YMMV / The Amazing World of Gumball

YMMV Tropes with Their Own Pages

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Broken Base
• Demographically Inappropriate Humour
• Hilarious In Hindsight

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A-M

• Abandon Shipping:
  • Despite Gumball/Carrie being popular, shippers were shook when Darwin kissed Carrie in "Halloween" and she blushed. "The Shell" caused a lot to jump ship with Gumball and Penny becoming an Official Couple, as the former loves her true form and they share a kiss. Word of God confirmed Gumball and Penny would stay together, and Carrie's feelings for Darwin became more clear following "The Scam" and especially "The Matchmaker."
  • Gumball/Jamie shippers grew silent after "The Girlfriend" with what would happen if Jamie made Gumball her boyfriend against his will and it doesn't go well due to Jamie's instability.
• Accidental Aesop: For "The Wicked", Darwin's attempt at making Mrs. Robinson pay for her evil just ends up getting him in trouble, but she faces a Humiliation Conga all on her own. Trying to force someone to pay for their actions will just get you in trouble. Karma will get them in the end, you just got to be patient.
• Accidental Innuendo: This part from "The Worst". They were just squeezing Anais' cheeks (that is, the ones from the face).
  Richard: Oh, this is really satisfying.
  Gumball: Ooh, let me try! Oh yeah, that is nice! Mom, come try this.
  Nicole: Oh, you're right; it's like a massage for my fingers.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • The Game Child from "The Console" was an actual rip-off released in the Game Boy's heyday, but it's unknown if the writers knew about it.
  • The PolyStation from "The Disaster" exists.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Ben Bocquelet didn't think that the show would be as successful as it is (at best, he thought it'd get commended for its Medium Blending while everything else would be perceived as So Okay, It's Average). But the show has gone on to be nominated and win several awards (most in its native UK) and the show does have an audience in other countries, like Japan and America. According to ratings, the show has become SpongeBob SquarePants' biggest rival.
• Archive Panic: Seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5 each have 40 episodes, while Season 1 has 36 (four were scrapped due to budget issues), and Season 6 has 44 episodes (to make up for the lost episodes from season one), totaling 240 episodes. There's also the early reel, Waiting for Gumball (a series of 13 shorts), and Darwin's Yearbook (the six-episode clip show).
• Audience-Alienating Ending: The final episode of the series, "The Inquisition", ends on a Sudden Downer Ending wherein the Void starts to consume Elmore (something that had been heavily foreshadowed prior), with the heavy implication that the town and everyone in it is going to be erased from existence. Much of the show's fanbase was not impressed that the show ended with the show's world possibly being destroyed, and all of its beloved inhabitants along with it, especially since further Gumball material since the main show ended has so far ignored its cliffhanger ending entirely. Unusually for this trope, the show's creator Ben Bocquelet agreed with the fanbase, claiming that the show was meant to end on a different note than the highly uncertain one that the show ultimately used. Fans are more hopeful that this will be remedied with the official announcement that the movie is in development.
• Award Snub:
  • While the show has won many awards (BAFTA's British Academy Children's Awards [mostly for writing, but in 2015, it finally won for animation], an International Emmy, and even a Cartoon Network Hall of Game Award), "The Job" lost out on two Annie Awards — one for Best Animated Television Production for Children and another going to Mic Graves for Best Directing in a Television Production or Broadcast Venue Production — to Dragons: Riders of Berk in both categories (the episode "How to Pick Your Dragon" won the first award while John Eng won for Best Director for his work on the episode "Animal House").
  • The show lost the KCAs two years in a row (2016 and 2017) to SpongeBob SquarePants.
• Awesome Art: Admit it. If you're even remotely curious about the show, nine times out of ten, it's because of its art style. The fact that said art style improves over the seasons also helps.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The whole Watterson family:
    • Darwin was initially the biggest one, as his naïve and dim personality (at least compared to Gumball who was only slightly smarter than him) made him either funny and adorable, or excessively annoying. His divisiveness worsened in Season 2, where he Took a Level in Jerkass and started to get involved in Ship-to-Ship Combat among fans. Season 3 and onwards toned down his jerkassness and marginally increased his intelligence, winning over some of his detractors, but Darwin still remains a divisive character for all the other reasons.
    • Gumball himself gradually became the next biggest one after Darwin. His characterization going from The Pollyanna in Season 1 to The Cynic from Season 2 onwards have proven divisive between fans that consider it an improvement for his character by making him funnier and less generic, or feel that it made Gumball too much of a jerkass to the point of being unlikable.
    • Richard is divided between those who enjoy him for being such a good father in spite of his lack of responsibility and finding his childish personality funny and those who feel that his Bumbling Dad tendencies and absolute stupidity made him insufferably annoying. Some detractors warmed up to Richard once the show eventually revealed he had a sheltered home life and that his father left him at a young age, but others felt that it didn't make up for how pronounced his flaws are.
    • Nicole is also divided between those that think she's a caring and respectful mother/wife or too much of a hothead and Control Freak who comes off as more abusive to her family. Though like Richard, there's at least a good reason why she acts like this considering how her parents treated her.
    • Anais is funny and amusing because of her occasional snark and being an Insufferable Genius, or bratty and detestable for the same reasons.
  • Fans are divided on whether Sarah the ice cream girl is cute and quirky or just annoying.
  • 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 many members of the fandom; usually relating to her relationship with Darwin and her aforementioned disappearance. However, other people are as much annoyed by her abrasive personality as the staff members were, being either thankful for her absence in the rest of the series or just not caring. In fact, in the Gumball wiki's character guide, while the other relevant characters all have sections with their respective descriptions, Rachel's section used to be, prior to June 2018, a blunt "Good riddance." Not only that, it wasn't vandalism either - it was added by the wiki's admins themselves, and at one point (shortly before a normal description for her was added permanently), an user wrote an actual description for Rachel there, and AN ADMIN REVERTED HIS EDIT.
  • Some fans like Jamie for her design and frequently apply the Draco in Leather Pants treatment to her, while others hate her for being a jerk to Gumball and Darwin in "The Coach" and especially "The Girlfriend", where she even hurts Richard.
  • Tobias. Some will find his Casanova Wannabe antics to be either annoying or funny.
  • Depending on who you ask, Alan is either a Nice Guy who just wants to make friends or someone who's too perfect compared to the rest of the cast. It doesn’t help that he was flanderized during mid-Season 2, where he became absurdly nice and happy to everyone.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • In "The Goons", Larry accidentally proposes to Richard (he was talking to Karen when Richard picked him up in a 'dumb race'). Richard replies, "This is so sudden! I'm not saying no, I'm not saying no!" followed by a montage of Richard wandering around the park in thought.
  • Richard's reflection coming to life after Richard declares that he's a good father in "The Return."
  • "The Boredom" has a rather inexplicable scene of Gumball and Darwin's house getting towed away and somehow ending up in the animated universes for Clarence, Regular Show, and Uncle Grandpa.
  • In the middle of "The Potato", there's a Disney Acid Sequence in which Gumball, Sarah, and Mr. Small turn into potatoes and sing to Darwin to stop eating them.
  • The puppets from "The Spinoffs" with a guy dancing on middle of them.
• Bizarro Episode: Though the entire series can count, there have been episodes that were weird, even by their standards:
  • "The Job". When Richard becomes a pizza deliverer, he almost destroys the world. The characters start changing medium, gender, age, and species, things swap place with each other, people start flying, the moon falls, and the world becomes an apocalypse. The world almost ended, but Larry noticed Richard ate a slice of the customer's food, and fired him, bringing the world back to normal. And then Richard decides he will get another job.
  • "The Sweaters," a Karate Kid parody featuring human cartoon characters (modeled after the ones from late 1970s-mid-1980s cartoons, in terms of how stiff and stylized they are) that not even Gumball and Darwin want to get involved with.
  • "The World," an entire episode devoted to showing that everything in Elmore (and possibly the universe) really does come to life in the form of multiple short sketches. It's about as weird as it sounds. "The Extras" is similar, except it focuses on the background, one-shot, and very minor characters that appear as extras.
  • "The Joy": A survival/found footage/zombie apocalypse horror film parody with Miss Simian as a main character and shot mostly through her camcorder.
  • "The Countdown" starts as an ordinary Race Against the Clock episode, but halfway through the episode, Gumball accidentally breaks the clock on-screen, causing time to stop. From there, we get time travel (backwards and forwards) and alternate realities that would make Doctor Who look normal.
  • "The Money," a Broke Episode in the sense of "The family has no money and must find a way to get it back," the show "becoming broken" due to the Wattersons having no money, and the fact that the episode breaks the fourth wall and shows how a series like this is animated^note The Wattersons are hand-drawn and digitally inked and painted, the backgrounds and some of the characters are computer-generated, there are storyboards involved, etc (similar to "The Shopping Spree," except the latter had the budget reducing the show to live-action footage of the voice actors recording their lines, which isn't as epic as what "The Money" showed).
  • "The Uploads": Gumball and Darwin spend an entire episode in their room watching Elmore Stream It videos (after Darwin tries to talk Gumball out of it in the same way a concerned friend or family member talks a desperate drug addict out of getting his next fix and the way a hostage negotiator talks a suicide bomber or insane gunman out of killing himself and others). The videos start out relatively normal (some Epic Fail vids, a vlog showing that Sussie the chin puppet is beautiful, and a hilarious Let's Play parody featuring Richard), but Gumball and Darwin keep getting trolled by a Rickroll spoof called Saxophone Chihuahua and after Gumball accidentally clicks on a remix of Tobias' hidden prank video, he and Darwin binge on insane online videos until a video called "Ten Hours of Saxophone Chihuahua" is busy buffering. The end reveals that Gumball and Darwin are now teenagers and go to leave, only to get sucked back in to watching more online videos.
  • "The Signal", Mysterious interruptions that look like the kind experienced when watching satellite TV (or the over-the-air free TV reception that went digital in the early 20-teens) with bad reception plague Elmore and lead to Gumball and Darwin becoming closer than ever before. Missing plot points, an underlying sense of weirdness, some gross-out humor, cuts to seemingly unrelated footage (a lot of which were recycled from "The Uploads"), and jump scares are the norm. On top of that, the episode's end will leave you asking a lot of questions, as barely anything is resolved. Do not adjust your TV set or call your cable or satellite provider over the crappy reception. That's just this episode's special effects (and you know things are about to go down when the title card itself starts glitching out).
  • "The Weirdo", starting with the fact it's a Sussie episode. She does many weird things though the episode (some being even creepy), but the biggest moment of this is during her song "I Am Free", where the art shifts to children's drawings. At the end, she, Gumball and Darwin go away flying and Julius explodes.
  • "The Vegging". When Gumball and Darwin just want to relax all day, lots of things begin happening, and they just ignore it. A meteor hits their house, an apocalypse starts, Elmore citizens are mutated, a monster based on Samara from The Ring appears, a Japanese man in a Sailor Fuku appears, aliens abduct them and thank them for saving the universe, they are married with an alien lady and interviewed by Mike, the family gets in danger, and finally the thing responsible for all these events manifests... But Gumball and Darwin barely give a damn and just want to keep vegging out.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • "The Genius" has the "twist" that the eponymous genius is not Darwin, whose characterization previously centered on his being a complete idiot, but his genius sister Anais, whose only character trait at that point was being smarter than everyone else.
  • Also the reveal that Anais studies in Elmore Junior High in "The Others". She was shown attending the school since the beginning of the show, and given her intelligence, it only would make sense for her to study there.
• Crack Pairing: The fandom is rife on this.
  • Larry and Mr. Small is a popular pairing mainly due to their conflicting personalities.
  • Rob and Gumball started out as this, although it becomes less crack as "The Ex" aired.
  • Tobias and Juke is another popular pairing.
• Creepy Awesome: Nicole Watterson; she can be very creepy at times (mostly in "The Limit") and is loved by many fans for being a nice mom and beating up anyone that threatens her children.
• Critical Dissonance: For a long time, "The Girlfriend" was touted as the worst episode in the series, to the point many fans invoke Fanon Discontinuity 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 So Okay, It's Average, with the claims it was teaching a horrible aesop about being quiet and sticking through an abusive relationship being refuted as called out In-Universe 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 Condescending Compassion. Nowadays, rather than reviled, its more seen as a wasted opportunity by not involving Nicole or Penny in the episode, or an overhated mediocre episode.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A lot of the characters getting abused, screwed over, and injured (mostly the food-based ones like Banana Joe and Anton the slice of bread) would be horrific if they were human or if the injuries were realistically depicted. Here, they're hilarious because of how much the show sticks to Toon Physics and the kind of Comedic Sociopathy that would be at home in a lot of classic cartoons and irreverent 1990s animated shows.
  • The most famous example of this in the show is in "The Job". Gumball and Darwin are delivering pizzas, and one house has a pair of pizza people who think the pizzas delivered are children rather than food. Gumball and Darwin play along with this, until Gumball accidentally drops the pizza, smearing the sauce across the pavement and mortifying the Pepperonis. It's horrifying until Gumball silently gives them another pizza and they run away, Darwin accidentally stepping on the dropped pizza in the process.
  • Gumball yelling at Tobias in "The Test" so hard that his face melts off? Kind of disturbing. The corny one-liner Sarah drops and the "Everybody Laughs" Ending? Pretty funny. Joan walking in on them midway through and screaming in horror? Pretty solidly in this territory.
• Cry for the Devil: For being the Big Bad, it's hard not to pity Rob once his background of being deemed a mistake and getting forgotten. The final episode adds to this with him failing to save everyone from impending doom and being the Void's first victim.
• Demographically Inappropriate Humour: Has its own page.
• Designated Evil: "The Bumpkin" portrays the Watterson's life style (eating junk food, watching TV, playing video games) as bad and toxic since it almost kills Idaho, but that message falls on its face when you remember that Idaho is a potato who gets his nutrients from soil and has different biological weaknesses than them.
• Designated Villain: "The Storm" potrays its events as being Gumball's fault for breaking up Carmen and Alan, this is despite the fact that everyone actually agreed with him at the begining of the episode, and he was the only person shown to apologize to Carmen.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Carrie has received quite a lot of this, given that Gumball/Carrie is more popular among the fandom than Gumball/Penny (see Fan-Preferred Couple below).
  • Darwin post-"The Shell" was given this reaction by the growing Gumball/Penny shippers due to him feeling jealous from Gumball seeing Penny more than him once they became official and fans where fearing he would have lead to them breaking up in "The Bros". Once the episode aired, the reaction thankfully died down.
    • Darwin is actually still an example of this, since he's receiving an increasing amount of flank from Gumball/Carrie shippers due to the fact that he has a crush on Carrie along with Carrie feeling the same with Darwin, and then them later becoming an Official Couple, even though Gumball and Penny are still an Official Couple! Poor boy can't catch a break.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Despite being a blatant Take That! against a Chinese commercial that had ripped off Gumball, Chi Chi's cute design and very meta origins have attracted his own fanbase, oddly enough.
  • Tina Rex is probably one of the more visually interesting characters on the show (being a realistic CG T-Rex) not to mention having quite some Hidden Depths touched on during the first season, before she was Demoted to Extra from Season 2 onwards. At this point, she hasn't had a single character focus episode since the first season (whereas almost every other character has gotten a few) yet she is still popular with fans. The same applies to her father, and when he showed up in full in "The Routine", many fans loved that.
  • Gworp from "The Test". He only appears for a few seconds, but his voice, design, and randomness overall caused him to be a popular inside joke in the fandom.
  • Howdy, Frank, and Grady, the titular antagonists of "The Puppets", due to their creepiness as antagonists, the ambiguity surrounding whether or not they're truly alive, and having had Don't Hug Me I'm Scared alumni on-board in creating them. Given that the characters starred in shorts based upon them soon after their appearance, it's likely that writers knew this would be the case.
  • Some minor students, such as Josh and Jodie. They are as visually interesting as most characters in the show.
  • Yuki Yoshida, Masami's mother. Especially because her debut episode features an amazing anime-styled fight with Nicole.
  • In general, if a female minor character has an appealing enough design, you can find at least one devoted fan of them. The Hexagon Lady, Joan Markham, Karen, Jazelle, and the flight attendant all qualify, with the last one receiving most attention in recent years.
  • Santa Claus, mostly because this version of him is voiced by jolly old BRIAN BLESSED in Large Ham overdrive.
• Evil Is Cool: Rob became this after becoming the show's Big Bad, due to his complexity, tragic backstory, and being a genuinely menacing villain when he gets serious. It also helps that he's responsible for the show's most serious episodes.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Fans of Steven Universe don't tend to get along with fans of Gumball due to the show's reruns overshadowing the former. Though keep in mind, the rivalry is mostly one-sided.
  • While Gumball fans are very friendly toward other cartoons, they mostly despise the Chinese Gumball knock-off, Miracle Star. In the episode The Copycats, the writers of Gumball roasted its Chinese knock-off.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: It's fairly common for fanfics to have Gumball either having destroyed or seriously damaged the school just before the story begins or doing so early on, (and in at least one case being framed as doing so) and severally damaging or even destroying his relationship with his friends and family as a consequence, to serve as the Inciting Incident for the story. Such as here and here.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Penny (back when she was in her shell) and the rest of her family are often called "doe-nuts" because they're peanuts and she has antlers.
  • Daniel Senicourt was sometimes called "Grandpa Gumbo", because he's, well, Gumball's grandpa.
  • The facial expression Gumball makes in "The Bros" and many episodes from Season 4 onwards◊, of a grin (mostly faked or nervous) is many times called "The Face". It is used by other characters as well, but to a lesser extent.
  • In September 2014, an user of the Gumball Wiki named the gray construction man George, and even though it was never stated to be his name, the name stuck among the fans and was used for years. The user who first made this fake name also made up names for other characters, like calling Penny's sister "Holly" (in the end, he was wrong by one letter; her name is Polly), but the other made-up names didn't stick.
• Fanon:
  • Many fan-artists depicted Penny as a deer when not in her shell due to her antlers, which is why the revelation that Penny is a shapeshifting spirit in "The Shell" shocked and/or made them mad.
  • Many fans believed that Carrie's last name was "Booregard" before it was revealed to be "Krueger".
  • 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 almost 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. Cartoon Network themselves have even included Darwin in BLM, Kwanza and Black History Month posts, and as a human they depicted him as black when they showcased Darwin as drawn in different CN show art styles).
    • Human Penny designs usually depict her as either white or Ambiguously Brown (both for her in her shell and out), but in more recent artwork she is depicted as a dark skinned blonde (especially since her human form in "The Inquisition" has brown skin).
  • Wilson Bilson, a character appeared in "The Others" as Clare's childhood friend, is widely speculated to be either gay or transgender, giving the fact that Clare states he has "always struggled with his identity" (a common phrase for those who question their sexual preference or gender identity). The fact that he has bulging muscles but also wearing a dress and is said to be part-majorette, as well as that the episode is a parody of the teen soap opera genre (some of which do have episodes about sexual and gender identity) also fuels this speculation.
  • Following her sudden disappearance from the show after Season 1 and the existence of the void where all things forgotten get left in there, many fans believe that Rachel got trapped in the void at some point, but unlike Rob, she never made it out, which explains why everybody suddenly forgot about her the same way everyone forgot about Molly. This has resulted in several fan theories about Rachel either possibly going mad from the isolation or falling under deep, almost suicidal depression over nobody except Darwin and Teri remembering her and being trapped there.
  • Long before "The Fury" revealed her last name is "Yoshida", fans believed Masami's last name as being Clouder.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Some fans pretend "The Hero" never happened due to Nicole and Anais acting like abusive Jerkasses and denying Gumball and Darwin their basic needs (like food and hygiene) after they make fun of Richard at school during recess. The song Richard sings, "My Little Ones", was well-received for its Tear Jerker aspect, but that’s about it.
  • Penny breaking out of her shell in "The Shell" and turning out to actually be a shapeshifting fairy was disliked by fans who believed that she was really a deer under her shell (due to her antlers and brown color-scheme).
  • Some fans prefer to think "The Girlfriend" never existed, due to Jamie's behavior and the fact Gumball never told his actual girlfriend or his mom about it.
  • Some fans prefer to think the events of "The Rival" never happened given Anais' unexplained homicidal behaviour and Karma Houdini ending.
  • Some fans prefer to think that "The Web" never happened, due to Nicole being Hopeless with Tech coming out of nowhere and contradicting the majority of the series showing her being able to use computers perfectly fine.
  • Some fans prefer to think the ending of "The Inquisition" never happened due to fans thinking that the Cliffhanger left at the ending was rather disappointing. Hopefully, The Movie will be able to tie up the loose ends.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Gumball and Rob. "The Ex" also showed some in-universe signs of this, although it's mostly Played for Laughs.
  • Gumball and Chi Chi.
  • Arguably, Billy and Anais can be as this.
  • Gumball and Jamie.
• Fountain of Memes: Gumball, especially in the later seasons. Most of it is because of his funny, exaggerated faces.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • The show is on very good grounds with fans of Adventure Time and Regular Show, mainly due to the various similarities between all three shows and the fact that they each helped Cartoon Network become worth watching again in the early 2010's.
  • In probably one of the most... bizarre examples, there is a cult following of YouTube parody dubs from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure due to the amount of examples that make them unintentional Shout Outs and/or Hilarious in Hindsight.
    • The Wattersons have Granny Jojo.
    • The tendency of accidents caused by a reversing ambulance to be one that deals justice. Right, Kira?
    • In "The Countdown", in his rush to get to school, Gumball proceeds to do an ultimate fourth wall break that stops time at the 7 second mark, not to mention his messing with the clock to set it back to zero has them witness the birth of a new universe. Holy shit, Gumball and Darwin have the power of The World and Made in Heaven combined!
    • In "The Disaster", Rob gains the power of the Universal Remote. Its functions give him pretty much the combined might of 4 Story-Breaker Power Stands: Pause/Stop is The World, Rewind is Killer Queen: Bite the Dust, Skip is King Crimson, and Fast Forward is Made in Heaven. Gumball actually uses the Rewind function at the last moment, leading to the events of the meaningfully named "The Re-Run". Even during the struggle for the remote, Gumball himself uses some of its powers to stop Rob, much like Jotaro gaining his Time Stop in the final showdown with DIO.
  • Ever since the Season 5 finale "The Puppets" was announced, this show and the web series Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared have had a good relationship.
  • Generally speaking, fans of this show are on good terms with any other modern cartoon fans, even with fans of cartoons from rival networks- Nick, Disney Channel and Discovery Family and anime series (The Amazing World of Gumball draws great influence from Japanese animation).
• Genius Bonus:
  • Hector Jotunheim, the giant. Jotunheim is one of the nine worlds of Norse Mythology, specifically the home of the giants.
  • The school bully, Julius Oppenheimmer Jr, is a kid with a bomb for a head. His name is based on Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb".
  • The framing device for "The Love" starts off with Bobert claiming he is infected by a virus named "ILOVEYOU.exe". Gumball and Darwin assume this is just Bobert being confused about love. But ILOVEYOU was an actual computer worm that spread during the early '00s.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • It's a British show but it's hugely popular in the United States.
  • Gumball is currently one of the more popular shows in Cartoon Network Japan. Given Japan's fondness for unusual imagery and its Animesque appearance of the 2D characters, it's really not too surprising.
  • A poll taken on the official Japanese Cartoon Network site reveals that the show was even able to surpass the Tom and Jerry cartoons in terms of popularity.
  • The show is also proving to be exceptionally popular in The Philippines, evidenced in that portion of the fanbase being active in discussions regarding the show and an Asia Pacific-exclusive event that took place at the SM Mall of Asia in the country.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Season 2 saw a massive improvement for the show with its Art Shift (though some fans do consider season one's animation and art to be better) and the stories became more structured and coherent. Season 3 made the show even better: changing Gumball's and Darwin's voice actors (as Logan Grove and Kwesi Boakye's voices were cracking from puberty throughout the end of season 2 and by season 3, they sounded way off), removing Gumball's jerkass tendencies from Season 2/making him slightly smarter and nicer than in Season 1, making the animation smoother with new moving backgrounds thanks to a new animation studio, Gumball and Darwin actually act more like real kids, and finally achieving the perfect balance of comedy, drama, and action. It come a long way since Season 1. Continuity is somewhat applied in Season 3 such as the trilogy "The Shell," "The Burden" and "The Bros" in which Penny's reveal as an Empathic Shapeshifter stuck, she became Gumball's girlfriend, and Darwin reacted to it. Not to mention major revelations have been revealed in the third season.
  • Even so in Season 4, in which continuity is now applied and revelations have been piled up. Example is in the episode "The Crew" in which Marvin sends his regards to Louie, his fellow senior citizen due of the next episode's "The Signature" in which Louie and Jojo are planning to get married and were going to move to Florida and subsequently being accepted by the Watterson family judging by the events of "The Check."
    • Then the episode "The Bus" aired revealing how Rob is behind the bus hijacking in the first place showing that he made real progress a true threat to Gumball and others. It left fans wondering what will happen next by the time the season finale "The Disaster" airs which is about Rob finding the remote that controls the universe and uses it to ruin Gumball's life.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Granny Jojo and Louie's verse in "Nobody's a Nobody" singing about how they still love each other in their old age was sweet in "The Compilation". After "The Catfish" showed how controlling, obsessive, and insecure Granny Jojo can be, it comes off more as two Stepford Smilers trying to mask their issues with a cheerful song.
  • In "The Gi", when Gumball says he's going to do the impossible, Jamie says "What, are you gonna get a girlfriend?" Guess who forces him and Darwin to be her boyfriends in "The Girlfriend".
    • This could be also Heartwarming in Hindsight when Gumball does get a girlfriend, Penny, in "The Shell".
  • In "The Date", Nicole's credit card expiration date is June 24. Eight years later, that also happens to end up being the date the last episode of the series aired.
  • Nicole's control freak tendencies and Richard's lazy and slow-witted behavior aren't quite as funny when "The Authority" and "The Choices" reveal the two had abusive childhoods. For specifics, Nicole in "The Fridge" tries to make everyone as competitive as her, and only realizes that she might be turning into her parents when Gumball assumes she'd be disappointed in him if he doesn't win.
  • "The Line"; fans are waiting to see a Star Wars parody called "Stellar Odyssey". Some of the fans say they want "Surprises, but only the ones we expect." The Last Jedi came out a few months later, and many fans claimed it was too surprising, changed too many things in a bad way, and not what a Star Wars film should be. One of the most common claims was "they made it for the general public instead of us fans!"
  • "The Inquisition" becomes this after Warner Bros merger with Discovery, which resulted in many cartoon shows being purged from HBO Max and Cartoon Nerwork's legal streaming services. While the episode was originally about Rob trying to reboot the series as live-action to give it a chance to go on in spite of the upcoming end of the show (represented by the Void sucking the entire Elmore this time), many could nowadays interpret it as Rob predicting the merger thanks to Banana Barbara and changing the show to live-action to prevent it from being one of the cartoons the merger got rid of.
  • This wouldn't be the last cartoon where a villian is treated as a joke at first, gets disfigured, becomes more powerful and threatens the main character's loved ones. Unlike this show, the treatment of said villian has way worst consequences than Gumball's treatment of Rob.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Gumball appearing in an AT&T commercial is very heartwarming when you consider that the show was based around Ben Bocquelet's rejected mascots. Gumball can finally do what he was made for!
  • Despite the immense flak Ben Bocquelet received over the series finale once it finally aired enough people were kind enough to say good things to him and about the show that the next two tweets after the known one where he seemed distressed was him thanking people for being so sweet.
• Informed Wrongness: In "The Advice", Mr. Small's advice to Gumball and Darwin is treated as ill-advised at best, outright garbage at worst, with the climax of the episode involving Gumball and Darwin trying to hide the damage "his advice" caused to the school. Except the majority of the damage caused came from Darwin taking his advice too literally, and not wanting to upset him over "his advice" hurting people, while Mr. Small's actual advice is rather good, if somewhat generic, advice in general, like "Follow your dreams", "No idea is a bad idea", "Laughter is the best medicine", and "Don't take advice too literally".
• It Was His Sled:
  • Penny is a shapeshifting fairy underneath her shell and Gumball and her finally become an Official Couple.
  • It is now common knowledge between fans that former background character Rob became an Ascended Extra and the show's official Big Bad.
  • The existence of a hidden pocket dimension called the Void that erases what it deems as mistakes in the world.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Gumball. It's difficult to watch The Misunderstandings without feeling sorry for Gumball just wanting to have a normal day.
  • Bobert. All he wants is to have emotions and be human. After finding said emotions, he took Gumball's life. Rather than try to teach him right from wrong, Gumball simply decides to "Reboot" him, deleting his memories and emotions.
  • William (the eyeball with wings) can't physically speak, but he hasn't realized this until after he attacked Gumball and Darwin for ignoring him.
  • Surprisingly, Granny Jojo is this. In "The Man", it's revealed that Richard's father left her and him to "buy milk" 42 years ago (later retconned to be 33 years) and never came back.
  • While more heavily emphasized on the "Jerkass" part, Mr. Robinson can be this. He just wanted to be left alone but Gumball and Darwin continuously invade his personal space (even if they're well-meaning), he suffered a “heart attack” and the fact that he is married and genuinely loves Margaret, someone who is stated in "The Wicked" to be completely evil.
  • Rob. While trying to destroy Gumball's life and everyone he loves was going too far, he really didn't deserve his fate of being left in the void, having everybody forget about him, and getting disfigured after he got out.
  • Ms. Simian almost always has an air of disgust to her, but you would too if you'd been teaching since the Stone Age and had people attacking you for trying to teach subject matter considered subversive for its day, such as using the wheel and how to make fire.
  • Tina in season one. Though she was a bully back then, the Freudian Excuse she got in "The Fight' (in which others expect her to act like her dreaded father), combined with the reveal in "The Quest" that she fears the dark, is surely guaranteed to make you feel some level of sympathy for her.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Gumball is portrayed as quite the ladies man by the fandom (this also applies to the Ho Yay and incestuous ships).
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • The equal balance of Ho Yay and straight pairings has made the show popular among bisexual viewers.
  • Due to Gumball's occasional Wholesome Crossdresser status and the rather feminine designs on some of the characters, the show also gained a rather decent transgender following.
• Magnificent Bastard ("The Vision"): In Gumball and Darwin’s Imagine Spot, Alan Keane is a mastermind determined to take over Elmore school and eventually the world in order to eliminate sadness. Changing his face and voice to match his villainous demeanor, Alan manipulates students into suggesting him for school president while making them think it was their own idea. He posts a message on the school message board that causes chaos in the school before announcing his candidacy. Alan uses slander against other candidates to win a election and institutes Happy Camp, where all sad students are sent to be made happy by any means necessary while announcing his intention to spread Happy Camps across the world.
• Memetic Mutation: Now has its own page.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • From both ends, as some fan artists felt insulted by Sarah and people who hated fanart/fanfic crowed about it, but Ben Bocquelert made some frustrated tweets that it was an Affectionate Parody and people can ship whatever characters they want. Even in the episodes, Sarah gets treated kindly at the end of "The Fan" and wins a kiss at the end of "The Shippening".
  • The infamous social justice warrior battle between Gumball and Carmen in "The Best" is frequently brought up in certain parts of the web to bash real-life social justice warriors. This ignores the fact that Gumball was clearly meant to look like a jerk for doing so, and thus be in the wrong.
  • The episode "The Parents" is often accused by detractors of having Nicole easily forgive 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 wanna hear your excuses. I just want you guys 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.
• Moe:
  • Penny is very adorable, and becomes even more so as a shapeshifting fairy.
  • Gumball himself is very adorable due to his personality, voice, and design.
  • Or how about Darwin? His innocent, childlike behavior, adorable design, and personality can make him this.
  • Alan, a cute Nice Guy 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.
  • Rob on occasions, albeit in an Ugly Cute way.

N-Z

• Narm Charm: Towards the end of "The Quest" episode Tina Rex apologizes for not giving Anais' doll back and even though she was going to she couldn't because the doll helped her get to sleep. The Puppy-Dog Eyes afterwards doesn't help.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Gumball drinking the disgusting mixture in "The Ghost" to prevent Carrie from possessing his body: Darwin's rancid fishbowl water, sweat from Tobias' headband, Miss Simian's dandruff, Gumball's fifteen-day old underpants, and "fizzy fish gas" (Darwin's burp).
  • In "The Knights", Gumball tries to get Patrick to like him by cleaning the sweat from under his arms while he is jogging, and after he tells him to quit, Gumball then washes his mouth with the same rag. Ew.
  • In "The Hero", Gumball and Darwin get food from the clearance isle: a banana wilts as Gumball eats it, the meat goes rotten as soon as Darwin opens it, gets covered in maggots which hatch into flies and cover the whole screen, and the final can contains a live rat in green goo.
  • The musical number on "The Burden" is both this and Nightmare Fuel due to its use of gross-up close-up jumpscares of live-action hair accompanied by loud buzzing.
  • In "The Menu", Richard eats so many burgers that he starts sweating "sward"^note  sweat made out of lard and "sweeze"^note sward made out of cheese. Gumball and Darwin understandably retch on both occasions.
  • In "The Boredom", while the audience is thankfully spared the graphic details, part of the chain reaction disaster at the mall includes Harold vomiting into the Hexagon Lady's purse for a good five seconds, which she later throws into the air, into a fan that Mr. Small just so happened to be standing right in front of.
• Never Live It Down: Some people will never forgive Nicole for her incredibly abusive and neglectful actions in "The Fridge" and "The Hero", such as leaving her own son, Gumball for dead in a desert and kicking out and practically starving Gumball and Darwin so they'll treat Richard with respect, something she herself rarely does.
• Periphery Demographic:
  • According to the video "107 Facts About ''The Amazing World of Gumball'' You Should Know", Daniel Lennard (the executive producer of Cartoon Network's UK channel) described this show as "the ultimate boys' cartoon," due to its focus on Gumball and Darwin and some of the crude, risqué humor. However, a cursory look in online forums and in animation magazine articles will show that this series has fans in the form of families who watch the show with their kids (both male and female), art and animation school students/fans who cite its Medium Blending art style as the main reason to watch, and the usual demographic of 20-somethings who like the show's outrageous humor.
  • The show is also Popular with Furries due to the main characters being a group of animals (Nicole especially). This received a Take That! in "The Catfish".
• Pop Culture Holiday: January 10th is Sluzzle Tag, a holiday invented by Gumball in "The Lie" to get through the post-Christmas January doldrums. The holiday is celebrated by wearing leather, playing Grindcore music, and waiting for "Sluzzle Dude" to come in through the toilet and leave presents.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Used commonly on shippings, such as:
  • Penball: Penny and Gumball.
  • Carwin: Carrie and Darwin.
  • Carball: Carrie and Gumball.
  • Gumwin: Gumball and Darwin.
  • Roball: Rob and Gumball.
• Recurring Fanon Character:
  • A Gumball OC that turns up pretty often is Lexi Watterson, a pink cat and long lost twin sister of Gumball, who shows up both fanfic about her such as here and even stories that aren't about her directly.
  • Marmalade Watterson, the Fan-Created Offspring of Gumball and Carrie. She is featured in many works of fanart and fanfics. This character was actually parodied in the episode "The Shippening" after Gumball and Carrie got together with Penny and Darwin, respectively in a Take That! to the show's fanbase.
• Salvaged Story: After Seasons 5 and 6 soured some fans on the Gumball x Penny pairing due to Gumball acting neglectful and Penny largely acting aggressive towards each other, "The Gumball Chronicles" managed to save the relationship by highlighting how the two are still in an otherwise wholesome relationship that, while it does have some issues, they are making it work and actually working to address those issues in a much better manner.
• Self-Fanservice:
  • Nicole, Anais, Penny, Carrie, Jamie, and many other female characters that appears on-screen get this... Like, a lot of it.
  • Gumball himself gets this sometimes. Especially when he's drawn as an adult or teenager.
• Signature Scene: Weird Like You and Me from "The Compilation".
• So Okay, It's Average: The general consensus on the first season. Although it has its fans, most agree that it's fairly dull, with inconsistent characterization, generic plots, and tame humor that doesn't really make good use of the show's Medium Blending. Fortunately, the series would hit its stride after this.
• Ship Mates:
  • Fans tend to ship Penball alongside Carwin.
  • If they ship Carrie/Gumball, they sometimes pair Darwin with either Rachel, Jamie, or Penny.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Despite the fact that neither of them have interacted with each other onscreen or even appeared in the same season, some people have begun pairing Rachel and Clare together, due to them having voice actresses who are sisters.
• Squick:
  • The brief glimpse of Ms. Simian’s butt in “The Apology”.
  • Sussie chewing the already-chewed gum given to her by Julius in "The Weirdo".
  • Richard sweating butter, then lard and then sweat made out of cheese and lard in "The Menu".
• Strawman Has a Point: "The Weirdo" has Gumball and Darwin trying to convince Sussie to be a little more normal. At the end she convinces them that living in her own reality makes her more happy, even though they were right that her concepts of reality were not simply weird, but in some cases harmful.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • In "The Refund", Gumball and Darwin sing a song that sounds a lot like "We Are the World".
  • In "The Kiss", the crime fighting police drama Granny JoJo is watching has a similar theme song from CSI: Miami
  • Richard's song in "The Hero" has some similarity with the Malvina Reynolds song "Turn Around"; aside from the fact of the subject being both about seeing their child grow up, there's also how they sang the words "my little one".
  • A blatant soundalike of Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" plays over the senior citizen dance sequence in "The Extras", right down to the record scratch breaks.
  • The song that plays in the background of "The Crew" during the chase scene between the senior citizens and Old!Gumball and Old!Darwin sounds very similar to the song "Straight Outta Compton," right down to the scratch record riff.
  • Margeret's song from "The Wicked" is basically "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music, if Maria were a violent sociopath without a shred of decency or empathy for anyone around her.
  • While the entire episode was a parody of Ghostbusters, "The Scam" features a song called "How Low Would You Go?" which sounds almost exactly like the Ghostbusters' theme song (or "I Want a New Drug" by Huey Lewis and the News).
  • From the same episode is the song that plays during Darwin's fantasy about Carrie, which is identical to Minnie Riperton's Lovin' You.
  • "The Tag" has Gumball play a clip of an obvious parody of Justin Bieber's Baby as an ultimatum towards Mr. Robinson to get him to make nice with Richard.
  • "The Downer" has Gumball sing the song "Life Can Make You Smile" in a (vain) attempt to cheer himself up - a song that sounds eerily similar to "Happy" by Pharrell Williams.
  • In "The Pact", the song that plays in Principal Brown's dream about Gumball stalking him sounds very similar to "One Winged Angel". This is most likely a coincidence, as the episode is a Whole-Plot Reference to Strangers on a Train, a Hitchcock movie, and the two songs do make use of "Psycho" Strings.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Rachel once more. Many considered her to be wasted potential as she was written out of the show only after one major appearance and several cameos in Season 1, along with not really showing much personality aside from being a Big Sister Bully and showing affection for Darwin. While there was a reason for Rachel's removal, this led many to question why the staff even bothered putting her in the show in the first place. Adding more salt in the wound is the fact that, from Season 2 onwards, the show started placing more focus on side characters rather than just the Wattersons, which meant that Rachel could've received more focus or had her character revised the same way others had e.g. Jamie and Tina.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Overlap with It's Short, So It Sucks!, the episode "The Signature" feels like a two-part episodes compressed into each other with two equally funny and even potentially emotional storyline (Richard reacts to the news that Jojo and Louie getting married and moving out of Elmore even though they actually stayed in Elmore and the introduction of Richard's biological father Frankie) but the short running time means that neither of the storyline really lives up to their potential and Frankie's decision and emotional arc at the end of the episode came off as abrupt.
  • "The Awkwardness" could have continued where "The Hug" left off (with Darwin being the next one to endure an awkward friendship with Hot Dog Guy and trying to escape it). Instead, the episode was a Lighter and Softer rehash of "The Hug".
  • Penny is absent in "The Night" (barring a brief appearance in Hector's dream of being small enough to ride the bus and enjoy the things he couldn't due to his gigantic size), which is disappointing since it would have been interesting to see what her dreams are like.
  • It would have been interesting if Nicole had been included in "The Cycle" and "The Diet", so we could see her reactions to the events of the episodes, considering that Richard is the main focus of the episodes. Even though Richard wouldn't solve his dilemma with Harold in "The Cycle" without needing Nicole which is why he didn't want to tell his wife about it and the Word of God already asked how Nicole would react to him being fit in "The Diet". His answer.
    Bocquelet: Not squishy enough.
  • ''The Comic" could've had Gumball/Laserheart seem but ineffectual at first but prove himself a competent superhero when he had to fight a real villain.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: This show has been regarded as The Simpsons filtered through hallucinogenics and experimental art.
• Toy Ship: Gumball and Penny. And later, Carrie and Darwin. To a lesser extent, Anais and Billy and Timmy and Charlie-Ann ^note The frog baby and strawberry baby, respectively, in "The Spinoffs"..
• Ugly Cute:
  • Kenneth (the blob monster from "The Microwave"). Anais even mentions this trope by name when describing him.
    "Well, I guess you're kinda ugly-cute."
  • Richard, Baby!Gumball and some characters can be this.
  • Rob's rather disfigured design can be considered as this by some fans.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • Gumball's face after plastic surgery in "The Photo" is his attempt to amalgamate a bunch of perfect features, giving him a face that is more human-looking in the worse way possible. From the same episode, Alan's face in photos—that of a realistic man's face on a cartoony balloon body.
  • The eponymous butterfly from "The Butterfly" is another photographic human face on a cartoon animal/creature's body—and this time the face moves.
  • In "The Petals", Teri, Molly, and Carmen get realistic pretty faces when cheerleading, since according to Gumball, girls look prettier when in groups.
  • In "The Slap", when Gumball and Tobias are dehydrated, Tobias hallucinates Gumball as having a human-cat face.
• Unexpected Character: Nobody expected the checkout clerk that sings the "Dill Pickle Rap" in "The Brain" to show up again in the song of "The Ghouls".
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Make no mistake, Gumball isn't a saint by any means. That said, the cruelty he receives can be quite excessive, especially since he's still a kid. Some episodes like "The Robot", "The Club", and "The Meddler" also show his family mistreating him as well, even if it partly stems from incompetence rather than malice.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Nicole’s parents, Daniel and Mary. After "The Choices" showcased them as unreasonable parents towards Nicole, "The Parents" tried to paint them as just wanting what was best for their daughter, with Nicole’s temper supposedly part of why they became stranged. This ultimately ends with both sides putting it all behind and making up due to missing each other. The thing is though, it's clear that both Daniel and Mary still had a negative impact on Nicole's childhood. In fact, their Insane Troll Logic as parents (naming their daughter "Doctor", forcing her to take every single extra curricular at school, criticizing her report card for having "F" on the gender section, making her recieve A+ blood during a transfusion instead of B-) and refusal to admit fault shows that Nicole had every right to leave them and act hostile in the present. Even more, Nicole’s anger issues are all but said to have come from her father, not helped by Mary's pompous attitude.
  • Despite many episodes (ex: "The Finale", "The Gripes", and "The Nuisance") depicting the citizens of Elmore as victims of the Wattersons' inane antics, it's clear that their own actions are hardly better, especially since many mistreat Gumball and his family routinely. Even without this, a majority of their misfortune comes from their own bad choices, yet almost none ever stop blaming the protagonists for it.
• Unpopular Popular Character: The Wattersons, and especially Gumball, are hated by almost all of Elmore, but the fandom obviously loves them nonetheless.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Quite a few female characters lack any Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, making it very hard to know what gender they are.
  • What makes it even more confusing is that some of the male characters have feminine eyelashes, such as Darwin, Alan, Leslie, Donut Cop, and Richard.
  • The most prominent male example of this is the male Leslie. To add to the confusion, Leslie's in Masami's treehouse with the girls in "The Pressure". Then again, most plants have both male and female reproductive organs and Leslie is both a masculine and a feminine name. Even the Mexican Spanish and French dubs refer to Leslie as female in Season One before retconing things in Season Two and onwards.
  • Rotten Cupcake was confused for a girl by Gumball in "The Lesson", and is in the boy's bathroom in "The Nuisance", but he can be seen talking to girls in "The Potion" is treated as one, and has a boyfriend. It's unknown if his gender was changed, or he is still a male that hangs out with females.
  • The butchy Coach Russo too. Even Gumball and Darwin thought she was a man.
  • According to the comments in her wiki page, some thought Clare Cooper was a male before her debut episode.
  • In the show's earliest days, Rob was thought to be female due to his bob haircut and androgynous appearance. On the wiki, he was referred to as "The One-Eyed Girl" and later "The One-Eyed Person" before his canon name was revealed.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The combined animation styles are very fun to look at and, for some people, are the most memorable part about the show.
  • Another to any time that Penny changes forms in "The Shell", "The Bros," "The Romantic", and the brief ones on "The Mirror", "The Blame" and “The Transformation”.
  • The fluid animation (made by French animation collective, crcr [the same people who did Cartoon Network's summer station IDs in 2013]) in the rap sequence of "The Kids".
  • The POV shots in "The Law" when Donut Cop, Gumball, and Darwin chase after Felicity when she hijacks the ice cream truck and goes on her insane drive to the police station. They're so chaotic, awesome and somewhat realistic.
  • The chase scene in "The Password" is basically the same as the one from "The Ape" but with more insane cinematic qualities and improved animation (as "The Ape" was a Season 1 episode and "The Password" is Season 3).
  • The times when Elmore plunges into complete chaos has amazing animation and art, as seen in "The Job" (when Richard's employment causes an event horizon), "The Pizza" (Elmore turns into an apocalyptic wasteland due to Elmore's residents becoming hostile and Larry the clerk quitting), and "The Money" (the animation devolving rapidly as the Wattersons race to do the Joyful Burger commercial)
  • The sequence in "The Upgrade" where Gumball, Darwin and Bobert are on air, especially Gumball falling.
  • The opening of "The Origins" where we see the destruction toddler Gumball caused around the Watterson house through Nicole's eyes. It's hard to tell you were watching an episode with the bedazzling first-person 3D effects (seen here).
  • It's debatable, but "The Signal"'s visual effects are awesome, as it probably took the people working on the show a lot of time and effort to not only make a Gumball episode look like it's being affected by satellite interruptions (to the point that a first-time viewer will think that something is wrong with their TV reception [or their computer]), but try and make a narrative out of it.
  • Nicole and Yuki's fight sequence in "The Fury", animated by Studio 4°C (originally, it was going to be Studio Trigger [the same people behind Kill la Kill], but they had prior engagements).
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This show has had jokes and subject matter that would be more at home on a sitcom more suited for older audiences (animated or otherwise), such as economic decline, parental favoritism, overzealous censorship, inappropriate romances, death, and discrimination, as well as references to works that most parents wouldn't consider suitable for children (including things like Breaking Bad, Kill la Kill, and The Last of Us), but puts a child-like/fantastical spin on it. It's one of the few post-2010 Cartoon Network shows to carry a TV-Y7 for fantasy violence (FV) on American TV while similar shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, and even Clarence are rated TV-PG, further casting doubt on whether or not the show is strictly for kids. Unlike most Cartoon Network shows, however, Gumball actually balances kid humor with its dubious content.
• Win Back the Crowd: While not to the extent of Adventure Time and Regular Show, this show was still an important part of Cartoon Network's recovery from their Network Decay. It was a bigger hit with younger audiences than Adventure Time and Regular Show which had more of an teenage/young adult audience (especially Regular Show), though that isn't to say that this show isn't popular with older viewers as well.
• The Woobie:
  • Darwin at times. It's difficult to watch episodes like "The Origins: Part Two", "The Burden", "The Bros", and "The Roots" without feeling sorry for Darwin fearing that Gumball and the other Wattersons will abandon him.
  • Teri, given her Butt-Monkey status, and her (sometimes extreme) mysophobia and hypochondria. She's even a victim of bullying or the butt of jokes by her hypochondriac condition (mostly by Joan). She is a very friendly and nice girl, though.
  • Penny was definitely this in "The Shell" (when she freaked out over thinking Gumball found her new form ugly and had her father insult her), "The Romantic" (putting up with Gumball's disastrous love quest), and "The Disaster"/"The Rerun" (falling to her death from the second floor of the mall thanks to Rob screwing with reality and making Gumball out to be violent against her).
  • Larry the rock-headed clerk, as seen in the episodes "The Finale" (who says he has to take multiple jobs to pay off the damages done by the Wattersons) and "The Pizza" (where he is so sick of getting stiffed out of a tip that he quits, which brings about the end of civilization).
  • If you think about it, Nicole can be this. She's the breadwinner of the family and due to her husband's irresponsible tendencies (and the fact that him getting a job will cause the universe to collapse), she has to do the housework as well. We get a peek into Nicole's childhood in "The Choices", where it's revealed that her mother was extremely controlling, and her father rarely showed any emotion other than rage.
• 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.

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