several years ago i was at a convention and in some downtime in the day before it started
my friend and i were hanging out in the room watching the tv nothing too interesting was on
so we ultimately landed on cartoon network during a marathon of the amazing world of gumball so
we decided to give it a shot at that point i had never seen anything on the show other than
some clips shared online what surprised us and especially me was how entertained and into the
show we were all in all we spent the next two hours enthralled with gumball from the writing
to the animation there was a lot to instantly like but it wasn't until recently over the past couple
years where with how the world has been did i finally say alright it's time for me to give this
show a shot so that's what i did over time making my way through the tv series today i want to talk
about the show what it was what happened to it and what's to come from it and my thoughts on it
in general so welcome back or hello for the first time to the 25 days of fringe miss where i cover
something interesting nostalgic or holiday related every day from the 1st of december to the 25th
in order to find that holiday spirit i lost nearly a decade ago so if you want to be a
part of this daily journey and help me find my good old jolly joy subscribe and come aboard
the amazing world of gumball was a cartoon network original tv series that aired for six seasons
running between may 3rd 2011 and june 24 2019. gumball's world was strange and unique made of
contrasting animation styles and mediums living working and going to school together where the
bazaar was always possible as long as it was permitted under the rules of cartoon logic the
combination of traditional 2d animation overlaid with stop motion cgi puppetry and various other
animation mediums gave gumball's world the feel of several different cartoon realities
cohabitating with each other gumball watterson is the protagonist of the series who lives with his
family in the fictional town of elmore california gumball is an occasionally mischievous but largely
well-meaning 2d animated cat who more often than not gets himself into trouble through his naivety
rather than through any actual malice on his part while this naivety does make gumball periodically
come across as airheaded or obtuse he is shown to be capable of complex logical thought and
sarcasm in many bizarre situations gumball's best friend is his 10 year old adopted brother
darwin an orange fish who prior to the series through the power of brotherly love gained the
ability to talk and sprotted legs and naturally started wearing sneakers darwin is kind and has
a tendency towards being extremely gullible due to having only recently joined the world as a
fully sentient being you know cause he was a pet goldfish despite his newness to the world darwin
is shown to have high emotional intelligence picking up on interpersonal relationships or
the niche feelings of those around him that other characters often miss making up the rest of the
watterson family is his mother nicole waterson who much like her son is a 2d blue cat nicole
has a workaholic personality and a short temper she shows several times in the series that she is
a great martial artist who will do whatever she must for her family a facet of her that is best
shown by her being the main breadwinner of the family then there is gumball and darwin's father
richard waterson a slovenly chubby pink bunny who despite wearing a tie all the time never seems
to go to work while sweet in well-meaning richard is lazy slow and gluttonous spending his happiest
moments eating on the couch while watching tv the final watterson is anais a pink bunny
like her father and gumball and darwin's little sister at four years old anais already has the
intelligence that greatly surpasses her brother and is fully capable of manipulating those around
her to get what she wants because of her great intelligence she also attends elmore junior high
despite her age but nie still has her childish moments in spite of her intelligence
having tantrums and loving all things cute coming up next the amazing world of gumball on cartoon
most of gumball revolves around the shenanigans the two brothers get into around town especially
while they're at school these shenanigans can range anywhere from running from the school's
t-rex bully to trying to play cool in front of gumball's crush penny penny is a shape-shifting
yellow orange glowing creature who contains her shifting form within a hollowed-out peanut shell
with antlers gumball was created by ben bucklett a french british animator who began to work at
cartoon network's london studio in 2007. bucklett began his career in animation at studio aka
a london-based animation studio that specializes in producing commercials in short films after
working at studio aka for a while bucklett decided to quit at which point a co-worker
encouraged him to apply to the recently created cartoon network europe-based development studio
in his new position buckled assisted people in pitching their ideas to the network
helping these ideas develop into full shows after a bit of time cartoon network started to
encourage its employees to pitch its own ideas for shows at which point bucklett decided to use all
he had been learning to make his own pitch that pitch would eventually become to be the amazing
world of gumball bucklett based several of the characters in gumball after rejected characters
he had originally created for commercials at studio aka which helped inspire the original
concept for the show and bucklet's first pitch for the series the show was about rejected cartoon
characters attending a remedial school when the network executives decided that they liked the
overall idea of it but felt it was just a bit too sad bucklett tweaked it giving it a cheerier
feel on a traditional sitcom setup this version of the show is what eventually was greenlit bucklett
decided to name gumball's family the wattersons after calvin and hobbes author bill waterson
he also decided to name the individual members of the watterson family after his very own family
with nicole richard and anais being the names of his mother father and sister gumball knows at its
essence that it's a cartoon and it plays with the fact by referencing the breaks and laws of nature
and physics that cartoons are prone to one example of this is that gumball and darwin never age past
a certain point reflecting how cartoon children they just never grow up unless we're talking about
the rugrats that grew up that one time but now they're babies again so that's confusing a lot of
gumballs humor and freshness comes not just from its self-awareness as a cartoon but also in its
tendencies to reflect aspects of the real world in a humorous and honest way making allusions
to things like mental illness internet culture marriage and the human condition and that's only
a fraction of how long this list can go the show features a rotating cast of antagonists when the
antagonist even exists at all and isn't just gumball and darwin's momentary bouts of idiocy
a reoccurring problem does present itself in the third season in a concept known as the void
the void is introduced as a micro dimension inside of elmore where all the universe's mistakes are
hidden away in order to not break the rules of gumball's cartoon reality heavily tied to the void
is rob a background character who escapes from the void after having been banished there when
reality deemed him irrelevant after escaping robb becomes gumball's main antagonist in the series
hating gumball for being the protagonist rob is aware of his fictional existence and the world
outside of gumball something that becomes very apparent in the show's final episode in the final
episode elmer high's superintendent a live-action human just shows up at school determined to fix
all its freaks of nature slowly he turns all the cartoonishly strange students into animated humans
versus what they originally were which is things like a potato a robot a balloon with a face on
it and so on with his full intent to eventually make them fully live action gumball and darwin
managed to stop him by reminding their classmates on their cartoon nature but before celebrating and
being returned to their original states can begin it is revealed that the superintendent was robbed
the entire time in a panic rob reveals that he was just trying to save the students of elmer high by
making them real which would one can assume allow them to exist in our reality as this explanation
is made the void which has been steadily growing throughout the season reaches elmore high ending
with a freeze frame of rob falling into the void as it just sits there before heading to
the credits inferring that some terrible things are about to happen yeah a pretty weird way to
end things but i guess that makes sense for such a weird show later the amazing world of gumball
later a new the amazing world of gumball since the show's cliffhanger ending gumball creator ben
buckland has promised he would create a film to wrap everything up on february 17 2021 this film
titled the amazing world of gumball the movie was officially announced by hbo and cartoon network
two mini-series released following the series end a six episode series in 2019 called darwin's
yearbook and the gumball chronicles in 2020. overall this show really surprised me as to
what a modern day cable cartoon can be it's easy to neglect what's out there when you can easily
default to the classics you grew up with and how much they mean to you i do like giving things
a shot though and i'm glad i did hear i never thought a show like this could be on tv today well
technically a few years ago it would sometimes touch on some rather important and timely real
world issues in a way that was both serious and funny with jokes that almost seemed catered to
an older generation literally there's a whole bit about the golden girls that sent me i was dying
from the laughter and all the references that they were throwing in constantly the show successfully
towed that line of bringing kids and adults into the same property with similar levels of enjoyment
i mean i can speak for hours about how unique the animation is with how it's blended aesthetic
and even real world backgrounds and humans like like what is this a family of upside-down chins
it's bizarre but in all the right ways one 11-minute segment of this show can put
so much of everything into it that it blows my mind how many segments there are overall even
stuff that would seem dangerous to portray in the kids programming today was something that
this show got away with i was genuinely in shock with the majority of what i watched it was so
tightly packed in with jokes relatability all in one it's meant to activate all these senses
to a point where you can really lose yourself in these small crazy adventures cartoon network
really knocked it out of the park with this series and it's not hard to see why it was a hit from the
jump i really adore cartoon network sometimes in cases like this where they let the imagination run
free from its creators allowing that imagination to fully show itself on all levels through the
visuals the writing and the direction it reminds me of stuff like the marvelous misadventures of
flapjack a show that i'm covering here soon on the channel where the creativity of that show
became a main feature draw for its appeal i never would have guessed this show was what it actually
was nothing before i gave it a shot pulled me in and convinced me that it was worth my time
i personally apologize to myself for holding me back from giving this show the time of day
back when it was on the air i am forever fascinated with it and it has become a staple
of what i turn on in the background while i work or as i fall asleep or something to bring me some
joy when i need a place to escape to for a bit and for that the amazing world of gumball has
blown me away and why it was not what i thought it was in the first place i still don't know
what i think it is but what i do know is that i have found something that i can connect to
in more recent times that i can consider now a modern day classic cartoon but what about you
what are your thoughts on the amazing world of gumball let me know in the comments if you were
like me kind of brushing off this show and thinks it looks a little bit too weird for you to try
i highly recommend you do give it a try you may just find your next favorite show thanks so much
for hanging out with me today make sure to hit the like button and subscribe for more content
like this follow me on twitter or else i'll see you tomorrow with another video for my
next day of fringe miss check out the playlist to keep up with the month but until then later
you