my favorite reaction image from TAWOG
The Amazing World of Gumball is a show that aired on Cartoon Network from May 3rd, 2011 to now. The show follows the Watterson family, Gumball; a 12 year old blue cat; Darwin; an orange fish and the middle child; Anais; a pink rabbit and the youngest; Nicole; another blue cat and the mom; and Richard; another pink rabbit and the dad. The show has a very large recurring cast of side characters that featured in most episodes.
The show started when Ben Bocquelet, the creator of the show, started making reels and commercials for Cartoon Network. Many of the characters in TAWOG were actually rejected! However, after Ben Bocquelet pitched the show idea to Cartoon Network, the show was green-lit. The show went on for six seasons, as well as, currently, three spinoffs.
I grew up watching this show, it came out when I was about 3/4 years old (young, I know, lol) and my grandparents started watching it with me. I fell in love with the show and even now as a college student I still watch the show. The show got me through quite a bit as a kid, it was silly and fun, so during times where things in my life were awful, I had a show I could return too. When I was younger, I thought the show's dark humor was funny and that it dealt with issues that I hadn't seen much before, as I got older, I started to understand the themes and humor fully, so it's a show that I constantly learned new things about.
One of the things that also attracted me to the show was that it was very creative and can sometimes tackle concepts that you don't see in kids media all the time. The creators have constant references to outside tv shows (one of my favorite references being when Leslie referenced Rupaul's Drag Race), there are an insane amount of internet references and pop culture refs. Some of the themes they tackle are real world problems: politics, bullying, climate change, etc. Lots of kids shows don't do that, so it's refreshing to see a kids show do it.
The show is only six seasons (240 episodes!), but the cast of characters is fucking insane. Just off the top of my head:
Carrie, Penny, Coach, Mr. Brown, Ms. Simian, Mr. Small, Tobias, Louie, Gramma JoJo, Grandpa Frankie, Sarah, Rob, Ocho, Misami, Banana Joe, Bobert, Alan, Carmen, Hector, Idaho, Tina, Teri, Billy, Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Robinson, Rocky, Anton, Sussie, Juke, Rachel, Jamie, Hot Dog Guy, Banana Barbara, Harold Wilson, Larry, and literally so many more that I can't think of right now. They are in so many episodes and it's all so consistent that it blows my mind.
The show ended after 240 episdoes with an episode called "The Inquisition", a lot of people really hated how this ended, I think those people don't know how to have fun (i'm just joking, mary). In the episodes leading up to the finale, even in previous seasons, we see Rob, one of the antagonists and recurring characters, worrying about the future, or, the end of the world in his mind. He has Banana Barbara, who can predict the future in her painting, paint the future, but all she paints is static. And in the finale, we see this come to an end.
The episode starts with Principal Brown busting into the teacher's lounge and telling everyone that the school's superintendent is coming. We cut to the gym where everyone is getting a speech from the live-action (real human) superintendent, Superintendent Evil, and yes, that's literally his name. He says that the school's cartoon like... everything. isn't okay anymore and he starts to make changes to the school to make it more "real". This includes forcing Banana Joe to "stand up straight", even though his "slouching" is because bananas are curved, he makes Carrie, a ghost, come to school in her grave to adhere to the dress code.
Gumball and Darwin think this is insane, and suddenly Masami, who was a cloud, bursts in the classroom as a cartoon human and says very ominously "You're next". Superintendent Evil has been trying to turn everyone into cartoon humans to make the school more "normal". Gumball and Darwin try to escape by breaking all the rules Superintendent Evil tried to force onto them, they end up turning their friends back to normal by doing "cartoony" things with them, for example: fucking around with Sussie and Banana Joe, this turns thm back into teir original forms. The newly returned characters along with Gumball and Darwin are able to take down Superintendent Evil.
The students and teachers reveal who Superintendent Evil actually is, and it's revealled to be Rob. Rob tries to warn them, he says that an evil is coming for Elmore, that everything that they know will be gone if they don't listen to him. However, instead of listening, Tina, a T-Rex, beats him with her tail. They leave him on the ground and leave the school. Rob eventually wakes up and starts talking to himself. He asks why they didn't listen to him, he says all he wanted was to save this place and that the only way he could do that was if they were "normal". Being normal was the only hope of escaping the "other place". Once he finishes talking, a huge void opens up in the school, he says, "It's starting...". The enire floor disappears and Rob falls into the static...which is exactly what Banana Barbara painted last season. The screen freeze-frames on Rob in the exact frame that Banana Barbara painted and the episode ends with the credits flashing over Rob.
Now, this is techinically a cliffhanger, but the most reasonable conclusion is that the static is the end of the show. Think about how static shows that the TV isn't working anymore, and the static is showing that the show is over and Elmore is gone... forever. The void is another location in the show and it's where all the "unwanteds" and "mistakes" go, it's where Rob originally came from when Mr. Small, Gumball, and Darwin went there to retrieve Janis and Molly. Rob is resucked into the void and we can only assume that the entirety of Elmore is now in the void. They are the newest mistake. The show is over.
I cried like a goddamn baby when I watch season 4, episodes 20 and 21: The Origins and The Origins: Part Two, and seasons 6, episode 16: The Parents. The Origins episodes are about how the Watterson's came to adopt Darwin. The episodes follow Richard buying a bunch of fishes for Gumball, unfortunately they all die, but they keep this a secret from Gumball. Eventually, Richard buy Darwin from the Awesome Store. This fish is different from all the others. It's Darwin!
Towards the end of the first episode, the family takes a picture together and Darwin speaks to the family for the first time, this scares Nicole and Richard and they accidently bump him into the toliet and flush him.
The second part is all about Darwin getting back to his home. Gumball and Darwin have a soul connection, they know when each other cross paths and that's eventually how they find each other. But Darwin for awhile thinks that he was replaced... It's fucking heartbreaking. So, at my grown age, I cry like a baby.
The parents is about Nicole and her parents rocky relationship. The fight a lot and eventually Nicole and her parents agree that they just can't get along... so they give up. Gumball sings the song "If It's Too Hard To Forgive, Then Just Give", and Nicole and her parents realize that they just want each other to be a family again. It's short, but it pulls at the heartstrings.
As someone who comes from weird family situation, I wish all family situations worked out like that, so it definitely makes me cry. I'm sure there are others, but these two come to mind when I think "sad Gumball episodes".