Recap / The Amazing World Of Gumball S 5 E 36 The Puppets

Darwin is delighted when he and Gumball discover their old childhood toys, but soon realizes that some things are best left in the past.

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Tropes:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
  • While Gumball takes Rocky's shape to mock his Marionette Motion, he shifts to CG himself.
  • Howdy and Frank shift to CG for one closeup where they perform some more detailed motions.
• Ambiguous Innocence: Gumball revisits his and Darwin's imaginations from their earlier childhood, and some of the Imaginary Friends are all sorts of messed up. One is a tree that's always happy, even when she doesn't want to be, while another is a sun that never stops screaming.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: During Grady's Dark Reprise of "The Fun Will Never End":
  Grady: We'll make you dance, we'll make you fight!
  Howdy: You'll smear yourself with worms all night!
  Grady: We'll make you eat toenails and grease!
  Frank: We'll make you wear an itchy fleece!
  Grady: We'll see if you break when you bend! The fun will never end!
• Batman Gambit: When Gumball goes into the imaginary world to rescue Darwin, Grady reveals that he's in league with the other puppets, and was actually using Darwin as bait to capture both Gumball and Darwin and force them to play with the puppets forever.
• Big "NO!": The puppets let out a muted cry of "NOOO!" after Gumball and Darwin escape. Gumball uses his imagination to get a "do-over", with a much louder "NOOO!" and gratuitous explosions.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Or rather, "Distracted by the female puppet trying to flirt". With Howdy on his hand, Darwin distracts Rocky while he's driving the school bus. By the time he realizes what is going on, it's too late to prevent a crash. In the aftermath, Gumball mentions that the bus is a total write-off.
• Continuity Nod: Among Darwin and Gumball's discarded toys is their Kupock the Barbarian toy from "The Plan".
• Evil Brit: Due to their voice actors, the villainous puppets all have different British accents.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Frank and Howdy demonstrate some rather bizarre ideas of fun, such as wearing two hats at once, organizing a single spoon, counting to seven (which Frank claims is "the funnest number"), or standing in "your favorite corner".
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: Frank and Howdy take Darwin to the deep recesses of his own imagination, forcing Gumball to put on Grady to follow after.
• Left the Background Music On: When Grady tries to get Gumball back to the task of tracking down Darwin, Gumball shouts at "Keyboard Dog" to quit distracting him, causing the jaunty synthesizer melody that had been playing to come to a halt.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's not entirely clear if Howdy, Frank, and Grady are actual Perverse Puppets or just Darwin (and later Gumball's) Imaginary Enemies. On one hand, when they appear to be alive, it's still Darwin puppeteering them, and the final confrontation is stated to be imaginary. On the other hand, the end of the episode shows Billy picking up Grady, who immediately starts attacking him.
• Medium Blending: Darwin and Gumball's childhood imagination is portrayed as a puppet show, and both of them become puppets.
• My Little Panzer: The "Mighty Flyz" toy is an exaggerated version of real-life toys like Sky Dancers. When Darwin starts it up, it breaks a fan and a lightbulb before crashing through the attic window, breaking some power lines, chopping off the tops of some trees and injuring a bird.
  Gumball: Mighty Flyz takes no responsibility for any limbs, eyes, or innocence lost while enjoying the Mighty Flyz line of products.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The Gumball and Darwin puppets look much flatter than the other characters in the puppet world,closely resembling their 2D designs. Additionally while the other puppets are fully filmed in live-action,the kids have their faces animated in Stop Motion.
• Obviously Evil: With his Jigsaw-like design and Creepy Monotone voice, it's not so surprising that Grady betrays Gumball.
• Parody Assistance: Besides co-writing the episode, Rebecca Sloan provides the voice of Howdy, while Frank and Grady are voiced by fellow This Is It contributor Baker Terry.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud:
  • When he barges into Frank and Howdy's lair, Gumball interrupts their song with an attempt at a Record Needle Scratch sound effect. It sounds more like he's blowing a raspberry, though.
    Howdy: What was that?
    Gumball: A dramatic record scratch!
  • After revealing that he lured Gumball into a trap, Grady goes "Dun dun dun!". His Creepy Monotone rather spoils the effect, though.
    Gumball: What was that?
    Grady: A dramatic music cue. It would have been better if my voice wasn't so flat.
• Shout-Out: Darwin finds what's pretty clearly a Tamagotchi virtual pet in the attic. He thinks the batteries in it have run dry, so he throws it back in... and then its LCD screen displays the words "CLEAN ME".
• Signature Style: Rebecca Sloan and Joseph Pelling co-wrote this episode and created the puppetry segment that makes up most of the third act. One can recognize numerous stylistic elements in common with Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, albeit Lighter and Softer.
  • Brightly colored characters and settings that are actually all kinds of horrifying.
  • Antagonists that pretend to be cheery and helpful, but are really sadistic tormentors trying to subject the protagonists to a Fate Worse than Death.
  • A deliberately repetitive and annoyingly catchy song with anticlimactic lyrics ("...We only have two hats/So those are your only options!") and disturbingly sudden interruptions ("Begin to prepare a second cake/You did it wrong with that first cake!").
  • Things going disturbingly south near the end as the antagonists drop all pretenses of being subtle and go all out on torturing our protagonists.
• Spiritual Successor: The puppet show part of the episode has many aspects of a (albeit much lighter-hearted) Don't Hug Me I'm Scared episode, being made by the same people. Lightly referenced in the episode itself; when Frank says that he and Darwin can count to "the funnest number", the one shown is a number seven with eyes. While it's based on the amount of years the puppets were left alone, DHMIS itself lasted six installments.
• Stepford Smiler: One of the imaginary creatures from Gumball's childhood is the Tree of Permanent Happiness, who moans "I wish I could feel other things..."
• Treacherous Advisor: Grady takes Gumball into the world of imagination so he can rescue Darwin, but is eventually revealed to be in league with Frank and Howdy so they can trap both boys.
• Vengeful Abandoned Toy: Gumball and Darwin discover an old box with all the toys they used to play with as kids. These include the titular three puppets, which come to life, trap Gumball and Darwin in the Mental World of their imagination, and torment Gumball and Darwin to get back at them for playing rough with them all those years ago.
  Grady: You always used to play with us, now's our turn to play with you.
  Howdy: So play along, don't make a fuss.
  Frank: And we'll come up with things to do.
• We Will Meet Again: During Gumball's "do-over" of the climax, Grady can be hear shouting "I will have my revenge!"
• Whole-Plot Reference: The second half of the episode is a send-up of a Don't Hug Me I'm Scared episode.