Characters / The Amazing World of Gumball: The Wattersons

Main Character Index | The Wattersons | Students of Elmore Junior High | Elmore Junior High Staff | Other Citizens of Elmore | Other | Minor Characters

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Main

General

''Familia Hic Insere Sententia'' ^note Translation: "Insert Family Motto Here"

• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Gumball and Nicole are blue cats, and Anais and Richard are pink rabbits.
• Animesque: Their facial expressions seem to invoke this. The show's art director has even described their designs as being "very Japanese-inspired".
• Badass Adorable: All of them are quite cute...especially when they do something badass.
• Badass Family: More and more as the series continues. In the later seasons, more episodes involve them teaming up to deal with huge catastrophes together.
  • In "The Club", the family uses their own odd traits to impressively take out some nerds, Colin and Felix and also Bobert and Ocho. Nicole used her anger to take out a locked door, Richard managed to stall Felix in a board game, Anais used static electricity to short circuit Bobert and hacked a computer to intercept Gumball's embarrassing video, and Darwin's dance skills distracted Colin into dancing with him. Subverted with Gumball however, who fails to stop the video uploading, and is recognized as so lacking in talent even the nerds don't want to touch him.
  • Even moreso in "The Ape" where they work together in a car chase to stop Miss Simian after she tricked them.
  • "The Pizza" has them managing to survive through a Mad Max-esque apocalypse.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Gumball, Nicole, and Richard. In Gumball's case, however, it's because he gave his shoes to Darwin to protect his sensitive foot fins. Anais is a Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal (oddly, wearing socks with no shoes) and Darwin wears only shoes. On occasions where they break from their Limited Wardrobe, they may or may not wear shoes.
• Butt-Monkey: All of them are put through hell quite frequently.
• Cheated Angle: The Wattersons always have their faces in ¾ view, no matter which way their bodies are facing. Darwin's whole body is always in ¾. Whether they are facing forward or to the side is instead indicated by the position of their ears (or tailfin in Darwin's case)◊. When someone attempted to make 3D models of the Watterson family, the head-on views of their face looked... strange.
  • "The Ollie" even used this as a joke when Darwin points out that he never seen Gumball from profile because his head looks weird. When he turns to face Darwin his head looks like a plastic toy. Of course, Darwin is never seen in profile either...
• Dysfunctional Family: They are this as they are out of line and cause problems for everyone and Elmore, Gumball is a snarky Attention Whore, Darwin is sometimes prone to doing bad things and going along with Gumball's schemes, Anais is very bratty and insufferable, Nicole has a very short temper, is prone to violence, and can resort to going insane, and Richard is very irresponsible, stupid, and extremely childish who does nothing but sit at home all day.
• Expressive Ears: All the Wattersons aside from Darwin have ears that pop up and down to indicate expressions.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Of the Watterson children, Anais is the most mature and rational of them. And while Darwin may go along with Gumball's schemes, he often acts as the voice of reason and calls out Gumball when his actions are out of spite. And Gumball is basically the laziest, most selfish, and the most likely one prone to getting himself into mischief.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Complete with a fifth temperament: Anais is the melancholic, Gumball is the phlegmatic, Darwin is the leukine/eclectic, Richard is the sanguine, and Nichole is the choleric.
• Freudian Trio: In terms of the Watterson siblings:
  • Gumball: The Id
  • Darwin: The Ego
  • Anais: The Superego
• The Friends Nobody Likes: Sometimes. Particularly in the middle seasons, the Wattersons are occasionally written as widely disliked and just barely tolerated by the rest of Elmore — especially in episodes that focus on their flaws (collectively or individually) and how others can't stand them. But the series weaned off of this gag as it went on, and towards the end they typically had a more normal relationship with their neighbors. Even "The Nuisance", a later episode about this, plays their reputation more as something the town's corrupt government exaggerates, compared to the much earlier "The Finale" which has the populace be a hair's breadth from running them out of town.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Nicole and Darwin only share few scenes with just the two of them. Despite being in a lot of plots together with the rest of the family there aren't a lot direct one-on-one interactions between them in those scenarios. They also never shared an episode together without any other family member around.
• Gender Equals Breed: Inverted as they're a female cat and a male rabbit whose children are a male cat and female rabbit.
  • Bit of trivia: In the first two seasons, the boys (yes, even Darwin, who's adopted) have rounded rectangular eyes like their father, while Anais has oval eyes like her mother, so there's a bit more instances of Playing with a Trope going on than meets the eye.
• Hated by All: As revealed in "The Finale", their various antics have made them rather infamous, or at least thought of poorly, throughout Elmore. By the end of the episode, the entire town is breaking into their house to get back at them.
• Humanlike Hand Anatomy: When necessary, the Wattersons' hands change from ovular paws (Fingerless Hands in Darwin's case) to human-like hands with separate fingers.
• It's All About Me: They all have their moments. Most notably in "The Pizza", where they all complain about having horrible days, and Anais has to spell out to them that Larry had a far worse day than all of them because he bore the brunt of the Wattersons' jerkishness.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Not always, but their reckless actions often come back to bite them. Like in "The Nuisance" where they are publicly humiliated after trashing their town in a misguided attempt to save their neighborhood.
• Literal-Minded: They all have their moments, Richard especially.
• Mouthy Kid: The Watterson children, especially Gumball.
• Made of Iron: The Wattersons (mainly Gumball) can endure more pain and slapstick than anyone else in the show before getting knocked out.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Whenever a problem or crisis occurs in an episode, it's usually at least one of them who causes it. Case in point: in "The Pizza", the entire plot kicks off because the Wattersons treated Larry so badly that he finally got sick of it and quit all of his jobs, resulting in all of Elmore falling into chaos.
• Pale Females, Dark Males: Nicole is a slightly lighter shade of blue than Gumball, but Anais is a slightly darker shade of pink than Richard.
• Perpetual Poverty: Gumball's trademark sweater was said to have been found in a sewer outlet, for goodness sake. They have a coin-operated fridge, no air conditioning, and can't even afford their own Wi-Fi since Richard lost all the family's money to an internet scam when Gumball was a baby, yet they have a decently sized house, at least two cars and enough food to feed a family of five. They mostly seems to get by thanks Nicole's absurd penny-pinching skills that she learned from her own family (she once bought groceries with so many coupons that the store ended up paying her).
  Gumball: We're so broke that we give "you-owe-me's" to charity.
• Person of Mass Destruction: They frequently cause massive property damage, some good examples being "The Skull" (when Gumball and Darwin indirectly cause $20,000 of damage to the boy's shower room) and "Christmas" (when Gumball, Darwin, and Anais similarly cause thousands of dollars of damage at the local mall). By the end of the second season, the total amount they've done to Elmore is measured to be $800,000.
  • Even when doing something simple, it can happen. In the episode "The Job", Richard becomes a pizza delivery guy. However, Richard getting a job was such a massive violation of the natural order, the universe began dissolving into chaos, especially as he got closer to finishing his route.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy:
  • Played straight with Anais (pink girl) and Gumball (blue boy).
  • Inverted with Richard (pink boy) and Nicole (blue girl).
  • Both of these even stay true when all of them but Richard have their genders momentarily reversed in "The Job".
• Pretentious Latin Motto: The Wattersons actually have a coat of arms with a motto reading "familia hic insere sententia" which according to Nicole translates to "Insert family motto here". The coat of arms is meant to indicate the Wattersons' genetics as they have a long-standing history of stupidity.
• Sphere Eyes: They all have the separated kind of eyes which are ovular in the first season (the boys' being more rectangular), switching between spherical and ovular in the second season, and always spherical in the third season.
• Super-Deformed: The members of the Watterson family all have rather large heads even compared to the cartoonish proportions most characters in the show have.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: The Wattersons have a distinct head shape unique to the family, but somehow shared by all five of them, even both parents and Darwin, who is adopted. The same even applies to Nicole's father and both of Richard's parents.
• Weirdness Magnet: They are almost in the center (and cause) of all the strange events in their town.

Zach "Gumball" Tristopher Watterson

"Gumball Watterson might be a lot of things, but he is not a cheap, corruptible bimbo!" ^note replaced with "coward" in most English-speaking versions

Voiced by:

English: Nicky Jones (Early reel), Logan Grove (seasons 1–the season three premiere "The Kids"); Jacob Hopkins (season 3-season five's "The Copycats"); Nicolas Cantu (rest of season five-season six), Duke Cutler (The Gumball Chronicles)

Japanese: Junko Takeuchi

Latin America: Paolo Filio (episodes 1-6), Isabel Martiñón (rest of series)

Brazil: Eduardo Drummond (Seasons 1-2), João Victor Granja (Season 3 onwards)

Italy: Alessio Puccio

Poland: Mateusz Ceran

Debut: Early reel/Season 1, "The DVD"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Inquisition"

The eponymous main character. Gumball is a twelve-year-old anthropomorphic blue cat who attends middle school at Elmore Junior High. A mischief maker and somewhat lazy, the show revolves around his various mishaps around Elmore. Tends to have questionable morals at times and can be jerkish as well.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: In "The Grades", when he tries to study, he has no idea where to start. When he tries to cheat, going over the material to write crib sheets lets him remember everything he needed to.
• Aerith and Bob: He has the most strange name in his family (since it is not a family name like Darwin, or foreign like Anais), and possibly in the entire cast since the other strange names are Meaningful Names. However, before "The Name", it was just a nickname.
• Aesop Amnesia: Basically the whole point of his character. Whenever he gets into major trouble for whatever scheme he devises, he NEVER learns from his past mistakes and continues implementing the same schemes that got him in trouble before. Of course, Darwin does try to talk him out of it, but is completely ignored most of the time.
• Absurd Phobia: Gumball loathes being filthy to any amount. One drop of anything on Gumball that isn't clean water tends to get him upset, annoyed or saddened in seconds. This fear gets over-exemplified in "The Cage" to the point that at the end of the scene when Gumball's entire head is Covered in Gunge he looks extremely pissed.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Subverted in "The Name", where he seems to become crazy egotistical after finding out his real name is Zach, but is actually suffering from a much more serious problem, which required his name being changed to Gumball to "cure" it.
• Action Survivor: He survives a ton of encounters that would kill anyone in real life.
• Anti-Role Model: Certainly not someone children should look up too due to being mischievous, self-centered and selfish. It also doesn't help that he has Aesop Amnesia.
• Agent Mulder: Gumball can really be this trope but in some cases, he's right usually due the world he lives in.
• Affectionate Nickname: "Gummypuss" by his mother.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Gumball has a crush on Penny, a peanut with antlers who is one of the cheerleaders at Elmore Junior High. The feeling is mutual, but neither of them are capable of expressing it, until the events of 'The Shell' in which Gumball admitted his feelings for her and they began dating.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: He always has three whiskers on one side and two on the other, but the pattern tends to flip as a result of this. It is likely meant to convey perspective, where his face is actually symmetric but never seen from the front.
• Ambiguously Bi: He is obviously in love with Penny, but in "The Ex" he is very desperate to get Rob's nemesity back and is very amused when it happens, while a song plays with the lyrics "You will always love me". He has also kissed Fenton Benson the corn cob guy during "The Misunderstanding"; as the title hinted it was a misunderstanding (he'd accidentally won an auction and thought his prize was a kiss with him) but it's worth noting how he just went for it without any reluctance. There's also the weird homoerotic tension he's got going on with Hot Dog Guy. Masami and Teri have a Side Bet going on that he likes boys as well as girls. According to Ben Bocquelet, "he loves whoever he loves".
• Animals Hate Him: Penny's pet tarantula viciously attacked him on sight, and the family's turtle is stated to especially like biting him. Even Gumball's own species hates his guts, as he gets mauled by a white kitten in "The Nest":
  Gumball: That is why I'm not a cat person.
  • Called back to in "The Slip" when the kitten orphanage slaughters him for a couple of seconds.
• Attention Whore: Gumball will do anything in his power to have some sort of importance in anyone's life. Taken to its absolute extreme in "The Others" when Gumball has been denying the whole existence of other students in Elmore High until Anais told him to notice them... and he promptly tried to shove himself into Clare's parody of a dramatic A Day in the Limelight by making sure she got a forced Esoteric Happy Ending thanks to him.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: When he's forced in a dress in "The Dress", everyone instantly likes him and calls him beautiful. It helps that he takes after Nicole, though it might have just been the dress which was really nice. In "The Worst" when Gumball and Darwin decide to go in Nicole's shoes by applying for a job as a woman, the Green John and Red Security Guard fight over who gets to leave the door open to inside for them.
• Awesome Mc Cool Name: "Zach" was this for him, only. Later, Zach became his alter-ego.
• Badass Normal: Compared to his peers and family, he doesn't have any magical or special powers but what he does have is his quick-wit and silver tongue.
• Badass Pacifist:
  • In "The Sweaters", he and Darwin both refuse to engage the students from the other school in their idiocy, and ultimately "win" (in the sense of being the only ones who don't look like complete idiots) because they don't play along.
  • Gumball managed to erase a troll out of existence by simply annoying him in "The Sorcerer".
• Bad Liar: On occasion, Gumball can bluff, doing an excellent (unnecessary) job of Playing the Victim Card in "The Sweaters" and taking advantage of the killer virus's pride in "The Virus", but he acts incredibly nervous any time he tries to lie to his mother.
  Nicole: Honey, are you in trouble? Because my mother senses are tingling. I can smell trouble.
  Gumball: [laughing nervously] Trouble? No, we're fine. Absolutely fine. No trouble here, bye.
  Nicole: Are you lying?
  Gumball: Ha! Oh, no, of course not.
  Nicole: Right. You're lying. I'm coming home now.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: He has no nipples, and in the uncensored frames where he's naked, there are no genitals where there realistically would be.
• Barrier Maiden: An extremely meta example. If Gumball drops his loser qualities, the entire show would be plunged into a cliche sitcom starring Tobias. As Gumball would be too much of a boring character without being a loser to be the main character now. Sarah (who at times, seems to be aware that they're a cartoon) claims that the show would get cancelled really fast had they continue it.
• Berserk Button:
  • Same as Darwin, they both don't react well when someone badmouths Mr. Robinson, as seen in "The Sale". It's enough to scare the pants off Nicole, who is usually The Dreaded of the family.
  • He also gets VERY angry when someone messes with Darwin or Anais.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Gumball is usually a hedonistic, lazy, and mischievous kid who is also one of the main sources of comic relief. However, when something becomes serious to him, he. DOESN'T. MESS. AROUND.
• Book Dumb: He is stupid but is still in seventh grade, and his report card has mostly average grades.
• Boomerang Bigot: In "The Nest", he says that he doesn't like cats. Downplayed, as he seems to only apply this to non-anthropomorphic cats.
• Born Unlucky: Especially in "The Curse". In his early concept, he was a black cat who was always unlucky.
• Big Brother Instinct: In spite of his cowardly and lazy nature, Gumball will get serious if someone hurts (or threatens to hurt) Darwin or Anais.
• Birds of a Feather: Him and Darwin. They both share many interests (like video games, the Web, and Mr. Robinson). They spend most of their time together.
• Blue Is Heroic: Gumball is the hero of the series and is a blue cat.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: When he puts his mind to it and isn't trying to show off, Gumball shows a surprising amount of intelligence and athleticism. This is best demonstrated in "The Grades" where Gumball assumes he'd need to cheat on placement test, but passes just because writing crib notes was enough study even though he didn't use them. "The Triangle" put this trait is a rather negative light:
  Gumball: You see, when you try but fail people think you're a loser, but if you skip the try and decide to fail right away, then everyone thinks you've got the talent but you're to cool to waste it on them! It's like chickens. No one knows if they can really fly or not. That's what makes them cool.
  Darwin: So that's your life plan, huh—be a massive chicken?
  Gumball: Yes. And cackle at the eagle when they crash and burn.
  • "The Brain" shows that Gumball is in the dead middle of the family's intelligence. He's not as smart as Anais or Nicole, but he's smarter than Darwin and Richard.
• Buffoonish Tomcat: Played entirely straight in the first season while justified since he's a young cat, especially compared to his mother. Downplayed after that, where he's halfway between this trope whenever he is characterized by slapstick humor and Cats Are Snarkers.
• Butt-Monkey: He gets tons of Disproportionate Retribution, ends up filthy nearly all the time or hurt so badly to the point that an official toy states Gumball has broken 271 bones. That's more bones than there are in a cat's skeleton.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: According to the wiki, he breaks the fourth wall the most often.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Does this in "The Bros" when he's trying to ask Penny to marry him.
• Cats Are Mean: Downplayed in that he's not usually cruel and can be very kind, but tends to be quite judgmental and insensitive. Later on he takes this attitude and combines it with Cats Are Snarkers, constantly making lines that are as mean as they are accurate.
  Darwin: [imitating Gumball] Duh, hey Sussie! While conveniently ignoring my own character flaws, I'm happy to point out that you eat with the grace of a one-toothed camel!
• Cats Hate Water: Despite proving many times in the past that he was inconsistently competent at swimming and usually the one chore he almost never ignores is showering, Gumball in Season 6 flat out can't swim without panicking, fussing and nearly drowning to the point putting him in any amount of water, or pointing out that he is in water will freak him out to not wanting to die levels.
• Cats Are Superior: While a Loser Protagonist, the boy is also a bit of an egotistical narcissist.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "*sigh* (aggravated) Fine..."
  • "What the what!?" became a semi-recurring line of his in the second season—it was even used as a Mad Libs Catch Phrase a couple times ("What the droid?", "What the wasp?") and mocked by Darwin's impersonation of Gumball in "The Sidekick". It was used as early as "The Prank" in early season 1, however.
• Characterization Marches On: Initially very childlike and naive (much like Darwin), it wasn't until season two that he became a cynical, sarcastic Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• The Chew Toy: Amusing Injuries are quite common, but Gumball seems especially prone to them.
• Cheerful Child: In the first season and when he was a toddler.
• Chick Magnet: Zigzagged. In "The Robot", he becomes this... Except it is actually Bobert pretending to be him. Gumball is actually a downplayed version, as he has a mutual attraction with Penny while Sarah has a Stalker with a Crush on him and Darwin.
• Classical Anti-Hero: In spite of his lack of physical fitness, intelligence, and maturity, he's usually the most likely one to save the day. Although he often causes these problems, or even is the problem.
• Child Prodigy: Despite often seeming idiotic and lacking in common sense, he displays an unusually high amount of talent in various areas. His talents include, but are not limited to, archery, cooking, singing, and drawing realistic art. Of particular note is how intelligently he acted as as a four-year-old, with his overall development in "The Origins" being quite a bit ahead of schedule, having a very large vocabulary and speaking in unusually complex sentences for that age. He's even occasionally able to pull of some Mad Scientist-esque feats that not even Anais is ever indicated to be capable of replicating, such as building a functioning time machine in "The Cringe". Unfortunately, his talents are rarely acknowledged.
• Companion Cube: The lump of Principal Brown's hair in "The Burden", which he believed to be Chris Morris.
• Cool Cat: Gumball often attempts to give off this type of cool, collected confidence, but rarely lives up to it. Perhaps best demonstrated in "The Responsible", where he nearly drowns, vomits up a bunch of water in a panic, then immediately snaps into a relaxed posed and acts unfazed. Even in 4th grade Gumball was trying to show this off by wearing a Fedora to school to impress his friends. They laughed.
• Cowardly Lion: Gumball is a self-described coward, but manages to get by in dire situations even if he spends most of them freaking out.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He gets insanely jealous at the suggestion of another guy dating Penny, even getting Mad at a Dream where Darwin kissed her despite him showing no interest in real life.
• Crazy-Prepared: He often plans ahead to ensure he has to exert as little effort as possible.
  • One example would be in "The Spoiler" where he has a checklist of items for seeing a movie such as "affordable candy 'cause the stuff at the movies is a total rip-off" and "Clippers in case someone with big hair sits in front of us."
  • Another example would be in "The Vegging" where Darwin commends him for "thinking of everything" so that their day off would go uninterrupted.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: If his loved ones are threatened or insulted, Gumball can prove much more mature, clever, and determined than he usually is, and can be as strong and athletic as his mother.
• Cute Kitten: He can be cute when he wants to be. "The Origins" shows that at the age of four, he was absolutely adorable.
• Cute Little Fangs: His canines aren't visible when his mouth is closed, but are any time it's open and the teeth on his upper jaw aren't being used as part of his expression, even if no other teeth are shown.
• Deadpan Snarker: He gets increasingly snarky as the show goes on, especially regarding Darwin. It becomes especially apparent throughout the second season, and compliments his Vocal Evolution (see below) quite nicely, actually.
• Depending on the Artist: The white part of his pants is either a button or just a texture.
• Depending on the Writer: His level of intelligence varies from episode. Sometimes he's a complete idiot, sometimes he's just mischievous, sometimes he just acts like a dork, sometimes he's the Only Sane Man. Since the latter half of Season 2, his Only Sane Man status became the more distinct of them all, as he's often able to see through another character's insane plot in a deadpan manner.
• Detachment Combat: It's not used for combat, but Gumball seems to be able to function perfectly whenever a body part gains autonomy.
• Determinator: When properly motivated, Gumball will go through insane lengths to accomplish his goals. Both good and bad goals. God help you if you end up on his bad side.
  • In "The Third" he rides a tricycle through miles of hills, flies down a hill so fast he catches on fire, and gets covered in quick drying cement (which he promptly breaks through) just to prove that he and Darwin are still friends.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: Anais doesn't respect Gumball very much, given he's less mature than her or Darwin, and tends to bother her much more than vice-versa. On a few occasions, he can even be a Big Brother Bully, most prominently when he left Anais out of a party in "Halloween" by hanging her from a tree branch.
• Disguised in Drag: In some episodes like "The Dress" and "The Worst", he dresses up as a girl.
• Ditzy Genius: Other than an in-universe case of Depending on the Writer, the universe itself trying to enforce his role as "the loser", Obfuscating Stupidity, or some combination of all three this is the most believable interpretation for his seemingly inconsistent level of intelligence.
• Don't Tell Mama: He preferred to go to Tina's cave to get Daisy back than not go and Anais telling mom about it.
• Dumbass No More: He went from unintelligent to a more normal level of intelligence after the first season.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Besides Darwin, his design was the one who changed the most from the early reel to the actual show.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: "The Club" reveals that his middle name is Tristopher, or in shortened form, "Trisha"—it was supposed to be Christopher, but Richard wrote it down wrong.
• Embarrassing Nickname:
  • "The Meddler" has his mom calling him "Gummypuss".
  • In "The Club", Colin calls him "Trisha" from his middle name Tristopher.
  • In "The Kiss", Granny Jojo calls him "The Blue One".
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • For all the mischief he causes, he finds himself physically incapable of shoplifting even a candy bar and slaps himself in the face for trying. Ironic, given he's several times demonstrated he's extremely good at stealing things, even from his own mother, or planting them on other people.
  • In "The Dream", he states that once, he squashed a fly, and never got over the guilt.
  • In "The Storm", he objects to kissing Carmen just to make Alan jealous because he considers it cheap and below even someone like him.
• Expressive Ears: Depending on his mood, Gumball's ears can either stand on the top of his head, or move down and hang below it.
• Fatal Flaw: His large ego, heck, even his fandom video introduction lampshades this!
• Fashionable Asymmetry: He has two whiskers pointing forward and three pointing backward, regardless of the direction he's facing.
• First Kiss: He had two or three or even four Accidental Kisses, with Darwin, Carmen, and Teri who flew to his face and possibly Sussie, then had his first intentional kiss with Penny.
• Friend to All Children: Gumball may be despised by nearly everyone that is a non-friend, the world itself, animals, and even cats but "The Grades" shows that he can easily get along with kids. Helps that they were nice to him.
• Furry Reminder: There are times where Gumball will display cat-like traits befitting of his appearance, such as purring, meowing or brandishing his claws.
• Generation Xerox: While obviously similar to his father, Gumball is also similar to his mother in the past, as they both get called losers by the kids or Miss Simian, which is why Nicole wanted to make him a winner in "The Fridge". He and Penny's relationship mirrors Nicole's with Richard growing up as well as Gumball, like his mother, encourages Penny to be herself and come out of her shell. More depressingly (though at least Nicole murders Harry and Gumball's is an Imagine Spot), both him and his mom had potential bad futures with shitty partners who make them emotionally abused housewives.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Gumball frequently uses non-profanity, often with the emphasis and tone people usually reserve for actual profanity (including an Atomic Darn Bomb in "The Third"). In "The Safety" he claims that he doesn't even know any real swear words.
• Goth: According to "The Fraud", he had this phase once.
• Green-Eyed Monster: While it doesn't surface too often, Gumball tends to do insane things when he's jealous of someone. In "The Flower", he tries to kill Leslie over Penny, although that was because a spirit was possessing him, he didn’t do it; in "The Dream", he obsesses over a kiss between Penny and Darwin that he knows he imagined; and in "The Triangle", he tries to stop Darwin from getting to a band rehearsal because he knows Darwin is achieving more than him. However, most of Gumball's jealousy is reserved for Alan, the local Parody Sue that Gumball loathes for how seemingly perfect and popular he is. In "The Saint", he tries to destroy Alan's life to expose his flaws, and in "The Traitor", he stalks Alan all over town to confront him about 'lying' to him.
• Guile Hero: Gumball is a Loser Protagonist, has no special powers or high intellect, and is frequently shown to be the physically weakest in the family (including Anais). But his quick thinking and zany ideas (that usually work) more than make up for it.
• Healing Factor: Mainly played for laughs. Many episodes show that Gumball can regenerate his head, which adds on to his Made of Iron trait.
• Heinz Hybrid: He is half cat and half rabbit as his mom is a cat and his dad is a rabbit.
• Hero with a Unique Name: Most of the cast have mundane names, so the main character going by "Gumball" makes him stick out pretty clearly.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Darwin. They are brothers, best friends, and even sang a song in "The Compilation" about how close they are. In "The Origins", Gumball's love for his missing (then) pet actually caused Darwin to evolve into the form he has today.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Some episodes show that Gumball is a really good cook: he did very well in home ec class and seems to make his own meals a lot because his mom is so busy.
  • "The Photo" reveals that Gumball wants to be a doctor (or a lifeguard) when he grows up.
  • He's able to sketch a pretty decent (if strange) portrait of Darwin in "The Procrastinators".
  • "The Compilation" shows he can play the ukulele fairly well.
  • Surprisingly enough, he's shown to have considerable skill with a bow and arrow across a couple episodes.
    • In "The Society", he lands a headshot on Mr. Small from across the stage when he's asked for a headshot when auditioning for the school play with a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner to boot (though he claimed to have been aiming for the portrait of Tobias that Mr. Small was holding)
      Gumball: [suddenly using a deep voice] How's this for a headshot? [proceeds to shoot Mr. Small in the forehead with his bow and arrow prop]
    • In "The Matchmaker", he casually and effortlessly scores multiple direct hits with arrows tipped with love potion, first on Darwin and Teri (from a great distance no less) to make them fall in love with each other when he and Carrie mistakenly believed that Teri was Darwin's crush, and later on Teri's spray bottle to deal with Teri when Carrie's love breaks the spell on Darwin and allows the two to become an Official Couple.
    • His first instinct is also to use his stuffed bullfrog with a harp as a make shift bow and arrow to attempt to shoot an enraged Tina at a kissing booth in "The Mess". This doesn't go quite as well, however, though it may be justified as he was operating on a lack of sleep the entire day.
  • "The Grades" shows that Gumball can do fine academically if he actually studies (by accident).
  • Gumball has a wonderful singing voice (unless the humor comes from his terrible singing). This is displayed in several episodes such as "The Kids", "The Compilation", "The Uncle" and "The Parents".
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: More like Hilariously Abusive Babyhood. When he was little, his dad dropped him on the ground and that may be the reason he had a deformed head at one point.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Not usually but when it comes to Mr. Robinson, for some reason Gumball can't see he's a bitter, miserable, old jerk who hates everything for no good reason.
• Hypocrite: Gumball can get stubborn and preachy about beliefs he'll suddenly take up without being able to live by. For example in "The Money," he refuses to sell out the family to do a Joyful Burger commercial despite them in desperate need for money after Richard tosses it all in the ocean. When the family is forced to sign the contract lest all of Elmore is destroyed, Gumball still has one last stubborn stand for his principles of the day... except when he sees the contract.
  Gumball: I got principles! Just turns out I can't live by them.
• I Just Want to Be Special: A recurring gag is Gumball engaging in reckless behavior so he can do something out of the ordinary. One of his own fantasies has him allowing unprotected exposure to dangerous mutagenic processes in the slim hope of gaining superpowers.
• Imaginary Friend: In "The Catfish", it's revealed he has an imaginary friend called Mr. Smiggles... which turns out to be real. "The Puppets" shows several more.
• Innocently Insensitive: When Gumball acted rude in the first season, there was a general implication that he did so because he didn't know any better. The biggest difference in his character from the second on is that he's less innocent and more sensitive: he's portrayed as more culpable for his immaturity, ignorance, and insults, but he's also better at realizing when someone needs his help or if he's done something wrong.
• Insufferable Imbecile: Depending on the Writer. He is Book Dumb, ignorant, lazy, reckless, hedonistic, and petty, although he is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold on his better days.
• Interspecies Romance: He (a cat) and Penny (a peanut with antlers, later revealed to be a shape-shifting fairy-like creature).
• Interspecies Friendship: He (a cat) and Darwin (a fish).
• In Touch with His Feminine Side:
  • Gumball once had his hair permed and then asked if he could have a pet pony.
  • In "The Meddler", he showed a real (and comical) interest in being a cheerleader, even thinking it would prove how manly he was.
  • He dressed as a girl playing Anais as a doll in a commercial he did in "The Tape".
  • In "The Roots", he wore a mermaid outfit so Darwin could feel more right at home.
• Irrational Hatred: Of Alan, who he hates for being a kinder, more generous person than he could ever be. Gumball even acknowledges that he has no good reason to hate Alan, but keeps doing it anyway.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Gumball is, to put it bluntly, indestructible. He's survived falling off a cliff, being punched through a wall, and even being flushed down the toilet.
• It Runs in the Family: He orders his whole family around frantically to make his study date with Penny in "The Knights" perfect, showing he is capable of being just as neurotic, controlling and raging as his mom.
• It's All About Me: Gumball is oftentimes a selfish jerk towards others. In fact, he's probably the most self-obsessed out of all the main characters.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he can be exasperated with others and often does some dumb or insensitive things, he's a good kid and will go out of his way to try and help... Even when explicitly told not to. You can't say he isn't a good boyfriend, either, as Penny is the only person he has never been rude towards, no matter the circumstances. Even when he's bumbling or fouling things up, he never means it.
• Jerkass to One: He's generally a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but despises Alan and takes every opportunity to abuse him. Gumball will occasionally acknowledge having no good reason to hate Alan, but keep doing it anyway as he hates that Alan is a kinder, more generous person than he could ever be. Or at least that's how Alan acts like.
• Keet: Early on in the series, he is almost perpetually bright and energetic. This trait becomes less pronounced later on, as he becomes plenty capable of apathy and cynicism. In "The Origins" when he was a toddler, he was so hyper that his parents couldn't find the time to rest as long as he's active. "The Gumball Chronicles" reveals that, while still acting like this, he could also be just as destructive as he is in the present, since he once tried chasing a toddler Leslie with a pair of scissors, implicitly to cut his bud off.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: He tends to get this way about Anais most of the time, like in "The Parasite" where he attempts to poison Anais' seemingly toxic friend by poisoning her sandwich or in "The Rival" where in he fantasizes about football punting Kayvon, who he imagines as a toddler bully. This is played with however, as he also quickly deduces how irrational it sounds when he says it aloud.
• Like Parent, Like Child:
  • From his father's side, being a slacker and Endearingly Dorky enough to touch the hearts of their respective romantic interests.
  • From his mother's side, he's a lot more athletic, determined, and can have as much temper and strength as his mother than he realized deep down as long as he is motivated.
• Loser Protagonist: Lazy, irresponsible, unathletic, Book Dumb to a sometimes dangerous degree, and usually falls victim to endless abuse each episode. Worsened in that he isn't enough of a deadbeat loser like his father, who can reverse it around in his favor. However, he's growing out of this in later seasons.
  • Shown in a positive light in "The Name". The Wattersons believe that while he is a loser, it humbles Gumball a lot and he's a better person personality-wise because of it.
  • Again, in "The Fridge". He's pretty much the lowest-achieving Watterson (according to the fridge chart anyways) but he is content with his life and feels no envy for the others. He ends up becoming the Only Sane Man when the Wattersons become dangerously obsessed with being winners and ends up saving them before the whole family tears apart.
• Loser Son of Loser Dad: A lot of Gumball's negative traits are things he has in common with his father.
• Lovable Coward: Gumball may be frightened about a lot of things but it's pretty difficult to not feel bad when he gets in a more nasty situation than he's used to.
• Made of Iron: It takes A LOT to fully stop Gumball, especially when he becomes a Determinator. "The Virus" and "The Photo" effectively prove that Gumball's body is almost like clay. Can easily be warped and stretched, but hard to break.
• Master of Your Domain: Gumball claims to possess this in "The Virus", and he proves it via Abnormal Limb Rotation Range (which also involuntarily rearranges his internal organs and forces him to visit the infirmary).
• Momma's Boy: Specially in "The Meddler". In general, Nicole is very protective of him.
• Motor Mouth: In the Japanese dub, courtesy of his voice actress. He has his moments in the original English version too, such as in "The Schooling" when he tells Larry what he learned from taking his jobs for five minutes.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Gumball can be sarcastic, prideful even when he can't live up to his beliefs, envious especially around Alan, and unmotivated but he is overall loyal, is willing to help out of good intentions even unwarranted, and cares for his family and loved ones. Not to mention having his own moral compass after he realized his mistakes.
• Naked People Are Funny: Out of all the characters in the entire series, he will appear nude the most to his embarrassment. Though ironically he is one of the few characters to wear clothes to begin with.
• Narcissist: Despite his underachieving, several episodes are based around Gumball going to extreme lengths to prove himself right for some trivial reason, purely to validate his own ego.
• Neat Freak: Gumball occasionally looks ticked whenever he gets dirty and is known to adore taking showers while in "The Burden" he took a bath smiling.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: He himself has assumed he doesn't have powers, but sometimes he gets temporary ones. For instance, he shapeshifts in his imagination song in "The Money" and transforms his head into a goat's in "The Advice" to call the Abraham Lincoln Goat.
• New Transfer Student: He pretends to be one in "The Dress", going under the name GumballOopsEggWobbleUnderpants.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: There are too many episodes to count where Gumball causes the main conflict of the plot.
• Noodle People: He is incredibly skinny, similar to Rob, Julius, Nicole, Larry, Gary, Hexagon Lady, and Miss Simian.
• No Sense of Direction: He think he can somehow memorize a map after eating it and when the wind is directly speaking to him, in plainly decipherable language, he does the exact opposite of what it tells him.
• Oblivious to Hatred: He and Darwin worship the ground Mr. Robinson walks on, unable to understand all the obvious hints that he's a bitter, miserable old Jerkass who hates the Watterson family, especially Gumball and Darwin themselves, with a red-hot burning passion. It isn't until the events of "The Heart", near the very end of the series, that they finally get it.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Overlaps with Brilliant, but Lazy. It's often hinted that, for various reasons, including being too lazy to put in any more effort than is strictly necessary, Gumball intentionally portrays himself as much less capable than he actually is.
• Official Couple: With Penny.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "Gumball" is actually a nickname, but until "The Name" nobody but Nicole knew his real first name was "Zach"—not even Gumball himself. Then "Zach" becomes a intolerable Split Personality who tries to replace Gumball, so he legally changes his name to "Gumball" to get rid of him.
• Only Sane Man: While he was a mix of this, being simply mischievous, hyperactive or stupid, this is slowly becoming his most seen side. The best example is in "The Fridge," being the only family member not worked up into a competitive spirit (started by his mother) and forced to bring the family back to normal.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: The blue to Darwin's orange.
• The Power of Love: It's apparently so powerful that it's what allowed a young Darwin to grow lungs and legs just by Gumball's sheer determination and inability to give up on him coming home. Spoilered example aside, underneath his Deadpan Snarker attitude he is actually a pretty sweet kid who's more than willing to help where he can, and he has had a crush on Penny for a long time before finally winning her heart. Not to mention, being able to appeal to Rob's good side in "The Rerun" to undo the events of "The Disaster".
• Relationship Upgrade: After their Big Damn Kiss at the end of "The Shell" he and Penny are now dating.
• Ridiculous Procrastinator: He's puts off things like returning/replacing DVDs, studying, and chores as long as possible. According to Nicole, his first sentence, said at the age of four, was "I'll do it tomorrow."
  Darwin: You said you'd deal with it.
  Gumball: I said I'd do it in a minute. You don't have to remind me every hour.
  • Being squeaky clean is usually Gumball's highest priority over most of those.
• Rubber Man: Gumball has been shown numerous times to be incredibly elastic. In "The Virus", he shows that he has complete control over his entire body to an unsettlingly complex degree...though he will unintentionally move his internal organs around, requiring him to go to Joan. In "The Wicked", he manages to stretch out his arm and extend it up through Mr. Robinson's shirt. "The Photo" also shows that his face is exceedingly malleable, with Darwin able to mold his lips into a mustache (and an infinitely repeating copy of his mustachioed face) as well as completely alter the bone and muscle structure of his face to give him a handsome face for his school picture.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Darwin's blue.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The more impulsive Manly Man to Darwin's naive Sensitive Guy.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: His screams are very high pitch, especially in the first season when his first actor's voice was cracking.
• Selective Obliviousness: He's completely incapable of understanding that Mr. Robinson is a cantankerous old man who can't stand him or his family, even when the evidence is right in front of him.
• Shipper on Deck: For Darwin and Carrie. When they have their first Official Couple kiss, he smiles warmly and doesn't bother closing his eyes.
• Single-Target Sexuality: The only girl that has stolen Gumball's heart: Penny Fitzgerald. When he needs to get a date in "The Party" but can't bring himself to ask Penny, he doesn't show romantic interest in any of the other girls he asks, instead treating it like some strange chore. He literally has eyes for no girl but Penny.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Early on Gumball is very vocal of his non-existent competence and ability, and how sincere he's being is rather questionable. This tended to make him The Millstone toward the smarter but less assertive Darwin, and a frequent subject to Break the Haughty. Later on, he's far more self-deprecating and aware of his own flaws, albeit seemingly mocking everyone else a lot more to compensate. This trait still shows up occasionally; he's still particularly reluctant to acknowledge his own physical weakness.
  • This trope is quite literal in "The One", where Gumball peels back the layers of his personality, and his ego is revealed to be a colossal blob-like Eldritch Abomination
• Smart Ball: No Pun Intended. He is sometimes the Only Sane Man, such as in "The Bus" (while everyone else gets the Idiot Ball instead).
• Stalker without a Crush: "The Sale" shows him, alongside Darwin, to have an obsessive and stalker-esque Hero Worship of Mr. Robinson. When they find out Mr. Robinson is moving away, Gumball asks to take a lock of his hair to cook and eat so that Mr. Robinson will be a part of him forever.
• Strong as They Need to Be: His level of physical fitness is heavily subject to the Rule of Funny and Rule of Cool. He's stated to be in such terrible shape that he can't overpower a girl made of paper and his organs have a fit doing basic exercises, but when a Chase Scene happens he's perfectly capable of keeping up or even pulling Le Parkour moves that rival his mother's and running for blocks without slowing down.
• Strong Family Resemblance: He looks almost exactly like a shorter version of his mother. Comparing how she looked at his age, the only difference besides clothes was that she was taller, usually has visible eyelashes, and her whiskers look different. In "The Plan" and "The Blame", he even tries to impersonate Nicole; the former was amazingly effective because he stood in a bush to obscure his height.
• Supporting Protagonist: In some episodes, like "The Butterfly" and "The Night".
• Superpowered Evil Side:
  • Jealous Gumball in "The Flower", which was strong enough to smash through giant football players.
  • Zach in "The Name", who supposedly succeeds at almost everything Gumball fails at and "always thinks ahead". However, he refuses to admit where he fails at unlike Gumball, but his ego is big enough to cloud such mistakes.
• Super-Speed: When the plot calls for it, he's fast enough to set people on fire when he passes by them, such as "The Traitor" and "The Best". Otherwise, he's as fast as a normal kid his age.
• Supreme Chef: Shown to be at least decent in cooking in the episode "The Secret". Miss Simian has also called his cooking 'divine' and has gotten a B in home economics because of said cooking. Also in "The Traitor" he singlehandedly prepares a rather impressive dish from a hodgepodge of ingredients.
  • Though he did make a hilariously bad meal for Anais in "The Responsible" and tried to make a meatloaf out of bread crumbs, an onion, an egg and toothpaste in "The Downer", though it may have been Rule of Funny at work.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: Gumball can be both very lazy and very stubborn. This leads to him resenting when others, especially Alan, succeed when he's not even trying.
• Tsundere: Type A. He definitely doesn’t seem to be as pleasant as Darwin and can be very rude & harsh towards others, especially to Alan and is frequently abrasive, but when it comes to his family, he truly loves them.
• Temporarily a Villain: In "The Saint," Gumball becomes a Villain Protagonist, doing a series of increasingly cruel and harmful things to Alan solely to prove that Alan can't possibly be as perfect as he appears and that something must upset him, going so far as selling Alan's parents to Elmore’s resident Monster Clown and showing Alan a tape of them being twisted into balloon animals; at this point, Darwin remarks that Gumball has long since crossed the line and will most likely go to prison.
• Took a Level in Badass: In "The Mustache" (which was in Season 1, when he was much more of a wimp), he becomes a grown man and throws a dodgeball at Tina. It makes her break the walls.
• Took a Level in Cynic: There is a significant shift of optimism to cynic that hit him heavily ever since Season 2 rolled. Justified, he's been effectively The Chew Toy since his debut.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: In the early reel, he was able to make a complex plan to escape school, and even said that one was simplified. His intelligence was passed to Anais when the series started. Downplayed in that he does still occasionally demonstrate intelligence comparable to what he showed in the early reel and seems to practice Obfuscating Stupidity.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Gumball is almost as much a Cheerful Child as Darwin in the first season, and considerably more acerbic from the second season onward. Granted, even back then Gumball was repeatedly shown as rude and destructive, so it's more a shift in attitude than benevolence.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • Downplayed: Season 3 onwards has him be slightly less abrasive then he was in Season 2. He’s still as snarky as ever, but not quite as bad as that season.
  • Incredibly zig-zagged in Season 6 he's a lot closer to how he interacted with others in Season 1 being almost as sweet as he was then but also keeping up being a lazy, easily annoyed snarker at the same time.
• Took a Level in Smartass: Gumball was an energetic Cheerful Child in early episodes, but as of Season 2, he becomes more cynical and dabbles in Cats Are Snarkers quite frequently.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Inevitably but justifiably teaches Darwin to say anything that's on his mind. Of course it backfires just as much as it is successful.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: He's considerably shorter than Penny, though how much varies by the scene.
• Trademark Favorite Food: In "The Awkwardness", he mentions that ketchup is his favorite sauce.
• Twice Shy: His feelings for Penny are mutual, but both struggle to confess to each other. As of "The Shell", they're official.
• Unfazed Everyman: He is perhaps the most normal person in Elmore. Or at the very least he is aware of all the weirdness that surrounds him and is quite comfortable with it.
  Gumball: Wait a minute, this here’s a talking, dancing banana who somehow has a butt. We go to school with a T-Rex, a ghost, a toast, and whatever Principal Brown is. Now who dares to say the world isn't amazing?
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: "Origins" showed that the cynical, snarky Gumball was once a sweet, energetic toddler.
• Verbal Tic: He tends to squeak, usually when he's yelling. Some of this just seems to be due to Logan Grove's voice cracking.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Gender-flipped. Hurting or insulting Penny will get the same reaction to the point that in "The Shell", he scathingly calls out her father for calling her a monster after she broke out of her shell and he actually agrees with Gumball that he was wrong. And in "The Test", he goes back to being his brutally blunt self after seeing Tobias who took over the show get close to his girlfriend and even unleashes his tirades on him in form of an acid attack which burns his face off!
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Gumball can have a pretty acerbic attitude toward all of his classmates but Darwin and Penny, yet most of them seem to consider him their friend. "The Return" has everyone worried over Darwin and Gumball's absence even though they all thought things were way nicer without them (too nice even).
• Vocal Evolution: His voice cracked a lot in the first season and, along with Darwin's, got deeper over the course of the first two seasons as his VA got older. His second voice actor stated in an interview that his performance is specifically based off how he sounded in the second season.
• Weirdness Magnet: Elmore is already pretty weird, but whenever something especially weird happens it always happens to him.
• Weak, but Skilled: Often ends up playing this role when he has to fight someone. What he usually lacks in physical strength,he makes up for by being both physically and mentally faster than any opponent he faces. That said he is shown to be capable of much greater physical strength than he's normally willing to exert,but seems to only let it out if he truly feels he has no other choice.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: His odd (nick)name is sometimes commented on, most notably by Mr. Small in "The Banana".
• Wholesome Crossdresser: He has no problem dressing up like a girl if need be. Some examples would be in "The Tape", "The Meddler" and "The Worst".
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: "AHHH, spider! Knock his block off!"
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: He missed the extreme luck he got from the eponymous hat in "The Helmet" and went insane with using its power once he got it back.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • When he becomes a full grown man in "The Mustache", he throws a dodgeball on Tina and launches her over the gym wall.
  • He also slaps Jackie's hand in "The Spoiler".
  • Overlaps with Would Hurt a Child in "The Faith", where he's implied to have beaten some little kids with a baseball bat, two of which were girls.
  • When Gumball thinks Jodie is taking advantage of Anais, he tries to knock her out and then poison her.
  • In "The Slide", he pushed Betty twice and the blue triangle woman once, and in "The Fan", he pushes Sarah many times.
• Would Hurt a Child: In "The Faith", it's implied he beat up a bunch of child scouts who tried to hold him up.
  Gumball: Meh. Shame they didn't earn their self-defense badges either.

Darwin Raglan Caspian Ahab Poseidon Nicodemius Watterson III

"Sorry, what was that? I was distracted by—Oh look, a shoe!"

Voiced by:

English: Jake Pratt (Early reel), Kwesi Boakye (season 1–season three's "The Kids"); Terrell Ransom, Jr. (the end of season three's "The Kids"-the end of season five's "The Copycats"); Donielle T. Hansley, Jr. ("The Copycats"-"The Cage", with a small part on "The Anybody"), Christian J. Simon ("The Faith"^note though "The Anybody" had a short joke that lampshaded the voice change-"The Inquisition", the "Darwin's Yearbook" mini-series)

Japanese: Yumiko Kobayashi

Italy: Andrea Di Maggio (first voice), Maura Cenciarelli (second voice)

Latin America: Gaby Ugarte (promotional material)

Debut: Early reel/Season 1, "The DVD"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Inquisition"

Gumball's ten-year-old pet goldfish-turned-family member who sprouted legs, grew in size, and began to talk. Gumball and Darwin are seen as brothers (Darwin even calls Nicole "Mrs. Mom" and Richard "Mr. Dad") and attend the same school and class. Darwin is a bit naive due to his forced adaptation among the "normal" world, though he is more rational and moral than Gumball.

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• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: The only clothing Darwin wears are shoes, and he's the only one in his family who does so (though Anais wears socks and the shoes were Gumball's before he gave them to him). Lampshaded by how Darwin's feet will often be subject to pixellation in the same way Gumball's crotch is.
  Darwin: That's all I have left to hide!
  • Mentioned by Anais in "The Job", where she states that they've been wearing the same clothes for a year and that it's time for Darwin to start wearing pants.
  • When series director Mic Graves was asked in an interview why Darwin didn't wear pants, he pointed out Darwin doesn't have any buttocks to put them on. Although Darwin actually does have them, sometimes.
• Actual Pacifist: Darwin claims to be a "Pacifish" in the first season. This changes in Season 2.
• All-Loving Hero: Darwin always tries to see the goodness in others and will often go out of his way to selflessly help those who are sad.
• Ambiguously Brown: Ok, he's a goldfish, but he has a mild African American affect to his speech, no doubt owing to his voice actors being African American. His anthropomorphic counterpart in "The Shippening" is indeed black.
• Anthropomorphic Transformation: Started off as a regular pet fish for Gumball, but soon learned to talk after bonding with him, although it's implied that he was intelligent even before this. Eventually, he developed legs and lungs through sheer determination to make his way back to Gumball after they were separated.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Mostly averted. While he does get on Gumball's nerves sometimes, he's not that bad compared to other examples of this trope.
• Apologetic Attacker: On occasions where he is forced to get physical he will often do this such as in "The Copycats" where he fights his doppelganger.
• Back from the Dead: Briefly after being killed off the show in "The Mirror", he was brought back as a revived corpse and went through an Unexplained Recovery shortly afterwards. Later in the episode "The Rerun", he died in front of Gumball only to be brought back by Rob going back in time to prevent his death and anything else that occurred in the episode from ever happening.
• Badass Pacifist:
  • In "The Sweaters", he and Gumball both refuse to engage the Richwood High students in their idiocy, and ultimately "win" (in the sense of being the only ones who don't look like complete idiots) because they don't play along.
  • In "The Loophole", Darwin managed to stop Bobert from destroying all of mankind by reminding him that one of his rules include protecting all life, even viruses like mankind.
• Bad Impressionists: On the phone with Nicole in "The Flakers", trying to impersonate Richard (while speaking in his own usual high voice) after discovering that he has escaped the house:
  Nicole: Can you pass me onto him, please?
  Darwin: Um, yeah... one minute!
  (clears throat and tries to impersonate Richard)
  Darwin: Hello, Mrs. Mom, what's for dinner?
  Nicole: [unconvinced) Really?
  Darwin: [defeated] Y-ep.
• Bad Liar: Neither he nor Gumball could resist darting their eyes to the side when lying to Anais. And in "The Plan" Darwin had to be given a script because of his difficulty to improvise when lying.
• Berserk Button:
  • For most of "The Banana", Darwin remains patient and friendly in regards to Banana Joe apparently chewing on his pen despite Gumball's insistence of Darwin getting revenge. What finally made Darwin angry was how he thought that Banana Joe trashed his desk and homework.
  • Same as Gumball, they both don't react well when someone badmouths Mr. Robinson, as seen in "The Sale".
  • As shown in "The Bros" and "The BFFs", he isn't too keen on anything or anyone threatening his brotherly relationship with Gumball.
• Beta Couple: With Carrie as of "The Matchmaker".
• Beware the Nice Ones: He becomes a lot more aggressive when provoked in the second season; a prime example would be "The Banana", when he vandalizes Banana Joe's locker and tries to get in a fight with him for damaging his homework.
• Big Brother Attraction: If dressing himself as Penny just for Gumball to show his love possibly implies this trope.
• Butt-Monkey: Not as much as Gumball, but is probably the second biggest one right after him.
• Bystander Syndrome: Darwin's attempts to see the good in people sometimes results in him refusing to acknowledge when someone is evil until it personally affects him. Such as not realizing the turtle is evil until it tries to drown him or trying to find the good in Mrs. Robinson until she smiles while watching him choke.
• Came Back Wrong: After his death in "The Mirror", he was resurrected by another spell but appeared as a revived corpse. He got better though.
• Cephalothorax: Played with; he's a fish that grew legs, so he technically has a separate head and body. However, his fish parts are highly stylized and his face is disproportionately large, meaning he'd basically be a Flying Face without his human-like arms and legs. Referenced several times. Gumball once made angry grabbing motions at his legs, saying that he was trying to strangle Darwin but couldn't because he doesn't have a neck. Also given as the reason he doesn't wear a shirt or pants, although he wore a collar and tie around the part where his legs meet his body in "The Puppy" and wore pants in "The Egg" and many other episodes.
• Character Development: In the first season, Darwin was carefree, naive, and often had the moral high ground in many situations, not to mention often speaking with a grin on his face or his mouth going into a characteristic c-shape. In the second season, he's a lot more irritable and often no better than Gumball, though Darwin also gained the tendency to commit random acts of violence and became more of a Deadpan Snarker. He's also more willing to call Gumball out and stand up for his moral views.
• Character Tic: Starting with season 2, he is often seen puckering his lip when his mood is neutral.
• Cheerful Child: Under most circumstances, he's a pretty happy guy. When he isn't...
• Chick Magnet: Just ask Carrie, Jamie, Sarah, Masami, and Rachel.
• The Conscience: He has a higher moral sense than Gumball does and will usually voice his concerns. In "The Sidekick", Gumball tells him that he counts on Darwin to stop him from going through with especially bad ideas.
• Creepy Child: Surprisingly, despite him having a higher moral sense and being a decent guy, Darwin has shown instances of being this trope.
  • In "The Words", he's encouraged to speak freely and criticize. He ends up torturing an entire classroom with all his bottled-up loathing at their quirky antics.
  • In "The Limit", when he and his siblings are sent to the car after throwing a tantrum for not getting candy, Darwin, suggests this solution of getting their mother back:
    Darwin: "You know what we should do? We should make full-sized paper models of ourselves, set the car on fire, and push it off a cliff to teach Mom a lesson." (Cue the looks of horror on Gumball and Anais' faces)
  • In "The Sidekick", Darwin's idea of making Tobias give back their game is to kidnap his mother. Gumball understandably calls Darwin out on his idea and at one point calls him a "psycho".
  • In "The Safety", he ends up turning Elmore into a police state (which devolves further into a totalitarian dictatorship).
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Well sometimes, when his voice breaks. Taken to extremes in "The Castle" when Gumball makes fun of his voice and he lets out a scream so shrill, it almost renders Gumball and Anais catatonic.
• Cuteness Proximity: Other characters, especially Darwin's family, (yes, this includes Nicole and Anais) are susceptible to to losing IQ points when Darwin is involved because of how cute he is. To the extent that they let him tie them up and take over the world as a dictator because he was cute. Nobody can tell him no. Over the series he starts to learn how to use it as a tool
• The Cutie: Played to comical heights. In The Safety he easily establishes himself as a totalitarian dictator of Elmore because everyone found him too cute to resist.
• Deadpan Snarker: Well, usually his snarking is a lot more cheerful, but he gets more and more of it after the first season.
• Depending on the Writer: Like above, his level of intelligence also varies depending on the episode, as does how peaceful and innocent he is. There's a general shift over time, from hopelessly naive and ignorant to mostly moral and positive, but prone to snark and a severe case of Beware the Nice Ones.
  • His inconsistent behavior is later addressed in "The Decisions", where Darwin realizes he has no personality without following someone. Darwin learns to be more independent by the end.
• Deuteragonist: He has at least a secondary role in more episodes than anyone but Gumball.
• Dirty Coward: Several times, Darwin refuses to be the one to tell someone something negative about them, not because he wants to be nice, but because he refuses to be the one responsible for doing it. Even when Gumball tries being Brutally Honest anyway, Darwin immediately doubles down and forces Gumball to shut his mouth so that he doesn't get blamed by proxy.
  • In "The Advice", in a mix of Never My Fault, Darwin refuses to tell Mr. Small about the damage "his advice" did to the school, even when it was Darwin being Literal-Minded about said advice that caused said damage. When Gumball calls him out on refusing to say anything, Darwin outright says he "refuses to be the kid who breaks his positive spirit", and regularly contradicts Gumball when he tries to call Mr. Small's advice negative in any way.
  • In "The Stories", despite agreeing that Molly's stories are horrifically boring, he chickens out on telling her when Gumball tries making him, forcing Gumball to say it. After that, every time Gumball tries to say anything negative about Molly's stories, Darwin either shuts his mouth or immediately tries to spin Gumball's words into something positive, telling Gumball he doesn't have "the heart" to hurt her feelings... but is perfectly fine passing the burden onto someone else before realizing everyone already passed it off to him and Gumball and subsequently let Jamie maim them with a dodgeball to avoid having it passed back to them.
• Elegant Classical Musician: Darwin, though he never tried a musical instrument before, was able to play "Clair de Lune" on a slide whistle.
• Empathy Pet: In "The Origins", he was this to Gumball.
• Everyone Has Standards: In "The DVD" he became extremely pissed off when Gumball considered committing video piracy.
• Fangs Are Evil: During his Villain Song, "No More Mr. Nice Guy", he has fangs and red eyes, as he happily points out. He reverts back to his normal appearance when Gumball slaps him.
• Fingerless Hands: Darwin's fins don't usually have fingers, but he can still handle things as if they did. He may gain a thumb and sometimes an index finger.
• Fish out of Water: A literal example.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: In "The Wicked", he insists nobody's truly evil, and he spends the episode trying to prove that Mrs. Robinson has some good in her. He changes his mind when he makes Mrs. Robinson think he's choking before choking for real, and she just smiles and watches.
• Grade Skipper: Not to the extent of his sister, but he is 2 years younger than Gumball and in his class. He could have just started early, but he isn't present in flashbacks to Gumball's elementary school days in The Cringe, implying he could be this trope.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He gets incredibly jealous of the attention Gumball gives to Penny once they start dating. The fact that he was immune to being possessed by jealousy in "The Flower" implies this is the first time in his life he's ever been jealous.
• Happily Adopted: Darwin is Gumball and Anais' brother without question, and even though he calls them Mr. Dad and Mrs. Mom, they're his real Dad and Mom to him; obviously the feeling is completely reciprocated. 3/4 of his family have even openly stated that he's their respective favorite (In front of each other.)
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Gumball. They are brothers, best friends, and even sang a song in "The Compilation" about how close they are.
• Hidden Depths: "The Sale" shows he knows hand signing.
• Holier Than Thou: In many episodes Darwin tends to take on a more self-righteous attitude, trying to enforce his morals onto Gumball despite him being completely off base in regards to his beliefs.
  • "The Wicked" has him adamant that there is good in everyone, and that Mrs. Robinson is Not Evil, Just Misunderstood while making an effort to find the good in her. This is in spite of Gumball trying to point out she is devoid of good and the numerous moments of Mrs. Robinson doing horrible things to the point of being heartless, only conceding after he nearly chokes to death from a poorly thought out plan to prove she's good, by which point he takes it upon himself to try and make her pay, only resulting in him and Gumball being arrested for her crimes.
  • "The Girlfriend" has him refuse to correct Jamie on her toxic beliefs about being a girlfriend or show any fear to her, adamant she has to learn the lesson on her own. He also refuses to let Gumball say anything either, even as her actions terrorize the school and even cause bodily harm to Richard, and she only stops after Gumball becomes her second "boyfriend" and he actually makes clear how terrified he is to her, Darwin getting beat up by Jamie once she realizes what he was doing and seeing it as Condescending Compassion.
  • "The Revolt" has him become a Soapbox Sadie over how the objects of Elmore are treated like... well, objects. He's the only one with a problem though, since the objects themselves don't mind, and Gumball repeatedly points out the flaws in his logic, the objects only "revolting" once they learn about how they're discarded when broken, upon which they overthrow Elmore and force the citizens to act like objects themselves. Only after he's been reduced to a pencil sharpener and about to suffer an Ass Shove does Darwin admit his self-righteousness was poorly thought out.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: When taken over by Jealousy in "The Flower" he's the only one with no spite or envy of anyone else, instead just stating he's "actually quite happy with my life". Gumball took a peek inside his head in "The Sweaters" to see if he had any guilt, and just saw a brilliant shining light come out.
• Innocently Insensitive: Like Gumball, Darwin tended to unintentionally offend people in the first season. Afterward he's much more snarky and aggressive, usually toward Gumball, but also more considerate—often excessively so.
• Insistent Terminology: He considers himself to be/have been an "Animal Companion", not a pet.
• Interspecies Adoption: Darwin's treated like as much of a member of the family as Gumball is. Although legally, he's still registered as a pet.
• Interspecies Romance: With Carrie and explored more in "The Scam". It finally happened between them in "The Matchmaker".
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Darwin seems to have interests in classical music and synchronized swimming (though the latter makes sense, considering he's a fish).
• Keet: In early episodes, he's almost unfailingly energetic. He becomes less so later on, but he's still usually more upbeat and optimistic than Gumball.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Sometimes go through this. In "The Roots", he attempts to guilt trip the rest of the family into buying him a bigger fish tank, which eventually results in him going through a massive Humiliation Conga,
  • Gumball isn't afraid to knock him down a peg or two when he acts too insufferable as seen in "The Phone", "The Hug", or "The Loophole".
• Legacy Character: As his full name states, he's not the first Darwin Watterson, the previous having been regular goldfish their whole lives. Though "The Origins" shows that the current Darwin is actually the sixth replacement, the previous having all died due to negligence and stupidity.
• Literal-Minded: Darwin often takes figurative speech literally, which sometimes leads to pain on his part.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Carrie and Darwin. Carrie is a punk rock chick, a hardcore horror movie fan, with a fondness for gross smells and food eating sprees, and has a strong tendency to be a Deadpan Snarker. Meanwhile, Darwin is cheerful, similarly optimistic, and sensitive just like his adoptive father, and less edgy in personality. In "The Drama" Carrie is shown to like cool, heavy music that literally melts people's faces off, while Darwin likes softer music, like a band called "The Lollipuppies".
  • He's also this to Nicole, who's short-tempered and skilled in fighting.
• Meaningful Name:
  • He was once the family pet fish but then he sprouted legs and doesn't need water to breathe anymore. Think about that for a second.
  • His middle names all have nautical connections.
• Moral Myopia: Darwin has a bad habit of not being able to practice what he preaches, lashing out when he is the one directly affected, and more often than not to Disproportionate Retribution levels.
  • In "The Banana", he was content telling Gumball to Turn the Other Cheek when it looked like Banana Joe chewed his pen, only to lose it when Joe accidentally trashed his desk and homework, vandalizing Joe's locker and belongings, then trying to beat the crap out of Joe when in Mr. Small's office while Gumball struggled to hold him back.
  • In "The Puppy", he largely advocated for Gumball being nice to Evil Turtle, regularly chastising him and acting condescending when Gumball was rightfully afraid of it, only to try and beat the shit out of it when it dragged him to the bottom of a lake to chew on later, requiring Gumball pull him away before the Awesome Store blew up, Darwin even saying See You in Hell when it looked like it died.
  • In "The Wicked", Darwin repeatedly insists that there is good in everyone, even the blatantly vile Mrs. Robinson, and goes to repeated lengths to prove it, even attempting to fake choking before actually choking for real on a plastic toy, stopping Gumball from helping him just so Mrs. Robinson could. When she doesn't and instead just sadistically watches him nearly choke to death, he snaps, calling her pure evil and taking it upon himself to make her pay.
• Morality Chain: Gumball considers Darwin to be this to him.
  Gumball: Ugh, this momnapping thing was by far the worst leader move I've ever heard of!
  Darwin: Oh come on! That's exactly the kind of idea you'd usually come up with!
  Gumball: Yeah, but if it was my plan, I would have had you stop me from doing it!
  Darwin: What do you mean?
  Gumball: I mean, you're not a sidekick, dude. You're a guardian! I need you, man!
• Named After Somebody Famous: Several somebodies, but the most obvious, is, of course, Charles Darwin
• Never My Fault: Darwin's quick to blame Gumball for a problem but will rarely own up to his own involvement in the situation. Gumball even calls him out on this in "The Law".
• Nice Guy: He becomes more aggressive from the second season onwards, but he still remains a Cheerful Child. When he was possessed by a spirit of jealousy, he reveals that "[he's] actually quite happy with [his] life" and holds no spite or envy towards anyone else.
  Darwin: Is he gonna cry? Because if he cries, I'll cry!
• Not So Above It All: While he's usually the Only Sane Man, when exposed to certain events that Gumball is up to, the roles can switch and Darwin can actually be even worse than Gumball himself:
  • In "The Sidekick", Darwin laments that he is seen as Gumball's sidekick and believes that he is capable of taking charge for once. Gumball (rather insensitively) says that he can't handle the responsibility. He is proven right when Darwin's idea of making Tobias give back their game is to kidnap his mother; Gumball outright calls him a psycho for doing so.
  • In "The Banana," he initially preaches Turn the Other Cheek even as Gumball tries to insist he take revenge on Banana Joe for allegedly chewing the pen he borrowed, but when Joe accidentally destroys his homework as a result of Gumball's glue prank, Darwin completely disregards his own advice, vandalizes Joe's locker, and when Mr. Small calls them into his office, has to be physically restrained from attacking Joe by Gumball.
  • "The Bros" and "The BFFs" are both episodes showing just how violent, possessive, and irrational Darwin will become if he feels his status as Gumball's best friend is threatend.
• Oblivious to Hatred: He and Gumball worship the ground Mr. Robinson walks on, unable to understand all the obvious hints that he's a bitter, miserable old dick who hates the Watterson family, especially Gumball and Darwin themselves, with a red-hot burning passion. It isn't until the events of "The Heart", near the very end of the series, that they finally get it.
• Obsessed with Food: He tends to think with his stomach from time to time as most fish seem to do.
• Official Couple: As of "The Matchmaker", he and Carrie are a couple.
• Only Sane Man: Though not necessarily the smartest person in any episode he's in, he's traded off on the role of "the only person being objective while everything's going nuts" with Anais on occasion (with them sometimes sharing it in episodes such as The Helmet), and has started playing the Straight Man to Gumball's antics more. Gumball basically says in "The Sidekick" that his role in their dynamic is to stop him from doing really crazy things. Though at times, such as "The Sidekick", "The Phone", and "The Banana", roles switch and he actually acts worse than what Gumball does.
• Overly Long Name: In "The Party", he reveals that his full name is Darwin Raglan Caspian Ahab Poseidon Nicodemus Watterson III.
• Parental Title Characterization: Darwin calls his parents "Mrs. Mom" and "Mr. Dad"—not because he's distant from them, but because he's overly polite and slightly eccentric. "The Origins" showed this started when Richard asked to be called "Dad" instead of "Mr. Watterson", and Darwin partially missed the point.
• Pure Is Not Good: Darwin's innocent nature usually makes him fairly kind, but if exposed to certain events that Gumball is up to, he can be worse than him. Even in the first season it was implied he had a lot of pent up rage he was too innocent to express properly: Darwin's attempt to yell out his stress in "The Painting" produced a nuclear explosion, during which he continued smiling.
• Relationship Upgrade: He becomes a couple with Carrie in "The Matchmaker".
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The naive Sensitive Guy to Gumball's more impulsive Manly Man.
• Same Clothes, Different Year: Darwin wears the same style of shoes in every flashback set after the end of "The Origins", where Gumball gave him his first pair.
• Sarcasm-Blind: In season 1, he failed to understand sarcasm often, especially from Anais. In season 2, he snarks with the best of them.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Can be this to Gumball on occasion.
• Selective Obliviousness: Like Gumball, he can't comprehend that Mr. Robinson can't stand the Watterson family even when the evidence is right in front of him.
• Soapbox Sadie: In "The Revolt" (an episode that makes fun of virtue signalling), Darwin is angry at everyone for treating the living objects of Elmore... like objects. He protests on behalf of them and angrily lectures Gumball on treating objects better in a rather aggressive and condescending way. This backfires in the ending, where the objects decide to not only want to be treated better, but to takeover Elmore. They enslave everyone in town and force them to act like objects.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: When Jamie forces him to be her boyfriend, Gumball suggests that he try to look ugly, to which Darwin replies that Gumball knows Darwin can only look adorable; he calls it a curse himself
• Sour Supporter: He'll usually be the first person to call Gumball out on a selfish plan but will often end up assisting him anyway.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: He's able to guess what Chris Morris the hamster says in "The Burden" and speak squirrel in "The Question", probably because he used to be a pet. Of course, all the animals can speak and understand English anyway, making it a bit of a moot point.
• Stepford Smiler: In "The Meddler", Darwin constantly smiles to hide his displeasure of Nicole coming to school—later on he keeps doing so because he forgot how to stop. In "The Gripes", he keeps smiling while trying to cheer up an unreasonably-grumpy Gumball, barely restraining himself from smashing his head in with a toaster, until he collapses into whining along with him.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: He's a very good swimmer and can breathe underwater. He's a fish, what do you expect?
• Toothy Bird: Despite being a fish, Darwin has teeth that are even more humanlike than the rest of the family's.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Fish flakes, apparently.
  • "The Potato" shows Darwin having a near obsession with potatoes.
• Twice Shy: Darwin has a mutual crush on Carrie, and both become nervous when they try to ask each other out.
• Unexplained Recovery: After he Came Back Wrong, he was restored completely for no good reason aside from the implication that it occurred as the Snatcher's curse was broken.
• Uplifted Animal: Notably, while anything can become humanlike, he's the only character stated to have become human-like rather than being born that way. "The Origins" gives us an explanation of how he got uplifted; He was always as intelligent as he is now (as well as being fully capable of speech), but it was Gumball's love and refusal to give up on him coming home after accidentally being flushed down the toilet that caused his lungs and legs to grow in so that he could actually get back to Elmore. The love is also presumably what caused him to grow in size, as he was regular goldfish sized when they first bought him, but by the time he gets home he is as tall as a 4-year-old Gumball.
• Vibrant Orange: He is an orange goldfish and is very optimistic, happy and cheerful.
• Villain Song: "No More Mr. Nice Guy", where his voice drops a number of octaves and he gets an Evil Makeover.
• Vocal Evolution: He had a higher and more innocent sounding voice in the first season, but his voice, along with Gumball's, got deeper over the course of the first two seasons as his original VA (Kwesi Boakye) got older. Darwin's voice actor appears to have started puberty slightly later, resulting in Darwin's voice breaking often in season two, something Gumball's voice had mostly stopped by the end of season one (which make sense in-series because Darwin is two years younger). Gumball even mocks Darwin for it in "The Castle". They were recasted in Season 3, where Terrell Ransom Jr represented a near-identical take on Darwin's season one voice, albeit in a softer and squeakier tone. Unlike their predecessors, Jacob Hopkins and Terrell Ransom Jr did not hit puberty until quite late in Season 4, where many fans began to notice that their voices were slightly more bass-sounding compared to previous episodes, particularly the episode "The Night", which was 31 episodes into the season. Their voices quickly grew lower as episodes went on. Their voices deepened even further by the premiere of Season 5, not quite to the same extent as "The Kids" but more resonant than "The Finale". Their voices were recasted once more by "The Copycats". Darwin's voice was later recasted in "The Anybody" due to his at the time VA (Donielle T. Hansley Jr.) hitting puberty.
  Darwin: Dude, have you noticed that your voice has changed?
  Gumball: What, you mean how I sound like a man and you squeal like a piglet on helium?
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Downplayed in The Detective. Anais had already convinced herself that it was primarily Gumball, and not Darwin, who was responsible for the loss of her doll, but Darwin has absolutely zero trouble convincing her that Gumball wouldn't let him confess and that Gumball attempted to force him to flush the doll down the toilet. Unfortunately for Anais, due Darwin's ability to cause Cuteness Proximity in others, as well as some good old fashioned confirmation bias on her part, she buys it.
• Yandere: Darwin shows shades of this to Gumball in "The BFFS", Wherein Gumballs original best friend, Fuzzy, returns from Minnesota and the two bond, making Darwin extremely jealous. He threatens Fuzzy to stay away from Gumball and even tries to manipulate Fuzzy into looking like the bad guy. It reaches it's point near the climax, where Darwin bashes Fuzzy's head with a shovel to kill him and bury him in an unmarked grave in the woods where no one will find out. This was before he found out that Fuzzy was evil (and a robot), so far all intents and purposes, Darwin was going to murder a completely innocent person out of jealousy.
• Younger Than They Look: When Darwin was two, he was of similar size and mental development as the four-year-old Gumball, and apparently started school at the same time (they're still in the same grade despite Darwin lacking the academic skills to skip grades). One assumes that Darwin aged faster before becoming a fully Uplifted Animal.

Anais Errrrrr Watterson

"This plan already reeks of failure."

Voiced by:

English: Kyla Rae Kowalewski

Japanese: Yukiko Hinata

Korean: Kim Yeonwoo

Debut: Season 1, "The Responsible"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Inquisition"

Gumball's sister, a genius four-year-old pink rabbit. Due to her high intelligence, she attends Gumball and Darwin's middle school as well, one grade higher than them. Despite her competency, she still displays some traits of a typical four-year old.

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• Age Lift: In the show, she is four years old, but in a comic◊ she states being eight, meaning in this continuity, she was born when Darwin was adopted. Despite this, she is still the same size.
• Agent Scully: She's this to Gumball's Agent Mulder as she questions about such things as Gumball having bad luck in "The Curse" and Gumball having good luck when wearing the tinfoil hat in "The Helmet".
• All Girls Like Ponies: In "Christmas" she tells Santa Claus that she wants not just one, but four ponies: one for the bedroom, one downstairs, one for the bathroom, and a spare one that no one else (namely Gumball) is allowed to use.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Gumball is far more likely to annoy her, but she starts to have her own moments of acting bratty in the second season.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Anais has an amazing analytical ability, which is seen in "The Parking" and "The Detective", especially the latter.
• Badass Adorable: She managed to flip Richard when she was lost and scared in the desert as seen on "The Vacation".
• Berserk Button: Suggesting that Daisy the Donkey was just a doll made her react with an absolutely monstrous looking face.
• Brainy Baby: "The Choices" reveals that she was extremely smart even as an infant, being able to hold a pencil to correctly spell her name.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Shows this side of herself sometimes, such as in "The Car". In that episode, Anais doesn't care that Nicole is exhausted from working all night and just wants some sleep; Nicole promised to take her to see Daisy on Ice, and if she has to resort to guilt-tripping Nicole into going by repeatedly playing an auto recording of her declaring herself a "horrible mother" for not taking Anais to see her favorite show, then so be it.
• Bunnies for Cuteness: Anais looks like a cute little rabbit.
• The Chessmaster: In "The Remote", she manipulates the entire rest of the family to lock them outside while she watches TV. She does it again in "The Password," where she tricks Gumball and Darwin into thinking their parents favor her over them just so she can get time on the computer to herself.
• Child Prodigy: Despite being four years old, she is described as one of the smartest characters on the show and even attends Junior High with her much older brothers; she is apparently at a higher class than they are. It's also revealed at the end of "The Genius" that she secretly took and passed Darwin's aptitude test with flying colors, and was judged smart enough to have her intelligence studied in a laboratory.
• The Comically Serious: She’s surprisingly more calm, serious and mature than the rest of her family, which is a bit hilarious since she’s only four years old. She still has childish tendencies, despite her intelligence.
• Complexity Addiction: Despite being cleverer than her brothers, this is typically the reason her plans fall as flat as theirs do. In situations where all the Wattersons are trying to solve the same problem (like "The Heist" or "The Parking") her bit will usually be an overly complicated train of thought that misses the forest for the trees. Even the ones that work tend to be Batman Gambits.
• Creepy Child: As a four-year-old who's smart enough to be in middle school, she's created her fair share of plans to get what she wants (such as tricking her whole family out of the house so she could watch TV, or changing the password on the computer to effectively lock Gumball and Darwin out). It's also clear that she inherited her mom's Hair-Trigger Temper, and she's prone to making creepy facial expressions. And that's not even getting into what happened when she tried to befriend her classmate Jodie... Oh, and did we mention that she spent most of her infancy trying to murder her brothers?
• Cute and Psycho: While she is The Baby of the Bunch, she still manages to terrify her older siblings with her ruthless and violent tendencies especially when she was an actual baby.
• Cute Bruiser: Nowhere in Nicole's level, but she did curb-stomp Richard.
• Daddy's Girl: Out of her and her brothers, she's the closest to their father.
• Depending on the Writer: In the first season, it varied from episode to episode whether Anais had her own room or shared one with Gumball and Darwin. Later seasons always show the three of them sharing the same bedroom.
• Didn't Think This Through: Falls into this in "The Friend." She sets up a big party, and is genuinely shocked that no one bothered to show up. As it turns out, Anais didn't actually invite anyone because she has no friends, and it doesn't occur to her that no one would show up under those circumstances until she actually says it out loud.
• Enfant Terrible: She mostly grew out of it, but "The Rival" shows that Anais spent a considerable amount of her infancy trying to murder her brothers. Even once she comes to accept them, she still enjoyed using her cuteness to frame them in front of their parents.
• Expy: She looks quite similar to Panini from Chowder.
• Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Inverted with her and Nicole. Anais loves playing with dolls and can be rather socially awkward while Nicole has a short temper and skills in karate.
• Friendless Background: We never see her with any friends, and "The Friend" shows this is because she doesn't have any.
• Girly Bruiser: She is very strong for her age, but is pretty feminine too.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Anais loves Daisy the Donkey, a few episodes show her having tea parties with her dolls, she often wears dresses (such as a pink and frilly dress for Halloween), and judging by her asking a princess tiara and a prince for Christmas and once getting sent to hospital for kissing frogs so they'll turn into princes, she seems to be in a Princess Phase. She also inherited her mother's violent temper and impressive fighting skills, is very sarcastic for a 4 year old, and despite waiting all day to watch a movie called A Pony's Tail Anais ended up hating it.
• Gold Digger: As mentioned below, she wants to marry a prince eventually so that she can basically live like her dad.
• Grade Skipper: She attends eighth grade at the age of four, two years before most children have even started grade school.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Sometimes. She seems to inherit this from Nicole.
• Heinz Hybrid: She is half rabbit and half cat since her mom is a cat and dad is a rabbit.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: She's this to Darwin and Gumball.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: She has no friends, and in "The Parasite" we see she can get too obsessive the first sign of having a friend shows up.
  • "The Guy" cements that Gumball and Darwin, and later Jamie (along with the Chimera in "The Friend") will forever be her only true friends, much to her chagrin.
• Innocent Prodigy: Despite being the smartest of the family, she still has shades of mentality of a toddler, and plays with Daisy the Donkey like a typical four-year old girl.
• Insufferable Genius: She can act like this at times, smugly telling others what's logical and correct and getting flustered whenever it proves to be wrong. After all, she did manage to pull a Chessmaster scheme against her family on two occasions.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: She's a genius and a Child Prodigy, but she also has No Social Skills and her only friends are her siblings.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite being snarky, bratty, and insufferable, she's a pretty decent person most of the time.
• Killer Rabbit: Can prove to be quite dangerous when the situation requires it. Given her small size, she usually has to rely on her resourcefulness rather than brute strength.
• Like Parent, Like Child:
  • From her mother, Anais got her temper and impressive fighting skills.
  • From her father, she (ironically) got his awkward and childish tendencies.
• Little Miss Snarker: Only four years old, and a veteran master of snark.
• No Social Skills: Given her intellect and attitude Anais can be very socially awkward to the point of insanity. Case and point, her idea of friend hunting literally involves hunting for friends.
• Not So Above It All: She's considerably more child-like—or even flat out crazy—when it comes to anything involving Daisy the Donkey. More generally, she's far more likely to involve herself with her brothers' hijinks from the second season on, even if she's usually smarter about it, compared to the first where she almost always refused to let herself get caught up in it. Seasons 3 and 4 implies that she can be lazy like Richard and is more willing to resort to violence upon others than her mother, even having to be convinced by her brothers not to beat up a kid who's picking on her.
• Odd Friendship: She forms one with the strange monster in "The Friend". Later, in "The Buddy" she ends up friends with Jamie, who is otherwise her complete opposite.
• Only Sane Woman: Can be her or can be her mother, depending on the episode.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Zigzagged. When the plot demands it, she is depicted as being able to lift way more than her body weight, such as when she carried a ton of luggage upstairs and the time she carried Darwin with a bunch of stuff on him all the way to the top of a mountain.
• Princess Phase: Anais once asked for a tiara and a prince for Christmas, and kissed frogs until she got warts because she believed one might turn into a prince. She's still a little girl, after all.
• Rascally Rabbit: Although typically well-behaved, she can be very manipulative and devious when it benefits her.
• Shorter Means Smarter: The shortest of the Watterson family and is usually the most intelligent and level-headed of the family (other than Nicole) and occasionally acts as the Only Sane Man.
• The Slacker: Ironically, she's often been shown to share some of her father's laziness. Anais seems to study more because she enjoys it than any practical benefit, and has joined with her brothers in laying around and eating junk food on Saturday. Despite being a genius, Anais expresses some decidedly unambitious life goals when giving her Christmas list:
  Anais: I want a princess tiara and a prince to marry me when I'm old enough so I never have to work like Mom.
• The Smart Girl: She's often the one in her family who comes up logical solutions to their problems. Whether or not they work (given Elmore's illogical setting) depends on Rule of Funny.
• Straight Man: Usually. She's normally serious, but sometimes she slithers away from this. Justified as she is still a child thus has childish tendencies.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Like Gumball, her level of physical strength varies a lot depending the needs of the plot or the joke. Sometimes she's a Pintsized Powerhouse almost as strong as Nicole. Other times, she's explicitly weaker than anyone else in the family and needs their assistance to get by and to trick them to come out ahead.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She is a pink rabbit with a noticeable tooth like her dad, but her head and mouth shape is similar to her mom's.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Nicole's Tomboy.
• Tuckerization: Named after Ben Bocquelet's younger sister.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: More "cute". Especially noticeable in that when we see Nicole and Richard as children, you see Nicole and Gumball look very similar but Anais doesn't really look like either of her parents (she does look a lot like Granny Jojo, though).
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Her level of intellect seems to hang on this formula. She's great at rolling her eyes and explaining all the things wrong with her brothers' latest Zany Scheme, but when it comes to pulling off her own plans, she tends to fall flat on her face.
  Gumball: Hey, where is everyone?
  Anais: I don't know! I prepared everything and no one came [to my party]!
  Darwin: Did you invite anyone?
  Anais: Of course not. I have no friends.
  *Moment of realization kicks in.*
• Vocal Evolution: It's not as obvious as her brothers' because she's a girl, but her voice has gotten significantly deeper since the show started. Depending on the scene, this can make her sound more mature, angry, or sarcastic. For reference, Kyla Rae Kowalewski was more than twice Anais' age when the show started while the voice actors for Darwin and Gumball had to be recast twice (once in season 3 and again in season 5).
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: The serious child to Richard's wacky parent.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: She usually acts much older than her age in terms of knowledge and maturity.
• When She Smiles: In "The Pony", Darwin and Gumball consider the hoops they'd jumped through to watch a movie with her worth it because they get to see "the happy face"◊.
• Women Are Wiser: The most consistently levelheaded member of the family (though that may be debatable, given how she was a fraticidal maniac as a baby ^note which she turned into cunning and manipulation after Gumball and Darwin rescued her from the dump and her first words were her blaming Gumball and Darwin for what happened just as Nicole and Richard pulled up in their car and there are instances where, despite being a genius, she's still a kid and has no true grasp at how the world works).

Doctor Nicole Watterson

"No, it was the school of life. I have raised three kids and one husband."

Voiced by:

English: Teresa Gallagher

Japanese: Mai Yamane

Italy: Beatrice Margiotti

Dutch: Laura Vlasblom

Debut: Season 1, "The DVD"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Heart"

The maternal member of the Watterson family (and a blue cat like Gumball). She holds down a job at the Rainbow Factory and appears to be the only member of the family with any sense of responsibility. She's normally collected and organized, but when things go awry she succumbs to violent bouts of anger (almost always sparked by her sons and/or husband).

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• Abusive Mom:
  • Sometimes she can be this despite usually being the Only Sane Man. She leaves Gumball alone in a desert at one point in her well-meaning but insane attempt to mold Gumball into a winner (though this was the episode where Gumball was Only Sane Man here.) Another has her refuse to provide for Gumball and Darwin (including food and running water) after the two upset Richard through Brutal Honesty. Her children are so scared of her that, in the episode "The Quest," Gumball and Darwin agree without hesitation that they'd rather face Tina Rex than to incur Nicole's wrath. This is largely phased out by Season 3 in favor of her just having anger issues, with her kids just more afraid of pissing her off than her actually hurting them.
  • "The Choices" reveals Nicole had two of her own: a cold mother who has her life planned for her minute by minute and only accepts Nicole being the best, and a father with horrible anger issues. She goes on her own path to find happiness with Richard and estranged herself from them after an argument one night in her late teens. The fact they didn't come to their wedding (despite being invited and Granny Jojo coming) says a lot... until it was revealed that her parents tried to come to the wedding, but mistook "RSVP" (which is a request for someone invited to a party to respond) for the wedding location and ended up in an Eastern European town that coincidentally was named "RSVP".
• The Ace: She pretty much excels at anything she tries. This is best shown in "The Choices" where its revealed had she never met Richard she would have gone on to ruling the world! Or at the very least, that's what she imagines.
• Action Mom: She's super-humanly athletic and not afraid to get physical. "The Fury" reveals she was a Karate prodigy as a child, explaining her martial prowess.
  Gumball: The woman is virtually a ninja.
• Almighty Mom: You don't want to mess with her. She's been known to bring a fully grown tyrannosaurus Rex to his knees.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In "The Meddler" she decides to follow Gumball around at school everywhere, even in the public shower, doing things such as feeding him like a baby and calling him "Gummypuss".
• Ax-Crazy: Her dad's temper combined with her mother's remnants of obsessive perfection means Nicole can kinda go off the deep end at times. In "The Choices", one of her futures has her becoming a tyrannical overlord who (if the post-apocalyptic appearance of the world is any indication) ended the world.
  Nicole: Okay, I'll try not to dwell on what that says about me...
• Badass Adorable: She could be cute and nice, but she is so tough that she can do jumping and climbing fences, walls, and building. She even got some Super-Strength so she can lift heavy things. Yet she can be pretty scary sometimes.
• Badass Finger Snap: In "The Castle", after returning home and discovering that her home is a mess, she enters the house, with her eyes glowing an ominous purple, and releases an epic one.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: How Nicole's relationship with Richard started. He encouraged her to make her own decisions, do what made her happy and accept herself for who she was. Given her appalling parents, it was easy to see why she ended up with him.
• Berserk Button: She had many of them. Being called a loser (at least by Miss Simian) and disrespecting her authority. And DON'T YOU DARE run away from her if she finds out you're in trouble.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She is sincerely nice, but sometimes she can get really violent, so it's best you run for it if she does.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed. Nicole is sincerely a Nice Girl and she does love her family, and sincerely wants to befriend the residents of Elmore (except those she hates), but she masks her Hair-Trigger Temper with that kind personality most of the time she's given focus, and when someone pushes her too much, she instantly turns to a violent rage. She's also shown herself to be an Abusive Mom on occasion, and can be just as much of a troublemaker as Gumball.
• Blood Knight: Exaggerated; not only she fights people who threaten her children, but also people who slightly tick her off.
• Blue Is Heroic: Like her eldest child, she's a blue cat and is a definite good guy.
• Break the Cutie: As strong-willed as she is, if she married Harry she would break under his nagging, get extensive plastic surgery to try and get his approval and eventually kill him.
• Broken Bird: Downplayed, but she had a bit of emotional issues before meeting Richard and its implied she would've snapped under the strain of their expections if she never met him. After all the hurdles and changes in her life, she became a rare fully recovered example.
• Cats Are Mean: Averted; she's quick to anger, but by default quite nice.
• Cats Are Superior: A very literal example.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: When she was a child, her martial arts training let her do things like sprint impossibly fast for blocks without tiring and using a butterfly in flight as a springboard. From then on, it gets even crazier: Nicole actually gave up martial arts decades ago, and has worked a desk job for years with no time for training or formal exercise. Yet her skill and physical strength have gotten much greater just from the tribulations of being a working mother. Then again, her family has massive amounts of chaos invited into their lives on a near-daily basis in a town already dominated by absurd shenanigans.
• Childhood Friend Romance: She has known her husband, Richard, at least since they were Gumball's age.
• Chubby Chaser: Ben Bocquelet implied over his Twitter when asked what Nicole would think about Richard's buff body in "The Diet", replying "Not squishy enough".
• Competition Freak: She has a huge drive to win. This is arguably her biggest flaw.
  • In "The Fridge", she wins the company paintball game by shooting everyone, even her own teammates, to win the game as well as sucking most of the family into an achievement binge (Gumball being the Only Sane Man). She also tried to pull a I Surrender, Suckers moment to Gumball at the climax of the family paintball game before he finally wins and has the chart removed.
  • She cheats Anais out of six spaces while playing "Dodge or Dare" with the family in "The Game" through Loophole Abuse.
  • When Richard tries to buy Gumball and Darwin's favor over her, she escalated things into a cross-town car chase.
  • When Gumball is trying to show how video games bring families together in "The Blame" Nicole is so obsessed with winning that she fails to notice how Anais ends up choking on the controller.
  • SUBVERTED when confronted against old friend-now-bitter rival Yuki who wants a rematch in a fight, which Nicole refused because she still sees her as her childhood friend until Yuki threatens to take away her job and home.
  • "The Choices" reveal that she was this since she was young, because of how her mother raised her to be the best and that winning was the only thing that mattered.
• Control Freak: Pointed out by Anais in "The Job." Nicole has been freaking out over Richard somehow getting a job (a pizza delivery man) and thinking it's not right. Anais thinks Nicole is worried about Richard working as a pizza delivery guy because she thinks it's upsetting the balance of power in the house. Turns out Nicole was right as the lazy Richard having a job is a literal Reality-Breaking Paradox in a world that mandates he is a Lazy Husband.
  • Given how "The Choices" revealed how her life was dictated by her parents until she met Richard, her being a Control Freak is likely a manifestation of her indulging in the freedom to assert herself and decide her own life and decisions and thus, unwilling to compromise. It's just complied with her severe competitive edge (courtesy of her mother) and her short temper (inherited from her father).
• Cute and Psycho: She's a cute and attractive cat lady who has a major temper problem and need to win.
• Cute Bruiser: Don't make her mad. She is a lot stronger than she looks.
• Cute Little Fangs: Like Gumball, they're only visible when she opens her mouth (in the first season they sometimes didn't even show up then).
• Determinator: She gets scary when she gets mad and probably can and will chase you down. "The DVD" and "The Limit" are based entirely on these moments. In "The Fury", this trait is how she beat her old friend Yuki in the Tournament Finals even when she was her junior and then again even when Yuki trained for years to get revenge on Nicole.
• Death Glare: Her glare pretty instantly gets her family in line and is capable of having a physical effect. "The Castle" gives her Glowing White Eyes swirling with ghosts enough to frighten even the most delinquent person in Elmore. In "The Limit", her stare manifests a shockwave that knocks all the cans off a shelf, melts a plastic-wrap barrier, and frightens the orange security guard so much, his hair turns white... and stays that way in some future episodes (although his hair is still white in "The Finale", it is black again in an episode that took place before before that, in "The Castle").
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Downplayed but sometimes taken very literally when she's pushed past a certain point.
• Doting Parent:
  • When her kids aren't doing something stupid, mischievous and or irresponsible, she can be quite coddling toward them, especially in "The Meddler".
  • Then "The Choices" reveal how her own parents treated her (extremely overbearing and demanding perfection from her). It's no wonder she dotes on her kids, she doesn't want them to experience the same sort of pain she did. She only brings the harsh tone if need be (it just happens often given all the trouble that happens.)
• The Dreaded: Her own family is scared of her, especially when she gets mad. Case in point: in "The Quest," Gumball and Darwin both agree that that they'd rather get beaten up by Tina Rex than face an angry Nicole.
• Embarrassing First Name: Nicole is her middle name. Her real first name is "Doctor".
  Nicole: Oh, it's all very funny until someone shouts, "Is there a doctor in the house?" and your parents say, "Yes." Turns out people choking on a chicken wing rarely stay conscious long enough to enjoy the punch line!
• Enraged by Idiocy: She clearly loves her family, but there have been times when they (usually Richard) do things so stupid and stressful that she's about ready to snap at them.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Nicole always wears a pin with a (partial) rainbow design on her shirt. She works at the Rainbow Factory, so it's presumably a part of the dress code.
• Eye Colour Change: While standard cartoon designs depict her eyes as dim as coal, her eyes can shift color depending on the episode.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Most of its use is Played for Laughs, especially when her rage is thrown to an unfortunate Chew Toy, but one case it starts is Played for Drama in "The Choices" until she collected her memories long enough to subvert it.
• Fatal Flaw: Her temper; case in point, her inability to control her temper caused her family to legitimately fear her, got her in trouble with her job once, and caused her to be jailed for violating Larry's restraining order on her family.
• Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Inverted with her and Anais. Nicole has a short temper and skills in karate while Anais loves playing with dolls and can be rather socially awkward.
• Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: Responsible to Richard's Foolish. Richard is a lazy couch potato who's also the dumbest member of his family (though he occasionally has his moments of brilliance) in contrast to his smart, calculated, and careful wife, Nicole. Richard can often cause as much trouble as his children and is often the least help in solving whatever issue arises, while Nicole often acts as the voice of reason for the family along with Anais. However, this is somewhat Downplayed since Nicole herself is Only Sane by Comparison since she has a horrible temper and can be overly competitive.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • "The Ape" seems to indicate Nicole's type-A personality and drive to be a winner by any means necessary stems from Miss Simian calling her a loser from the time she took her first steps to the day she got married.
  • In "The Choices", it turns out that her parents have been abusive in controlling her life. She gets her Control Freak and Competition Freak nature from her mother, who is a staunch perfectionist and doesn't show love for her, only wanting success. It's no wonder Nicole fell in love with Richard, who showed kindness to her and liked her for being herself, otherwise Nicole would have been everything her mother wanted and much worse. Her Hair-Trigger Temper, meanwhile, comes from her father. Furthermore, her Control Freak tendencies could also be a way of asserting the newfound liberty that Richard had showed her, it's just channeled aggressively because of her background.
  • Latter seasons frequently show Nicole as obsessed with getting and saving money, to the point she couldn't bring herself to return money Richard accidentally stole from the bank. Considering she'd been supporting Richard on a low salary since they were young adults, and remains poorly paid as the sole breadwinner for a family of five, it's hard to blame her.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: Subverted as she never uses Gumball's Embarrassing Middle Name or even his real first name, it's always "Gumball Watterson".
• Gagging on Your Words: In "The Fuss," she believes that Richard forgot their anniversary, but it turns out that she got the date wrong because her calendar was upside down and she thought it was November 1 when it was actually October 11. Even then, Nicole is, in Anais' words, "pathologically incapable" of admitting she was wrong.
• Good Parents: In spite of her Hair-Trigger Temper and being feared by her family, she truly and deeply cares for her family and is willing to protect them.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Nicole cares for her family, but easily becomes upset when she discovers they did something wrong. She's even taking anger management classes, in which her behavior is far worse than she acts elsewhere.
• Happily Married: She may often be irritated or put off by Richard's behavior, but the two utterly adore one another.
• Hartman Hips: Two kinds:
  • In the first series, she had quite a large bottom, Depending on the Artist for how big it was.
  • From series 2 onwards, her bottom has gotten smaller (though it still got lampshaded in "The Fury"), but her hips have gotten wider, in a design similar to Gumball.
• Hopeless with Tech: Nicole is a one-finger hunt-and-peck typer, does not understand firewalls, viruses, or bugs, tries to pay for online purchases by placing money in the disc drive, lets pop-up ads accumulate on her desktop, and attempts to print video files. Presumably, the only reason she hasn't been fired for incompetency is that everyone else at the office is just as bad, if not worse.
• Horrifying the Horror:
  • In "The Sale", after she tells Gumball and Darwin there could be more decent neighbors replacing Mr. Robinson, they both scare her into submission with demonic faces and voices, and tell her to take her words back.
  • In "The Deal", Nicole becomes terrified of her kids: Gumball, Darwin, and Anais all turn into Gremlins, which causes her to scream and run out of the house.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: She's regular-sized, but absolutely dwarfed by Richard.
• Hulking Out: She starts doing this when Larry closes the store gates on her in "The Finale" and she starts pulling them up. Odd, given similar or even greater feats of strength she's previously done required no such musculature. In "The Money" she almost literally hulks out (growing much bigger and muscular with glowing green eyes) to give Richard a severe reprimanding after she finds out that Richard took all her money, converted it into gold, and sent it to an "offshore bank account" (read: put the gold in a briefcase and tossed it off a pier).
• Hypocrite: Nicole has repeatedly told her kids they need to respect Richard; in "The Hero", she goes so far as to refuse to provide for Gumball and Darwin (ie they can’t use anything she pays for like running water or groceries) until they do so. Of course, come "The Deal", it's revealed Nicole herself doesn't respect Richard that much for his parenting skills.
• Interspecies Romance: Her (a cat) and Richard (a rabbit).
• Informed Deformity: Darwin and Richard have claimed that she has lots of wrinkles from stress, despite looking as youthful as her 12-year-old son Gumball.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She's controlling, easily angered, and extremely competitive. But there are some cases where her anger is justified. She is also the hardest-working member of the family and the only one with a job.
  • "The Limit" has her scare her family into running for their lives, but their constant disobedience to her decisions (and the fact they were caught shoplifting) makes her increasing frustrations understandable. Anais even admits that they were wrong.
  • Nicole grounding her sons in "The Mothers" isn't wrong since they (along with Tobias and Banana Joe) put her through a bunch of stressful tests.
  • Her near-severe reprimanding to Richard in "The Money" was completely understandable given he lost the family's entire source of income.
  • While her snapping at Richard almost made him cry in "The Parking", she was right about his continuous times of blowing the family's chances to park were a problem.
  • Nicole's suspicions over visiting Frankie in "The Outside" proves to be valid when he confesses in the end that he was guilt tripping the family into letting him stay at their house, which Richard points out to be unnecessary, as they would've let him in regardless.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She is a kindhearted mother and wife, but sometimes her stress can really get the best of her. She doesn't even want to fight Yuki because she regrets their last fight when she was victor and wants to be friends again. She accepts it because her job and home were threatened to be taken away.
• Killer Rabbit: She has proven herself to be made of this trope in countless episodes, most notably in "The Fight", where she effortlessly tears through Mr. Rex just at the mere inkling of assuming that Gumball was being bullied.
• Le Parkour: She's very good at jumping and climbing over fences, walls, and even between buildings.
• Lightning Bruiser: In terms of strength, speed, and durability no one holds a candle to her. She hits like a train and moves even faster
• Like Parent, Like Child: "The Choices" shows she inherited her mother's need to succeed and her father's short temper.
• Magic Skirt: Her skirt does not go above her legs when she's running, jumping, or even when she's hung upside down. The exception is exactly one frame in "The Fury" when she was hopping one car to another to take her kids to school and her skirt flies up, despite it staying down for several similar motions in the same scene.
• Mama Bear: She's VERY protective of her own family.
  • She becomes furious when she believes Tina gave Gumball a black eye in "The Fight".
  • Nicole becomes just as enraged as Richard after he tells her that Mr. Fitzgerald nearly ran over Gumball with his car (though Mr. Fitzgerald wasn't planning on doing something like that) in "The Knights".
  • "The Mothers" has Nicole become a superhero-expy in order to save Gumball and Darwin from falling off a building.
  • She practically fights to get inside her house when she thinks her kids are inside with a dangerous person in "The Friend".
  • Nicole briefly uses a shovel to protect her kids from the swarm of babies of the Evil Turtle.
  • When her job and home are threatened by Yuki who wants a rematch in "The Fury", she accepts it.
  • In "The Roots", Nicole says "I will destroy anyone who tries to take my baby" (in reference to Darwin), smashing a computer screen in the process of her rage.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Masculine Girl (aggressive and competitive) to Richard's Feminine Boy (easily emotional and soft-hearted). She's also the Masculine Girl to Darwin's kind-hearted Feminine Boy.
• Middle Name Basis: "The Parents" reveals that she's been going by her middle name the entire series due to her first name being "Doctor", given by her Education Mama parents.
• Minored in Ass-Kicking: Named Doctor and probably the toughest member of the family when she needs to be.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: Despite being almost 40 and claimed to have wrinkles and aged poorly from stress, the only thing that makes Nicole look older than Gumball is being taller.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: In spite of her arms and legs being quite skinny, she's capable of things like bending steel rods and tearing locker doors off their hinges.
• My Greatest Failure: It's revealed in "The Fury" that Nicole gave up training out of sadness for losing Yuki as a friend after their match which she won since she just wanted to be friends with her again.
• Not So Above It All: Increasingly over the series, until by the later seasons she could hardly be considered "above it all" in the first place - at which point Anais took the Only Sane Man role from her almost entirely. While she's a stern mother who makes sure her children act right, she herself is just as prone to callous indifference, insanely stubborn behavior and childish ego trips as Gumball is - in fact, a lot of the children's comically skewed moral compass seems to come from her.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "The Fury," the kids are absolutely baffled when Nicole puts up with Yuki's harassment rather than fight back.
• One-Winged Angel: She responds to Felicity's "The Reason You Suck" Speech in "The Egg" by turning into a demon, complete with Voice of the Legion.
  Nicole: COME ON, THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE SEEN ME CHEW SOMEONE OUT.
• One-Woman Army: Whether it's her own family, a gang of apocalyptic cannibals, or a robbery group, Nicole can take them all.
• Only Sane Woman: Depends on the episode, which sometimes gives the role to Anais instead. However, when her temper or competitive streak get the better of her, this aspect goes out the window.
• Opposites Attract: Nicole (action-y, competitive, and sometimes has to be the Only Sane Woman) is married to Richard (lazy, hedonistic, and a Manchild).
• Parental Favoritism: Towards Anais in the earlier episodes such as "The Goons". However in later episodes she seems to favor Gumball, for example supporting his new lifestyle in "The Bumpkin" even though she personally disapproves and sharing top spot on "The Fridge" during her obsession to make him a winner.
• Parenting the Husband: Nicole often has to parent Richard, due to his own mother having been responsible for his childish nature in the first place. At the same time, Nicole deliberately scolds him less than their children— not because he's an adult, but because she's "given up" on him getting any better.
• Properly Paranoid: While she wants her husband to at least be responsible, Nicole ends up fainting from shock when Richard tells her he got a job and is disturbed and on edge the whole time, with Anais, who thinks this is just because she’s a control freak, trying to calm her down. Turns out she was right to freak out as reality starts breaking down, all because Richard having a job is just that antithetical to the natural order.
• Rage Breaking Point: Nicole's patience can only go so far. Piss her off long enough and things get real ugly real fast. The rest of the family learned this the hard way many times, none more so than in the appropriatly titled episode "The Limit".
• Riseof Zitboy: She’s shown developing acne as a teenager when she and Richard are aging backwards in "The Rerun".
• Selective Enforcement: In "The Prank," she reprimands Gumball and Darwin for pranking Richard while ignoring the fact that Richard pranked them first. When Gumball calls her out on it, Nicole justifies it by claiming that it's "too late" for Richard.
• Shipper on Deck: Nicole was happy to notice Gumball's crush on Penny in "The Gi", was proud that he (thought he) had a date with her in "The Date", and tried to get him to confess about his feelings to her in "The Meddler". Possibly it's because Penny reminds her very much of herself in her childhood when she had a crush on Richard and defended him.
• Shotgun Wedding: "The Choices" reveals she and Richard got married shortly after finding out she was pregnant with Gumball.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Judging by flashbacks to her childhood, Nicole has only ever been romantically interested in Richard.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Despite him being lazy, hedonistic and childishly excitable, Nicole loves Richard for who he is and that he is always true to himself.
  • The importance of this (as well as the origins of their relationship) is expanded upon in the episode "The Choices". Nicole's parents were massive Control Freaks and her own mother an extreme perfectionist, demanding nothing but success from her. Richard was the first person who liked her for being her and made her feel like she already has self-worth, contrasting on how she felt like she had to win to mean anything as a result of her upbringing. He taught her how to be happy and to like her for who she was.
  • In "The Fury," Nicole is listless and depressed, and not only does Richard pick up on this, he lightens her mood in seconds.
• Super-Strength: Have you seen how much weight she can lift in spite of her slim design?
• Strong Family Resemblance: "The Choices" show that Nicole got her blue fur from her mother, but her head shape, facial structures, and whisker positions from her father.
  • Additionally, episodes with flashbacks to her childhood show that she basically looked like Gumball with long eyelashes as a kid.
• Taught by Experience: When her old Martial Arts rival, Yuki Yoshida, asked her how she became so strong despite her training her entire life, she attributed it to being the sole authority figure in the Watterson household.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Anais' Girly Girl.
• Tuckerization: Named after Ben Bocquelet's mother. She even had the same maiden name, "Senicourt".
• Unstoppable Rage: She's plenty strong and athletic by default, but when she's angry, she gets superhuman strength and sometimes other, stranger abilities (like melting objects and reducing grown men to tears by staring at them). In "The Club", she even has to ask her family to enrage her somehow so she can pull a locked door open.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: An adorable cat woman, married to a fat, slobbish man bunny.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Nicole is the ultra-competitive and high-maintenanced Almighty Mom who fell in love with the lazy and carefree Manchild Richard. "The Choices" actually delves into this and how they came together: She was a very motivated child, but very much pushed by her parents to be the best and nothing else mattered but success. She ends up falling for Richard as children, who told her to live how she wanted to and restored her sense of self-worth (after the damage done by her parents).
• Vague Age: We know Richard and Nicole are the same age, but various things (and many contradictory numbers) throughout the series have implied they're anywhere from in their late thirties - early forties to almost fifty. Averted once Ben confirmed that she is 38.
• Violently Protective Wife: She is very protective over Richard.
  • In "The Finale", Nicole squeezed the Chanax CEO's hand incredibly hard because he hit Richard.
  • In "The Fury", Yuki tries to invoke this by harassing Richard just to goad Nicole into fighting her.
• Voice of the Legion: When sufficiently pissed off, her voice gets really deep as well as echoing.
• What Does She See in Him?: Richard is by no means a bad person, but one has to wonder what else does Nicole sees in him. ^note Considering her need for control and temper, one can make the argument that very few people outside of Richard would be able to handle her. With later seasons, it gives their relationship more moments - and focus episodes - that show how well they connect:
  • In a clip from "The Love," she's unable to come up with a definite answer as to why she loves him — she simply does. She is finally able to do so in the song "Weird Like You and Me" during "The Compilation" - "you’re my right hand guy and the shoulder that I cry on", indicating that he’s always there for her physically and emotionally.
  • "The Choices" actually do show how the two ended up together. They met back when as children, she helped him get unstuck from a log before having a conversation. Earlier, it was revealed that her parents were very strict, demanding and controlling, having planned out everything for her. Contrast to Richard who advises her to be herself. In essence, he was the first person to like her for herself and inspired her that she didn't need to win or succeed to earn people's love as well as to do things for herself. This makes her statement on why she admired Richard being true to himself much more prominent. Nicole did things to please her parents and to succeed, but it didn't make her happy nor was she true to herself... until she met Richard. She sees him as the first good thing in her life and who saved her from her parents' teachings and became assertive with her life (and prior, we were given several glimpses of what would happen if she never met Richard and safe to say, things would not have gone well).
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: We know Nicole works at the Rainbow Factory, but her job there is rarely shown and possibly may have changed between episodes. We didn't know exactly what the factory itself does until "The Factory", where it's revealed they make rainbows, and despite the name she definitely works some sort of office job. In "The Helmet" she almost gets a promotion, but when she finds out Richard tricked her she throws a fit that she was apparently fired for. In "The Game", however, she's still working there at the complaints department.
• Women Are Wiser: Usually this, barring her competitive nature doesn't cause her to go nuts. Subverted in "The Fuss", when she realizes she got the date of her wedding anniversary wrong, not Richard, much to her embarassment.
• Workaholic: Played for Laughs in "The Painting" when Principal Brown tells her she needs to relax and stop working so hard for Anais' sake. But she's so used to it that she can't relax and neurotically does every household chore she can think of anyway, and then proceeds to trash the house on purpose to give herself more "work".
  • Given what's been revealed in "The Choices", this is probably a holdover from her parents' teachings and the workload thrusted on her from them.
• Would Hurt a Child: When Leslie and Alan are amongst the group of cannibals trying to eat her family, Nicole bites off part of Leslie's face before swinging him by the neck like a flail and pops Alan (by blowing Leslie's petal at him).

Richard Buckley Watterson

"They shouldn't say 'All you can eat' if they don't mean it!"

Voiced by:

English: Dan Russell

Japanese: Yoshinori Muto

Latin America: Benjamín Rivera

Debut: Season 1, "The Responsible"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The BFFS"

Gumball's father and Nicole's pink rabbit husband. Richard is very immature for his age and hates to have any sort of responsibility. He is also quite lackadaisical and sleeps frequently. As a result, Nicole is usually forced to be the parent to their children, but she's not home a lot, so Richard's often the only one available.

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• Acquired Situational Narcissism: After becoming totally ripped in "The Diet", he starts being an egotistical jerk who thinks anything anyone said to him is about his new muscles and takes every opportunity to show off said muscles.
• Acrofatic: He holds up surprisingly well in hand to hand combat against Nicole and was able to keep up with her running until she jumped between some buildings.
• Action Dad: Not as giftedly athletic as Nicole, but Richard can pull off some amazing feats when he gets serious.
• Adults Are Useless: Richard practically lives this trope.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In "The Hero", Gumball and Darwin fail to come up with something good for their dad and settles on embarrassing moments. Unknown to them at the time, Richard overhears the conversation and leaves in depression.
• Badass Driver: While his religious adherence to the GPS is quite destructive, it did let him drive across the entire town and miles into the countryside in a couple minutes. He's also said to be a better driver while high on dental anesthetics.
• Because Destiny Says So: He is meant to be an unemployed slacker and when he tries to defy this by getting a job, Nicole is terrified because it's against the natural order. The laws of physics start descending into chaos at an exponential rate.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: One of the reasons Richard loves Nicole is because she was one of the few people to approve of him.
• Big Eater: The man knows how to put food away. A joke in one episode shows in his medical diagram that he has no organs throughout his whole body besides stomachs, while a Call-Back in a later episode corroborates this.
  Richard: Eat 100 hot dogs in under a minute. Ha! That's not a dare. That's Tuesday.
  • In one episode ("The Prank"), Richard is listening to an audio tape. The tape informs him of its duration so he decides to get some snacks to partake in while listening (this is when Gumball and Darwin spring their prank by switching the tape with one of their own that commands him to do goofy things) and calculates how much food he'll need for the length of the tape. When he returns, however, he's empty-handed because he ate everything he was going to eat during the tape on the way back. He makes a self-note to also include calculations for the return trip for the future.
  • In "The Father", Richard indulges in so much comfort-eating that the stress of providing food for him puts poor Larry in shock and he has to be hospitalized.
• Big Fun: Richard may be fat and slobbish, but he's definitely the "fun" parent.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Most often Brilliant At Being Lazy.
  • Often shows great returns on minimal efforts, such as by pitting his children against each other to tire them out.
• Bumbling Dad: Like you wouldn't believe...
• Bunnies for Cuteness: He's a rabbit, and he's pretty cute.
• Calling Your Attacks: "WONDER HUG!"
• Characterization Marches On: In season one, he was a lazy idiot who only very rarely acted more fit. Later seasons establish that he can be quite The Determinator and perform all sorts of physical feats if he's properly motivated (like saving his family). "The Return" and "The Routine" showcase this perfectly. The last couple of seasons go further by reinterpreting him as dim and scatterbrained but surprisingly wise emotionally (to balance out Nicole being highly intelligent but having an intense and sometimes amoral personality), with episodes like "The Choices," "The Deal" and "The Master" playing him as The Heart of the family.
• Childhood Friend Romance: He's known his wife, Nicole, since they were Gumball's age.
• Cloudcuckoolander: He has his odd moments. In "The Deal", Richard goes on strike to prove his worth around the house. Nicole is dismissive at first until she finds the kids in their "unsupervised state" too much to handle.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He can be very crafty when he wants to, such as tricking Gumball and Darwin into doing his chores in 'The Laziest'. He even saves Gumball's life by inspiring him in "The Hero".
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Gender Inverted. Even after marrying and having children with Nicole, Granny JoJo still makes it clear of how much she thinks Nicole isn't a good wife or mother.
  • That being said, Nicole's parents don't exactly approve of their daughter marrying a deadbeat with no job and have tried to get rid of him or replace him twice each.
• Drives Like Crazy: He follows his GPS without ever paying attention to the road, including the direction he's facing. When he was high on anesthetics, he parked in a swimming pool; Gumball considered that an improvement.
• The Ditz: Quite likely the dumbest member of the whole family.
• Extreme Omnivore: In "The Mirror", he mentions being kicked out of an all-you-can-eat buffet with Nicole and says that the restaurant shouldn't claim its buffet is all-you-can-eat unless they really mean it. Nicole then quips that he ate a chair.
• Fan Disservice: He's frequently shirtless or even in only his underwear, showing off his fat, saggy man boobs.
• Fat Idiot: It's easier to count examples of when he doesn't act incredibly moronic.
• Fat Slob: He's very fat and frequently lays around the house sometimes with his pants not on.
• Flanderization: Inverted. He starts out an idiot Manchild, and gradually develops to being a survivor of childhood abandonment and neglect that struggles to deal with basic concepts of adulthood, but works well with children.
• Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: Foolish to Nicole's Responsible. Richard is a lazy couch potato who's also the dumbest member of his family (though he occasionally has his moments of brilliance) in contrast to his smart, calculated, and careful wife, Nicole. Richard can often cause as much trouble as his children and is often the least help in solving whatever issue arises, while Nicole often acts as the voice of reason for the family along with Anais. However, this is somewhat Downplayed since Nicole herself is Only Sane by Comparison since she has a horrible temper and can be overly competitive.
• Freudian Excuse: His laziness and stupidity is the result of his mother completely sheltering him his entire life and never letting him learn to do anything for himself. At the same time, he lacked having a father figure to straighten him out (as his biological father abandoned him, mostly because he either was in jail or out conning people and committing crimes). His mother's parenting style was to make him (and as she tried with her grandkids), scared of everything. Really given that, it's surprising he is pretty functional as is (at least in a setting like Elmore.)
• Gentle Giant: Despite being significantly larger than the rest of his family (and a significant portion of Elmore's citizens) and occasionally displaying feats of strength, most of the time Richard is a sensitive guy who loves his family and often acts (and thinks) like an child. Deconstructed in that despite his innocence and positive qualities, the fact he's a barely functional adult (and not to mention the patriarch of his family) who doesn't act appropriately for his age and usually can't take responsibility for his actions, people frequently look down on him in a negative light.
• Good Parents: "The Deal" shows that while Richard has an unorthodox way of supervising his and Nicole's kids, it's surprisingly effective. He explains in "The Father" that because his kids see him as better as he is, he tries every day to live up to that.
• Goofy Buckteeth: He has a bucktooth, and is a lazy, slobbish, unemployed moron.
• Hair-Raising Hare: Richard is adorably stupid most of the time, but pulls off a pretty good Nightmare Face when he's the target of the episode's Sanity Slippage. The dude was once on the series' Nightmare Fuel page for a reason.
• Happily Married: Even though he fears Nicole as much his children, Richard loves her deeply.
• Hard Head: He can take quite a lot of cranial damage, sometimes headbutting objects and destroying them.
  Bandage Doctor: You are very lucky, Mr. Watterson. It appears your skull is so thick, you were able to survive a half a ton of tiles and a satellite dish falling on your head.
  Nicole: Is he going to be okay, doctor?
  Bandage Doctor: Apart from being living proof that we're doomed as a species, he's fine.
• The Hedonist: One episode has him basically calling himself this when Gumball and Darwin ask about the meaning of life.
  Richard: The meaning of life? Well, I've dedicated my life to the indulgence of the senses. A feeling of total satisfaction and pleasure is the highest form of existence.
  Gumball: That just sounds like stuffing your face.
  Richard: Yeah, well philosophically.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: With make-up and tight clothes, a fat pink bunny turns into an attractive woman in "The Lady".
• Hidden Depths: There's a lot more to Richard than his lazy persona would tell.
  • Richard appears to be quite handy, as shown in "The Car", where he rebuilt the Robinson's car, albeit leaving it extremely fragile, and is seen using tools in “The Authority”.
  • It is also shown in "The Remote" that Richard can speak Spanish.
  • In "The Man", Richard is shown to be able to play a guitar, as in the flashback, when he plays a serenade to Nicole.
  • Despite thinking an online calculator was an online video game, "The Uploads" show that he likes to review online video games.
  • "The Hero" and "The Father" make it clear Richard is well aware of how important he is in his kids' lives, having lacked a father figure himself growing up, and feels that he needs to live up to the role.
  • "The Master" shows that not only is he a pretty good D&D Dungeon Master, but also possesses a degree of understanding on resolving conflict when the family is at odds with one another.
• House Husband: Richard is home all day because he has no job, though he usually doesn't do his share of the chores either. Turns out that him having a job is a massive violation to the natural order of things; him being a so-so pizza delivery guy was enough for the laws of physics to break down and end reality. Nicole being at work means he's often the only one watching the kids (even if he's not as good at it), with the "The Hero" implying they spent most of their time when they were younger with Richard, but at this point the kids are generally better at taking care of themselves. This seemingly changes in later seasons, as Richard is portrayed as a more effective, if very bizarre, child caretaker.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: He's something like half a head taller than Nicole and several times as large. His wedding band hangs loose on Nicole's arm.
• Idiot Houdini: Nicole often lets him get away with his antics because she's completely given up hope that he'll ever get any better. Case in point: in "The Prank," she scolds Gumball and Darwin for pranking Richard, and when Gumball points out he pranked them first, Nicole simply responds that Gumball knows that it's "too late" for Richard.
• Informed Deformity: Richard is repeatedly called bald, but his entire body is covered in a uniform coat of fur which looks exactly the same as when he was a child and technically speaking, none of the Wattersons have visible hair. His head is shown as reflective in "The Stars", suggesting Richard is bald, but it's impossible for the viewer to tell because his fur and skin are the same color. A different joke in "The Cycle" suggested he covered his bald spots with pink paint.
• Insecure Love Interest: In "The Fury", he makes a comment about that he thinks Nicole could do better than him.
• Interspecies Romance: Him (a rabbit) and Nicole (a cat).
• Keet: While Richard is quite lazy, he can get excited, especially when it comes to food.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: He's an idiot, but he's also a full-on Nice Guy.
• Laborious Laziness: Richard is a master at this. He knows how to get food from the kitchen himself without leaving the couch and spent the a day tricking his kids into doing a few minutes of chores.
• Large Ham: Richard is very prone to emotional outbursts.
  "It's because of you I'm mortal!" (runs away crying)
• Lazy Husband: Laziest man in Elmore since 1983.
• Lethal Chef: The cupcakes he made in "The Hero" are literally rock hard—he may have mixed cement into them. Other times, he's shown be able to make food that is edible, but often "lethal" in a different manner (such as the sluzzlewurst, which had so much fat in it that it makes you sweat butter).
• Manchild: He literally acts the exact same way as he did when he was a kid.
• Manic Pixie Dream Guy: "The Choices" reveal Richard was this to Nicole when they first met. His carefree nature helped Nicole stopped trying to live by her parents' Control Freak rules.
  • While Nicole repeatedly shows difficulty explaining why she loves Richard, and frequently berates or mocks him for his ill behavior, he never once holds it against her, loving her unconditionally.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Feminine Boy (easily emotional and soft-hearted) to Nicole's Masculine Girl (aggressive and competitive).
• Metalhead: When he was younger he wore a red flannel shirt with t-shirts parodying Motörhead and Nirvana, these suggested that Richard is or was a fan of rock music. Subverted in a later episode when, in an attempt to cheer him up, the kids try and play him some metal music. He doesn't respond until they start playing pop music. Turns out he was just wearing those shirts to look cool.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: He almost destroyed the Universe by completing a somewhat successful run of pizza deliveries.
• Mix-and-Match Critter: Downplayed, since he's the offspring of Jojo (a rabbit), and Frankie (a rat), yet his physical appearance shows no rat-like physical traits like a tail or round ears. However, he does very much resemble his father in size and physical features (being a rabbit version of Frankie.)
• Money Dumb: Richard is shown to be this, to the point that his wife doesn't trust him with money at all. This trait leads to the Broke Episode "The Money", where he understands depositing money in an offshore account as throwing money in the sea.
• Morality Pet:
  • He seems to be this to his biological father, Frankie, as despite being a Con Man willing to scam his own son off of his home out of desperation, he couldn't bring himself to finish the job after remembering how much he regrets abandoning Richard, probably being the only person he genuinely cares about.
  • He was also this to his wife Nicole, as seen in "The Choices". In flashbacks when they were children, it turns out she would've been prone to making horrible life choices brought on by other people if they hadn't met, and he wouldn't have inspired her to live a good and happy life her own way.
• Moral Myopia: He's repeatedly expressed that bad things are only funny when they happen to someone else.
• Mr. Fanservice: Richard once gained a highly-toned, muscled body from exercising non-stop and spent a half an episode showing it off.
• Ms. Red Ink: The Watterson's financial problems are not helped by Richard spending money on dumb objects he sees on the internet (the Electro-Fat workout device and a bunch of hormonal supplements, though unusually enough, both worked as well as advertised), terrible investments (he spent most of the family's savings to buy a star right after Gumball was born and the site failed days later when he tried getting the money back), just by accident (he doesn't understand that money from an ATM withdrawal comes from his own account), or basically uninformed mismanagement (creating an offshore bank account by throwing his money in a briefcase offshore).
• Nice Guy: Despite his childish laziness, misguided advice, and uncouth mannerisms, Richard usually has good intentions, and loves his family all the same.
  • "The Choices" reveal he was this since he was a child and it was one of the reasons that Nicole was drawn to him.
• No-Neck Chump: His body is wide enough to make his head look like it's melded with the rest of his body.
• One of the Kids: An upside to Richard's immaturity is that his kids usually enjoy spending time with him more than their mom, who they usually find boring to hang around with (when she isn't being scary).
• Opposites Attract: Richard (lazy, hedonistic, and a Manchild) is married to Nicole (action-y, competitive, and sometimes has to be the Only Sane Woman).
• Papa Wolf: In spite of his lazy and childish personality, Richard will do anything to protect his kids.
  • Richard is enraged when he sees Mr. Fitzgerald nearly run over Gumball (it was a genuine accident though) in "The Knights".
  • In "The Hero", he gets to prove himself as the hero to his sons by saving them from a trash compactor (eventually).
  • In "The Return", he tries to rescue his kids who were trapped in the ball pit and went through destruction to get them back.
  • Invoked and Played for Laughs in "The Sale": Gumball and Darwin put a shovel and a wolf mask on Richard while he slept, then woke him up by yelling that Anais is trapped in the shed. Richard immediately runs out to the shed with an axe to break her out, but between the wolf mask, wearing nothing but his underwear, the Determinator attitude, his yelling, "I'm coming for you! Daddy's coming!", and some potential house buyers seeing this, it makes him look like an Ax-Crazy maniac.
• Parental Favoritism: Despite Anais tricking her brothers into thinking she's the favorite in "The Password" so she could use the computer, in "The Goons" he blatantly says who his favorite child is.
  Richard: And all because you two wanted to be my favorite, when we all know in fact that Darwin is my favorite!
• Professional Slacker: Having no job is his job and he is very good at it.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • After taking Gumball to a party with Tina as his date, he comes back to see Gumball with Penny, then comments that "I like the new one better."
  • When Richard found out Darwin had (unwillingly) become Jamie's girlfriend, he's quite pleased—until she assumes he's trying to break them up, and viciously shoves a lacrosse stick in his mouth for it.
• Shirtless Scene: Prone to hanging around with his shirt, and possibly pants, off.
• Shotgun Wedding: According to a flashback of "The Choices", he and Nicole got married shortly after finding out she was pregnant with Gumball.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Judging by flashbacks to his childhood, Richard has only ever been romantically interested in Nicole.
• The Slacker: A rare version that has children and, on occasion, does a fair job raising them.
• Sleepyhead: Most commonly seen sleeping on the couch.
• Small Parent, Huge Child: Richard is huger and heftier than his mother Jojo, who is a very short old rabbit.
• Spontaneous Mustache: He can grow a handlebar mustache and retract it back into his face at will.
• Stout Strength: Richard is a Fat Idiot, but apparently has some serious muscle underneath: in "The Prank" he was able to run through multiple walls (even though he broke five ribs doing it), in "The Remote" he effortlessly rips the car door off to get to Nicole, and in "The Return" he smashes his fist through car windows and hotwires the car by smashing the key through the dashboard.
• Straw Loser: Gumball and Darwin actually look like rather intelligent and diligent beings compared to their father. Granted that it almost reverses into being a gift for Richard since he's hopeless enough that people just give up trying to place any responsibilities onto him.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Height and body shape from his dad. Fur color and head shape from his mom.
• Too Dumb to Live: Thanks to his mom, he's so bad at handling anything that the simplest of tasks can turn life-threatening.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sausages, apparently.
• Tuckerization: Named after Ben Bocquelet's father.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: An overweight, slob of an idiot married to an adorable cat lady.
• Vague Age: We know Richard and Nicole are the same age, but before various things (and many contradictory numbers) have implied they're anywhere from in their late thirties - early forties to almost fifty. Ben Bocquelet confirmed them to be 38 in his mind, albeit maybe a little younger since it was established their wedding was a shotgun type.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: The wacky parent to Anais' serious child.
• Walking Techbane: Judging from how automatic doors, elevators, and self-checkout scanners treat him.
• "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: As revealed in "The Hero", he shows that he cares a lot about what his kids think of him, getting very depressed when Darwin and Gumball call him embarrassing.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Richard was shown wearing woman's clothing on several occasions ("The Finale", "The Name", "The Safety" and "The Lady") and has zero qualms with it. In "The Lady", he explains he did so because he had difficulty making male friends.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Parodied in "The Wand". He thinks he has power, when it's actually Gumball and Darwin moving along with it so he won't have his childhood dreams crushed. They eventually had enough since it goes overboard.
  Gumball: Don't you see what you've become?!
• Youthful Freckles: He had these as a child◊, which is perfect given his extremely childlike attitude.

Extended

Joanna "Granny Jojo" Watterson

"A good mother prevents incidents before they happen."

Voiced by: Sandra Dickinson
Debut: Season 1, "The Kiss"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Agent"

Richard's mother, another pink rabbit. She is overprotective of Richard, antagonistic towards Nicole, and a pretty bad care-taker to Gumball, Darwin, and Anais.

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• Abusive Mom: "The Authority" implies that she was sometimes this to Richard, frequently traumatizing him and making him paranoid of the outside world (ironically out of a desire to shelter and protect him) to the point where she stunted his mental development growing up. She kicked him out of the house in his late teens so he wouldn’t be a basement dweller (and she didn’t want Nicole living with them either) despite not properly preparing him to survive in his own.
• Characterization Marches On: Rather than being overly protective, in the first season she seemed extremely apathetic, not wanting to do anything in "The Kiss" but watch TV all day and uncaringly telling Richard that magic wasn't real in a flashback in "The Wand". Compare with episodes like "The Authority" and "The Man," where it's established that she was an overprotective parent to Richard ("The Authority") and lied to him about the true whereabouts of his father ("The Man").
• Clingy Jealous Girl: As shown in "The Catfish", Jojo can get extremely jealous when she suspects another person is trying to hit on Louie.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • In "The Authority," where she decides to live with the Wattersons and becomes the new head of the family.
  • In "The Man," where she begins a relationship with Louie.
  • In "The Signature," where her marriage gets put on hold after Richard adopts Louie in a desperate attempt to postpone their relationship.
  • In "The Catfish," where she reveals her clingy nature towards Louie after believing he had an affair.
  • In "The Possession," where she and Nicole journey into the icy, memory-stealing, wasteland inside their fridge to rescue Richard.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Granny Jojo's extreme, controlling streak from "The Authority" returns with a vengeance in "The Catfish", when she violently isolates her new husband Louie from his friends Marvin, Betty, and Donald and immediately tries to kill Fake Muriel when she suspects Louie is cheating on her. By the episode's end, she's learned nothing from the experience, and this is largely Played for Laughs.
• December–December Romance: With Louie (the Mickey Mouse Expy); when Richard finds out, he freaks.
• Expy: She has a lot in common with Sheila Broflovski.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: We constantly get this of her putting on her lipstick in "The Kiss".
• Fatal Flaw: Granny Jojo is a bit of a Control Freak and has a bad habit of trying to make her loved ones' lives revolve around her desires. As revealed in "The Authority", Granny Jojo traumatized Richard for most of his childhood and made him overly dependent on her in a misguided attempt at helping him (and later tries to do the same with her grandkids). In a flashback in "The Choices", Granny Jojo kicks young adult Richard out of her house because she doesn't want him as a Basement-Dweller and didn't want Nicole living with her too. In "The Catfish", Jojo keeps her new husband Louie on a tight leash, cutting him off from his former friends and having violent fits whenever he looks at another woman. Darwin and Louie call her out on being stifling and overly-controlling, and a remorseful Jojo, realizing she'd gone too far, promises to back off.
• Freudian Excuse: "The Man" implies that Richard's father leaving him and his mother 42 years ago (later retconned to be 33 years) when he was very young is part of why she's so overprotective.
• Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Like her granddaughter, but unlike her son, she wears shoes.
• Funny Animal: A rabbit.
• Has a Type: Taking in consideration of Louie and Frankie, she seems to have a thing for rodents.
• Hypocritical Humor: In "The Authority," for the sake of protecting her grandchildren, Granny Jojo horribly endangers and traumatizes them, nearly running Gumball over with her car, setting off a bomb inside Anais' room, pretending to cut her arm off in front of Darwin, and would have wildly waved a hacksaw around in Richard's face if he had opened the tool shed.
• Interspecies Romance: Her (a rabbit) and Louie (a mouse). And before him, Frankie (a rat).
• Jerkass Has a Point: She's not pleasant, but she makes a few accurate points.
  • While she went extremely overboard in teaching her son and grandchildren dangers in the world, she was technically right on there being danger even when you do a simple task, how knives and tool-sheds are dangerous, and that you can get hurt while in the house.
  • Her angry outburst of calling Frankie a thief turns out to be true since he nearly stole his own son's home, only stopping himself near the end.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's smothering and unpleasant to Nicole, but ultimately has good intentions. Like Nicole's parents, she did not approve of Richard's relationship with her. Unlike them, she eventually grew to accept the relationship enough to assist them with their wedding and keep contact with them all these years.
• Miniature Senior Citizen: In the first season she was noticeably shorter than Richard or Nicole. Her second season design is barely taller than Anais.
  Granny Jojo: [inside, talking about the kids outside] See, this is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about.
  Nicole: How would you know? You're not even tall enough to look out the window!
• My Beloved Smother: She thinks a mother has to protect her family from everything by making them scared of everything. Richard's such a Fat Idiot because she had him sit around eating all day, never learning how to do anything himself.
• The Nicknamer: Used to call Gumball "the blue one" Darwin "walking fish" and "fish kid". In “The Man” she calls Gumball by his name.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: She and Miss Simian are the only two female characters who have visible, sagging breasts.
• Not So Above It All: While she's normally stern and cantankerous, Granny Jojo is seen earnestly indulging in childish fun in "The Check".
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Both Nicole and Season 1 Richard prefer to be as far away as possible whenever she visits. She has an extremely low opinion of Nicole as a mother that she vocalizes regularly, yet also leans on her for ridiculous demands, making her waste one of her only four days off to be her chauffeur.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Her first name is apparently Joanna, but everyone except her ex-husband and Nicole calls her "Jojo".
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: She's very blunt, used to not bother to remember her grandkids' names, and she made Anais carry a suitcase that's clearly too heavy for her.
• Smug Snake: Of the jerk variety. She is ultimately overconfident that her methods of raising her children work and looks down on Nicole for actually letting her children be free.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She looks almost exactly like an old Anais.
• Took a Level in Kindness: She's still just flat-out mean to Nicole, but at least shows nice intentions toward her son and grandchildren instead of being totally selfish and apathetic. After she starts dating Louie, Jojo is just much nicer in general.
• Yandere: She was willing to kill Fake Muriel when she thought Louie was romancing her.
• Younger Than They Look: In "The Man" she states herself to be 63 years old, yet not only does she look much older than that, she already looked old when Richard was a kid.

Louie Watterson

"I was gonna suggest we could settle this by sitting down, and having a calm, reasonable conversation."

Voiced by: Dan Russell (The Colossus and The Kids) Shane Rimmer (The Extras onwards)
Debut: Season 1, "The Debt"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Web"

A former member of the Senior Citizens who is an Off-Model Mickey Mouse-looking rodent and Granny Jojo's boyfriend in season 3. He later marries her in season 4 and officially becomes part of the Watterson family as Richard's stepfather and the kids' step-grandfather.

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• Age-Gap Romance: Downplayed. Louie is 72 years old, with Granny Jojo, his new wife, being nine years younger than him at 63. The difference is negligible though considering they're already in a December–December Romance.
• Ascended Extra: He was originally a Recurring Extra throughout the first, second, and most of the third season. After he joined the Watterson family in "The Man", he became a larger character.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Louie doesn't wear shoes.
• Butt-Monkey: After Louie dates Granny Jojo and officially becomes a Watterson after marrying her, a lot more unfortunate things start happening to him - being harassed by Richard several times prior to being part of the family, being tossed through a roof several times, being on the receiving end of Granny Jojo's Yandere behavior, and having his wallet stolen by Frankie. He doesn't mind most of it, though.
• Cool Old Guy: Louie shows himself to be a very friendly and amiable person, despite Richard's initial objections to him, and has a good relationship with his new grandkids. He can also dance (sort of).
• A Day in the Limelight: In "The Man," "The Signature," and "The Catfish."
• December–December Romance: Louie dates, and eventually marries, Granny Jojo.
• Divergent Character Evolution: When originally part of the seniors group, he didn't have much distinguishing himself from the rest of them, being a Scatterbrained Senior and acting somewhat crotchety. After marrying Jojo and joining the Watterson family, he distinguishes himself from his friends by showing himself to be a Cool Old Guy, being very calm and hard to anger, but also a bit of a rambler.
• Funny Animal: A mouse.
• Interspecies Romance: Him (a mouse) and Granny Jojo (a rabbit).
• Morality Pet: To Jojo, who becomes nicer to her family when they start dating.
• Nice Guy: He's a very friendly and amiable person, and has a good relationship with his step-grandchildren.
• No Mouth: Downplayed. For the most part his mouth is hidden by his snout, making it look like he talks out of his nose. "The Man" however shows his mouth whenever he and Jojo kiss, and its shown more directly as a Cheeky Mouth when he brushes his teeth during the "man-off" competition, suggesting its largely just hidden due to a Cheated Angle.
• Parent with New Paramour: At first, Richard does not approve of him dating his mother, but eventually comes to accept him as his stepfather.
• Rambling Old Man Monologue: "The Catfish" shows Louie can be very chatty about his life, messaging to "Muriel" on Elmore Plus for hours about his life story and his relationship with Granny Jojo.
• Scatterbrained Senior: When Louie is off his meds, he mistakes a trash can for a young man trying to compete with him in a dance contest and thinks Marvin is a talking fire hydrant.
• Second Love: Louie is this to Granny Jojo, since her ex-husband abandoned her and her (then) young son.
• Took the Wife's Name: Because of bizarre legal circumstances, Louie takes Jojo's last name when they marry. We never see what his last name was before.
• Younger Than They Look: Heavily downplayed. He's 72 years old, but looks and acts just as old as his friend Marvin, who is described as an "octogenarian" in "The Watch", and called "ninety-something" by Darwin in "The Faith", making him likely in his late eighties.

Frankie Watterson

"It's perfectly normal to be nervous your first time driving... a getaway car."

Voiced by: Rich Fulcher
Debut: Season 4, "The Signature"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Anybody"

Richard's deadbeat father, a gray rat surprisingly, who left him and Jojo when Richard was very young.

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• Anthropomorphic Animal: A rat.
• Artistic Age: Bizarrely, he looks about the same age as Richard, despite being his father and probably about Jojo's age. He even looked the same in a flashback to thirty-three years ago. In context, he looks younger than his ex-wife, but according to "The Signature", he's actually older than her.
• Butt-Monkey: He becomes this in "The Outside", due to the Wattersons' misguided attempts at "helping" him.
• Character Development: In the episodes following "The Signature", Frankie softens up; he becomes more relaxed and genial and tries to be a part of his son's life as well as the rest of the Watterson family, but is not very good at it (being a life-long, career criminal whose idea of fun is seeing how many laws he can break in one day, Franke fails to grasp social norms). His guilt over abandoning Richard also increases, becoming convinced that he's an irredeemably terrible father and that the bond between him and Richard is severed for good until Richard convinces him otherwise at the end of "The Father"; showing that despite everything else he did, he genuinely does still care about his son.
• Con Man: When Frankie's house and everything in it is repossessed, he looks in the paper for a someone to con and tricks the Wattersons into giving him possession of their house. Turns out he's been a conman for a long time, as the reason he left his wife and son was to dodge a (very short) jail sentence for "selling" a landmark.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • In "The Outside," where he gets (somehow both directly and indirectly) imprisoned in the Watterson's house after trying to make him feel like he's in home.
  • In "The Father," where he and Richard try to mend their messy relationship.
• Deadpan Snarker: True to his status as a Watterson, Frankie deals with stress by being snarky and cynical, especially in "The Outside".
• Disappeared Dad: He left Richard when he was very young, and didn't see him again until "The Signature". In "The Outside", he admits he ran away to avoid a (very short) jail sentence. In "The Father", he also confesses he didn't take Richard with him because he didn't want him to follow in his footsteps.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: "The Father" makes it clear that while Frankie can't fully change his ways, he was proud of Richard for not ending up like him.
• Fat Bastard: A fat, lazy, and incredibly selfish Con Man until he has a change of heart in the end of "The Signature".
• Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: He wears a trenchcoat and fedora like a stereotypical Con Man, along with a shirt, pants and tie.
• Heel–Face Turn: Frankie has an attack of conscience at the end of "The Signature", and lets the Wattersons take back their house from him after he tried to steal it from them. Richard accepts him as his father again, Frankie decides he wants to be a part of his son's life, and they're shown to have kept in touch from that point forward.
• Interspecies Romance: Prior to him walking out on his family, him (a rat) and Granny Jojo (a rabbit).
• It's All About Me: He came back to Richard just to con his family out of their home until Richard talks him out of it.
  Darwin: But it's our home.
  Frankie: [defensive] If they can buy one, they can buy another!
• Jerkass: Before his Heel–Face Turn, he's willing to con anyone, including his own family.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After trying to steal their house in his debut, the Wattersons unwittingly put Frankie through quite an ordeal in his second appearance, to the point of giving him PTSD. In his third appearance, the Wattersons invite him over to sing him a very mean spirited song about how much of a terrible person he is.
• Like Father, Like Son: Frankie and Richard are both lazy moochers, although Frankie takes it even further as an outright Con Man.
• Lovable Rogue: By the end of "The Father", Frankie has become a friendlier rat and made an effort to be a better father to Richard, but doesn't seem any more hesitant to commit crimes.
• My Greatest Failure: Abandoning Richard is his biggest regret and one of the few things he seems to feel genuine guilt and remorse for.
• Noodle Incident: Several past con jobs and encounters with the Wattersons he's had between episodes, not to mention how he got the black eye (either it was from a con job gone wrong, Granny Jojo punching him in the face for leaving him, or an injury sustained when he was in jail).
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Like Granny Jojo, "The Outside" makes it clear that Nicole really doesn't enjoy visiting Frankie or vice-versa. It's understandable considering he tried to make off with her house in his debut, and even at his most earnest, Frankie has a habit of dragging the family into criminal mischief, as seen in "The Father".
• Older Than They Look: According to "The Signature", he's even older than Granny Jojo but looks exactly the same now as he did when Richard was a kid.
• Once a Season: He makes one single appearance each season in the second-half of the show starting from his debut^note Aside from Season 6, where he makes a cameo in "The Anybody".
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Though he decided not to con the other Wattersons and becomes a part of their family again, "The Outside" makes it clear Frankie still has some selfish or manipulative tendencies. The whole plot starts with his attempt to guilt his son's family into letting him move in (which Richard points out to have been unnecessary), which backfires horribly. "The Father" further shows he's still a career criminal, albeit a personable one.
• Scars Are Forever: He has a black eye that he apparently got long after he left his family. It appears to be permanent since his subsequent appearances show him still having it.
• Shadow Archetype: To Richard. He represents what could've happened to Richard had he taken being a lazy person a (darker) step further.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Looks like Richard as a different species.
• Took a Level in Kindness: A Zig-Zagged example. While he remains a shameless crook, Frankie has generally become a friendlier man in each of his subsequent appearances, thanks to the Wattersons' influence and his unconditional love for his son.
• Walking Spoiler: His presence reveals him as one of the reasons why Richard is the way he is today.
• You Dirty Rat!: He's a rat, a deadbeat, and a Con Man. Still is as ever until the end of "The Signature". This trope is later lampshaded when Frankie witnesses "The Vermin Man", a performance Granny Jojo wrote detailing every single one of his bad traits.

Daniel and Mary Senicourt

Daniel: "We only wanted the best from you. Why settle for B-minus when you can have A-plus?"

Mary: "We gave you every possible chance to succeed!"

Daniel Senicourt voiced by: Clive Russell
Mary Senicourt voiced by: Liza Ross
Debut: Season 5, "The Choices"

Last appearance: Season 6, "The Web"

Nicole's parents, both cats like her.

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Tropes applying to both:

• Abusive Parents: They were controlling of Nicole's life to the point of having ridiculously impossible expectations and calculating exactly when she should succeed. They claim they did it only because they wanted what was best for her, and needed to reign in her intense behavior, although this only led to Nicole resenting them (and the latter could be argued to have stemmed from their own behaviors). Although perhaps their worst parental trait is just how dangerously incompetent they are when it comes to treating children.
• Cats Are Mean: They're both cats who were very controlling of their daughter Nicole.
• Characterization Marches On: Their first appearance in "The Choices" heavily implied they demanded success from Nicole purely to take material advantage of it (at least her mother did), and abandoned her completely when she ran off to be with Richard. "The Parents" shows their concern for her welfare as genuine (if no less overbearing): Nicole's parents tried to contact her for years after she left, still want to reconcile in the present despite the Watterson family's Perpetual Poverty, and the biggest sign of their apathy (skipping Nicole's wedding) was actually an misunderstanding. As the former was shown purely through Nicole's memory, it makes Nicole come off as an Unreliable Narrator.
• A Day in the Limelight: In "The Parents," where we finally see them interact with Nicole in the present day.
• Epic Fail: Turns out they did try to go to Nicole's wedding, but misunderstood RSVP as the name of a town and ended up in Eastern Europe.
• Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Both of them wear clothes.
• Funny Animal: Cats. Mary is a blue cat, like her daughter, and Daniel is white and brown.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Daniel and Mary were strict with Nicole because they wanted to reign in her violent temper and give her a successful future. They ended up intensifying Nicole's anger issues (or causing them in the first place) and driving her to move out at a young age, leaving her much less prosperous than she could have been. Ironically, this is still better than if Nicole had followed their path since she would've gone kinda nuts.
• Insane Troll Logic: Outside of their Epic Fail, the fact is that their attempts at being Good Parents were hamstrong by some severely screwed up leaps in logic.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The episode "The Parents" shows Daniel and Mary to be this. Despite the fact that they put too much pressure on Nicole as a child, it's shown that they do genuinely love her, and their abuse was unintentional, in a misguided way to raise Nicole to be a successful person. They reconnect with her at the end of the episode.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: They have a low opinion of Richard, as they expected Nicole to marry someone richer. Nicole mentions they tried to set her up with another man during their honeymoon.
• Parents as People: The episode "The Parents" reveals that Daniel and Mary truly do love their daughter Nicole. Their problem, however, is that their mix of insane logic and ambition for Nicole has caused them to be controlling and put too much pressure on her, unintentionally being abusive to her.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Nicole gets her fur color and body shape from her mother, and her ear, whisker, and head shape from her father. Mary also has the same whiskers as her grandson Gumball.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Mary is taller than Daniel.
• Unnamed Parent: The first appearance has neither given a stated name, and their surname is only known from reading Nicole's report card. "The Parents" names both of them, Daniel and Mary.

Tropes applying to Daniel:

• Expy: His sullen expression and coloration makes him greatly resemble Grumpy Cat.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Daniel responds to a traffic jam by punching his wheel so hard he knocks the engine block out.
• Like Parent, Like Child: He goes into an Unstoppable Rage just as Nicole does. Unlike his daughter, he's generally mean even when not provoked.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: His face strongly resembles Internet celebrity Grumpy Cat.
• Perpetual Frowner: Sports an angry grimace in almost every scene.
• When He Smiles: Once he and Mary make amends with Nicole at the end of "The Parents".

Tropes applying to Mary:

• Control Freak: Mary has planned out every part of Nicole's life, timing down to the minute when she would graduate high school, get a law degree, and marry a successful doctor.
• Education Mama: She pushed unrealistically high expectations on Nicole from an early age, even berating her for not getting straight A's because they put F as her gender.
• Hartman Hips: Like her daughter, her hips appear to be wider than her shoulders.
• Second Place Is for Losers: When Nicole heads off to a tournament, her mother's only words for her are "Second place is first place for losers."

Evil Turtle

Debut: Season 3, "The Puppy"

Last appearance: Season 4, "The Compilation"

A ferocious turtle that Richard bought from a van shop, thinking she was a dog.

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• Absent Animal Companion: After being adopted by the Wattersons, she's seen a few times, but far less often than you'd expect for an animal that lives in the main characters' household. A season after introduction, she is explicitly written out of the show.
• Ax-Crazy: Her entire existence is biting. She eats for strength to bite. She reproduces to have more turtles who can bite.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Her debut in "The Puppy," where she becomes the Watterson's new pet.
  • Her final episode in "The Nest," where her babies wreak havoc across Elmore.
• The Dreaded: The Wattersons are terrified of her. Gumball especially, who calls her evil incarnate and has theorized that she eats souls and misery. In "The Nest", her Latin name is "Occidere machinae ex infernum"^note "Killing Machine from Hell".
• For the Evulz: We get a first person sample of her "thought process":
  Turtle: Bite! Bite! Bite! Need food for strength to bite! Bite! Bite! Make little turtles to bite even more!
• Long Neck: She can extend her neck something like a foot out of her shell.
• Implacable Man: She's basically the T-800 in turtle form.
• Never Given a Name: The Wattersons never gave her a real name; they're too busy being terrified by her. The closest they get is calling her "evil turtle" a few times.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: One drop of water let her came back to life from a desiccated husk, then she got hit by a car—the car was totaled, the turtle didn't even budge. When the "Awesome Store" exploded in a giant fireball, she walked out of the flames completely unharmed.
• Pet the Dog: In her last episode, "The Nest", after the Watterson family brought her and her children to the water, she parts amicably with them, even nuzzling Gumball as a form of thanks.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Her size doesn't keep her from pulling around full-sized people, though it does make it easy to pick her up.
• Put on a Bus: She swims off into the ocean with her children at the end of "The Nest".
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Unlike most terrapins in fiction, played very straight.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Since the turtle is basically invincible, her pen in the Watterson's house is essentially a way to contain her.
• Shown Their Work: Softshell turtles are indeed quite aggressive animals due to their lack of a hard shell.

Kenneth

Debut: Season 1, "The Microwave"

Last appearance: Season 2, "The Finale"

A strange creature accidentally created when Darwin and Gumball's "gross jar" is heated in a microwave. He eats basically anything and eventually anyone, growing larger all the time.

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• The Bad Guy Wins: In "The Microwave", it's last seen at a Kaiju-size and wreaks havoc across the town. Though it's likely he was eventually stopped offscreen.
• Back for the Finale: Returns in the Season 2 finale where he gets into a giant fight with Hector.
• A Day in the Limelight: In "The Microwave."
• It Came from the Fridge: Kenneth originated when a bunch of gross stuff Gumball put in a jar was put in the microwave.
• Miracle-Gro Monster: It's voracious eating habits let it keep growing and growing until, after a few days at most, it goes from approximately football-sized to two stories tall.
• Kaiju: What it becomes in "The Finale" after it had eaten enough. It grew to the size of Hector, for Christ's sake (but then again Hector may have just been smaller then).
• Monster of the Week: Of "The Microwave".
• Muck Monster: Kenneth body looks like it's made of mud or sludge. Rather than being industrial waste, he's simply made of all the gross things Gumball could collect, including used tissues, bird poop, belly-button lint, and spoiled milk that was swallowed then regurgitated.
• Nuclear Mutant: Gumball claims Kenneth was created by "the atomic power of the microwave", though microwaves actually have nothing to do with nuclear radiation.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: In "The Finale", it turns out Kenneth was dealt with offscreen by reducing him to his original size again, putting him in his original jar, and freezing it. He's unsealed as part of the Watterson family's The Last Dance.
• Ugly Cute: In-universe, Gumball and Darwin certainly think Kenneth, as their "son", is cute, and Anais reluctantly describe it using these exact words. At least before he starts growing to tremendous proportions after eating people alive.

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