) possessing Tina the T. Rex. Several years later, [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]] would gain the ability to BodySurf into and possess people using his hat in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'', and the first character he is advertised to become this way is (yes) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGQHQc_3ycE a T. Rex]].
** There's an episode when Gumball and Darwin are parodying ''Franchise/StreetFighter'', especially when Gumball is seen throwing Hadouken-like fireballs at Darwin. The hilarity came out with the fact, at least in the Japanese dub, Gumball is voiced by Creator/JunkoTakeuchi, who voiced Rainbow Mika in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha 3'', and the fact that, at least in certain moves, Mika is quite vulnerable to ''fireballs''.
** Regarding Takeuchi, Gumball mentions his mother Nicole is virtually a ninja. Take [[VideoGame/FatalFury two]] [[Manga/{{Naruto}} guesses]] why... [[Creator/IsabelMartinon The same goes for the Latin American Spanish dub as well]], at least for Naruto. Extra hilarity in that dub, [[Creator/RossyAguirre Nicole's voice actress]] voiced ''Udon'', who, despite being a ninja, he is the opposite of anything Nicole is.
*** Another one regarding Takeuchi. In "The Uncle", Gumball whistles the Pallet Town theme from VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue. Later, Takeuchi would play Red, those games' protagonist, in Anime/PokemonOrigins.
** In "The Dress", a season 1 episode released in 2011 and written in 2009, Darwin falls in love with Gumball in a dress, who everyone believes to be a female. Fast forward to "The Shippening", a season 6 episode released in 2018 and written in 2016/2017, an anime-style Darwin marries a female anime Gumball in a dress. However, this time, the actual Darwin gets mad at it.
** In "The Ollie", Darwin points out Gumball is always in a three-quarter angle and never on profile, and Gumball gets on a profile angle for the only time. In his [=McDonalds=] toy, aside of having a different outfit, his face looks very similar to how it did in "The Ollie".
** In Issue 4, Mr. Small has a goat. Later in "The Advice", a Mr. Small episode, Darwin brings a goat to the school and it starts hurting everyone, except Mr. Small because Gumball and Darwin make him avoid it.
** Where does Nicole work at? ''The Fanfic/RainbowFactory.'' Let's hope they're not making rainbows out of dead horses there...[[note]]They're not, by the way. Season 6 says it's gasoline, arsenic, latex, lead, and rust. Not that that's much better, but still.[[/note]]
** [[https://www.facebook.com/tawogmemes/photos/a.1540561156060437/1539907829459103/ This meme]] became this after "The Ghouls" had Richard dressed as Kratos for Halloween.
** In "The Rival", an in-universe TV show mentions that baby sharks attack each other before they were even born. A few months later, a South Korean children's song and music video called "Baby Shark" went viral, eventually hitting the top 10 in the UK and having over 2 billion views on Website/YouTube.
** In "The Pact", there is a scene where Ms Simian's breath [[Film/AvengersInfinityWar disintegrates everyone in front of Gumball]]
** In "The Console", a parody of RPG tropes, Allison sends Gumball on an optional sidequest to find all her missing pigeons, much to his dismay, since "100% completion" is the bane of gamers everywhere. Two years later, and to the annoyance of gamers everywhere, ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'' has Peter [[ThatOneSidequest collecting pigeons for a homeless man]].
*** Even earlier than that, the fact that the pigeon quest's "reward" is a purely cosmetic one, and the birds being scattered all over the map, is practically identical to the equally-infamous "Collect the Korok Seeds" from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''. This is particularly funny because the episode came out only a few weeks before the Nintendo Switch was released, with ''Breath of the Wild'' as its launch title.
** Back in Season 1 fans liked to ship Darwin with Carrie. Now it's canon.
*** On that note, season 1's "The Gi" had Jamie mock Gumball by responding to his invitation of seeing him something impossible with "Are you gonna get a girlfriend?". Guess who's dating Penny as of "[[Recap/TheAmazingWorldOfGumballS3E20TheShell The Shell]]"?
** At the beginning of "The Others", Gumball tries to become a [[Manga/DragonBallZ Super Saiyan]] but fails miserably, only messing up his tail as he does so. Fast forward to "The Pest", there's a joke where he actually ''does'' go Super Saiyan for a few seconds.
** In "The Uploads" Richard reviewed the Calculator app on his computer as a game. On May 12, 2021 Calculator was added to the Nintendo Switch eShop technically making it an official video game.
** The dodgeball scene in "The Mustache" is very similar to the [[MemeticMutation memetic]] one in Creator/{{Pixar}}'s ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed''.
** Tina Rex is a hulking dinosaur who's a BarbaricBully at her school, but [[TookALevelInKindness takes a level in kindness]] and befriends the protagonist, and is also shown to have a rather rough home life. [[VideoGame/{{Deltarune}} Where else have we seen a character like her?]]
** Gumball's Japanese voice actress, Junko Takeuchi is well known for also voicing Anime/{{Naruto}}. Nicolas Cantu, Gumball's third (or fourth counting the pilot) English voice actor would go on to voice a [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesMutantMayhem ninja himself]] (who, is also associated with the color blue).
*** Adding to that, The Comic has Gumball parody the "swear to me!" scene from Film/BatmanBegins, and this time, Nicolas Cantu gets to do an impression in one scene of the movie.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Nicole’s parents, Daniel and Mary. After "The Choices" showcased them as overbearing and putting an unreasonable amount of pressure on Nicole to succeed growing up, along with not approving of her and Richard's relationship, which led to her storming out on them in her late teens and them not showing up to her and Richard's wedding, "The Parents" tries to paint them as just wanting what was best for their daughter and wanting her to succeed, along with them claiming Nicole’s temper caused them problems when she was growing up, and at one point it’s mentioned it’s unknown where exactly their bad blood started amongst a history of petty schemes and actions against each other, with the episode ultimately ending on them putting it all behind them and making up due to missing each other. However many viewers disliked the episode trying to both sides the situation, since regardless of what they said their intent was and if they truly do love her, Daniel and Mary still had a negative impact on Nicole's childhood. In fact the episode even reveals more details about their overbearing parenting, such as the fact Nicole was literally born wearing a suit and tie, her first name is actually Doctor, she was forced to take every single extra curricular at school and she was given A+ blood during a transfusion instead of B-, and they only give excuses to defend themselves instead of realizing they were wrong - all of which perfectly explains why there’s “bad blood” between them and Nicole had every right to leave them and act hostile towards them in the present, and her forgiving them at the end feels unearned. This along with the fact Nicole’s anger issues are all but said to have come from her father, as showcased by a scene in "The Choices" where his road rage makes him pound the steering wheel hard enough the engine flies out. The episode does reveal Daniel and Mary tried to go to their wedding but mistook “R.S.V.P" for a town in Moldova, although it’s a joke that falls into base breaking territory as fans feel it ruins one of the most emotional scenes from "The Choices".
* UnpopularPopularCharacter: The Wattersons, and especially Gumball, are hated by almost all of Elmore, but the fandom loves them nonetheless.