One little luxury I’ve allowed myself during this stint of housesitting besides spoiling a couple cats has been binge watching this gem on Cartoon Network. Since Adventure Time and Regular Show are on hiatus (sadly, the latter will be starting its final season soon), I’ve been catching up on the numerous misadventures the title character and his brother Darwin are having.
The premise isn’t anything too original, Gumball (the blue cat above) is a 12-year-old boy attending middle school in the fictional town of Elmore, who has absurd adventures involving girls, his parents, Internet memes, etc. His adopted brother Darwin used to be the pet goldfish and his younger sister Anais is a pink bunny with a high IQ. Makes sense since the parents are a blue cat (Nicole) and a pink bunny (Richard) as well. Gumball stands out over the competition *cough! Disney Channel* through the show’s absurdity, the incredible mixture of different animation styles (more on this later) and how every episode is titled “The (noun).”
From a technical standpoint, Gumball is a tour de force of mixed media. There are animated characters of all sorts: traditional 2D, stop-motion, puppets, 3D computer generated, inanimate objects and Flash just for starters. They all reside within a background world which is a semi-live backdrop to create an off-putting three dimensional look. A recent episode even had Nicole and another parent redrawn/animated as Anime characters for fight sequence.
Is it OK for kids? Pretty much but many jokes will be wasted on them. Gumball has a little subversive streak in how it pokes fun at school, crushes, neighbors, classmates, TV, adults and the Internet. I only wish CN would make clearly available DVD sets of the various seasons; something they haven’t been consistent with lately.