| “ | What the what? | „ |
| ~ Gumball's catchphrase. |
Gumball (formerly Zach) Tristopher Watterson is the titular main protagonist of Cartoon Network's The Amazing World of Gumball franchise.
He is an anthropomorphic blue cat living with his parents Nicole and Richard, his adoptive brother Darwin and his 4-year-old genius sister Anais in the wacky town of Elmore, California. He also attends Elmore Jr. High as a student in Miss Simian's class. His girlfriend is Penny Fitzgerald and his arch-nemesis is Rob.
He is voiced by Logan Grove, Jacob Hopkins, Nicolas Cantu, Duke Cutler and Alkaio Thiele.
His Heroic Deeds[]
In General[]
- He cares greatly for his family, including his parents Nicole and Richard, his adoptive brother Darwin, and his younger sister Anais. He also cares about his girlfriend Penny.
- In spite of his ego and constant attempts to play a façade of "coolness" amongst his peers, he usually won't hesitate to show his true, caring side whenever his friends, girlfriend, and family are in trouble. He often shows his concern and is afraid of losing them or seeing them hurt.
- He is often quick at seeing the best in dire situations, such as when his family was financially suffering in "The Money," or when Clare thought there was "no happy ending" in "The Others" while she was in the process of moving back to her hometown.
- He has showed loyalty to Miss Simian as her student, despite being her archenemy and her constantly antagonizing him
- Even thought Rob is his arch-enemy and often tries to destroy Gumball, Gumball has shown sympathy for him on many ocassions, including saving his life twice, feeling remorseful after hurting him multiple times and viewing him as a friend in "The Nemesis" and "The Ex."
- Even some of his heinous actions have good intentions behind them:
- In The Friend, while he, Darwin and Anais mutilated the cops with their traps, it was to defend the Chimera from being arrested.
- In The Parasite, while attempting to poison Jody was excessive, he and Darwin only did this because they thought she was a toxic friend to Anais. It’s understandable they thought this since the way Anais acted around her made it look like she was being used.
- Throwing Idaoh at Rocky in The Shippening was done because he didn’t want for him to see his father cheating on his mother.
Season 1[]
- In "The Responsible," he and Darwin saved Anais from a house flood.
- In "The Third," he rushes to Tobias' house to make amends with Darwin after he had left Gumball to befriend Tobias.
- In "The Debt," he spends all day trying to "save" Mr. Robinson's life, paying a "debt" to him after the latter simply refused to run him over. He eventually succeeds when he tackles Robinson out of the way of a falling stage light.
- In "The Pressure," he tries to prevent Darwin from going on a forced date with and kissing Masami.
- In "The Painting," he and Darwin train with Mr. Small to become "better," more responsible brothers to Anais after falsely assuming she wanted them to reform.
- In "The Ghost," he helps a sense-depraved Carrie eat food by allowing her to possess his body. When she eventually takes advantage of this, he helps her use Richard as a host, who is ok with it.
- In "The Mystery," he exposes Miss Simian as the culprit behind why Principal Brown was shaved and stuffed in a locker.
- In "The Prank," he realized that he was going too far in pranking Richard, so he made up for it by allowing Richard to prank him back out of guilt.
- In "The Robot," he allows Bobert to feel like a "real boy" by giving him tips and mannerisms to copy.
- In "The Genius," he vows to train his brain all day and become smarter in order to visit Darwin, who was deemed a "genius" by Anais's aptitude test.
- In "The Date," he finds the Fitzgerald's beloved pet spider, Mr. Cuddles, revealing that he was still alive beneath the toilet seat during their funeral.
- In "The Wand," he and Darwin allow Richard to abuse what he believes is a magic wand in order to fulfill his dreams of magic being real, even at their own expense.
- In "The Ape," he and Darwin befriend Miss Simian after believing she wants to be their friend. When it's revealed she is using them to get a "Favorite Teacher Award," they try to stop her before offering one last chance of redemption near the end.
- In "The Queen," Gumball, Darwin and Anais help rescue Anais's Daisy the Donkey doll from the very dangerous Tina Rex.
- In "The Spoon," Gumball and Darwin round up a bunch of items for "charity," as instructed by Sal Left Thumb. When it's revealed he is a thief, the spend the episode trying to stop him.
- In "The Microwave," Gumball and Darwin try and care for Kenneth as their child, a creature they made by microwaving a clump of various gross things. Even when he proves dangerous and is later defeated, they still insist he be given another chance.
- In "The Meddler," he apologizes to his mom for accusing her of being a nuisance all day because she helps him at his cheerleading audition.
- In "The Helmet," he learns the error of his ways after the Lucky Helmet drives him mad with power, instead deciding to throw it into a volcano and make amends with his siblings and parents.
- In "The End," Gumball and Darwin attempt to sacrifice themselves during the "end of the world" by having their family stay inside a porta-potty, within which they cannot fit.
Season 2[]
- In "The Flower," he overcame the Jealousy consuming him (over fear that Penny was going out with Leslie) with the help of Carrie, Leslie, Darwin and Penny.
- In "The Hero," noticing Richard was hurt from him and Darwin mocking him earlier in the day, he made up for his actions by reminding Richard he is their hero after Richard saved the two boys from falling into a crusher.
- More TBA
Season 3[]
- In "The Shell," after Penny broke out of her shell and revealed her true form, he helped Penny find her heart and be okay with it. He convinced her that her magical form is not monstrous and kissed her after she hid in the forest out of shame.
- More TBA
Season 4[]
- In "The Others," he gave Clare a happy ending, which prevented a depressed Clare from moving back to her hometown and leaving her friends in Elmore behind. He did so by giving her father a new job at the Rainbow Factory, buying her house back from repossession, and declaring Clare and her boyfriend prom king and queen.
- In "The Pest," he stood up to Billy when he was bullying Anais, and caused him to change his ways for the better by giving him advice and suggesting that he move on from his failed romantic interest in Anais.
- In "The Parasite," he was willing to stand up to Jodie when he thought she was being a parasitic friend towards Anais.
- In "The Girlfriend," he tried to get Darwin out of an abusive relationship with Jamie.
- In "The Bus," he stopped Rob from stealing a briefcase filled with money and from blowing up a school bus that he, Darwin, his classmates, and some of their parents/teachers were on.
- In "The Signal," he bad after Darwin thought he was insulting him (due to a glitch in reality distorting his words), and he profusely apologized to him, later trying his best to cheer him up and clearing up the situation.
- In "The Scam," while extremely reluctant at first, Gumball tried to stop Gargaroth from destroying the world, at first by attempting to suck Gargaroth into his vaccum (to no avail) and before Carrie marries Gargaroth, which was a necessary "hero's sacrifice" to stop Gargaroth, Gumball decides to toss the last piece of candy into Gargaroth's mouth, exploding and finally defeating him once and for all.
- More TBA
Season 5[]
- In "The Rerun, he goes back into the Void and risks his own life to save his arch-nemesis, even though Rob had eliminated his entire family beforehand out of spite.
- More TBA
Season 6[]
- In "The Faith," he and Darwin restored Alan's faith in the world, which reverted Earth's colors after it turned black-and-white and made everyone in Elmore positive again.
- In "The Factory," he saved the Rainbow Factory from a toxic gas outbreak.
- In "The Heart," he forgives Mr. Robinson for his mistreatment of him and Darwin over the years.
- In "The Inquisition," he stopped Superintendent Evil from abusing and turning all of the characters into humans by exposing his true identity: Rob.
- More TBA
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- While he passes the baseline by restoring Earth's colors and his numerous other good deeds, he fails the admirable standards to others like Carrie and Darwin, who performed more heroic and selfless acts, like saving the world or universe, whereas Gumball, in contrast, is often reluctant to help and usually needs convincing (like when Carrie and Darwin convinced him to let the candy go to kill Gargaroth, as he initially kept the candy for himself instead of using it to save the world), and at times he even undoes his good deeds for selfish reasons (like when he used Game Child again after saving Elmore, locking all of the citizens inside the video game simply so he could beat it at 100%).
- It doesn't help that he has more screentime than the other characters.
- He is On & Off to the point of passing the heinous standards. Below are some of the most egregious examples regarding his villainy, but much more can be found on his Inconsistently Heinous page.
- In "The Recipe," he, along with Darwin, murdered Anton dozens of times in different brutal ways just to know why he always came back to life, and once he knew the way he did, they immediately created a clone of him that would go on a rampage that killed the original Anton again, along with the dozens of other clones they made for fun.
- Additionally, in the same season, he also kills Anton by eating him alive just because he was about to give a spoiler about a movie Gumball wanted to watch.
- He constantly shows hatred towards the eternally optimistic Alan for very petty reasons and once attempted to psychologically break him by framing him for cheating on Carmen, stealing his lunch to devour it in front of him, and even selling his parents to have them contorted and turned into balloon animals at a birthday party.
- He also once popped Alan when Alan tried to encourage everyone to not skip school.
- He (along with Darwin) caused Larry to get fired from all of his jobs, provokes him into launching his car off a cliff, and made his fiancée break up with him just so he could beat Richard in a 'lazy-off' contest.
- He helped his family turn Elmore into a disaster area by destroying a house with termites, pouring bath salts into Elmore's water supply, and trying to convince Sal Left Thumb, a wanted criminal, to mug pedestrians in the neighborhood.
- Due to his part in causing regular destruction and chaos to the town, the entire residence of Elmore has shown general dislike to the Wattersons to the point they have been kicked out of the city on one occasion
- In "The Recipe," he, along with Darwin, murdered Anton dozens of times in different brutal ways just to know why he always came back to life, and once he knew the way he did, they immediately created a clone of him that would go on a rampage that killed the original Anton again, along with the dozens of other clones they made for fun.
- He is super arrogant, manipulative, ego-centric, mischievous, hypocritical and constantly acts like a jerk. He can also be wrathful and lose his temper.
- He frequently insults, belittles, mocks or assaults people around Elmore.
- While uncovering his personality to Darwin, it was shown that the creature representing his ego is literally bigger than his house.
- In "The Others," it's revealed that he blocked out his ability to see classmates outside of Simian's class because he viewed everything as revolving around himself. When he goes to help Clare, it is in part motivated by a desire to be the center of attention and ensure a cartoonish "happy ending" like always.
- He constantly manipulates characters like Hector and Bobert through the guise of friendship so he can use them for self-benefit, like using Bobert as a slave in "The Bet" because of his robot morality while justifying it as merely him losing a bet.
- The main reason he harasses Alan all of the time is because Alan is too much of a do-gooder, which makes Gumball want to drag him down simply to feel better about his own flaws.
- He convinces Rob to become a villain in part due to finding the idea of having an arch-nemesis cool, even though Rob claims he struggles to find meaning in the universe outside of it. In "The Ex," he harasses Rob all day just to win back his hatred and fuel his selfish desires.
- While he does care for his friends and family, he is not above pulling stunts that could get them injured or in serious trouble to get what he wants, and he can be neglectful to them.
- He often manipulates Darwin into doing bad things or catering to his wishes because Darwin is more naive and less independent.
- Gumball can be a poor boyfriend to Penny as well at times, such as when he sent her on a scavenger hunt across town that left her exhausted and ended up with her being chased by wild animals in "The Romantic," ignored her all day in "The Ex," or didn't get enough sleep to babysit her sister in "The Mess."
- He is frequently incompetent, as even with good-intentions, his schemes or methods are ridiculous and often backfire in ways that hurt other people.
Trivia[]
- While he's currently a Heroic Benchmark, this could change with season 7, The Wonderfully Weird World Of Gumball, and the movie (if it releases).
External Links[]
- Gumball Watterson on the Heroes Wiki
- Gumball Watterson on the Villains Wiki
- Gumball Watterson on the Inconsistently Heinous Wiki
- Gumball Watterson on the The Amazing World of Gumball Wiki
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 Heroic Benchmarks
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Watterson Family Elmore Junior High Elmore Citizens | ||
 Heroic Benchmarks
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TV Series Codename: Kids Next Door Regular Show Steven Universe Adventure Time Mixels Adult Swim TV Series See Also | ||