| “ | What the what?! | „ |
| ~ Gumball's catchprase |
| “ | Gumball: HOW CAN YOU NOT BE ANGRY AFTER ALL I'VE DONE TO YOU?! *Gasps* ...After all I've done to you. I made you lose all your friends, your girlfriend, sold your parents. Even worse, I ate your last meatball -- all of this to prove you can be just as bad as me? Could it be that… that… that I was wrong? Darwin: IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?! Gumball: Oh thanks man, I almost doubted myself there. |
„ |
| ~ Gumball reflecting on his treatment of Alan in "The Saint". |
| “ | I'm tired, Darwin. I'm tired of having to wear a mask on Halloween because people wouldn't give me candy if they knew if it was me. Because of my reputation, Darwin. My reputation... Alright, fine, it's because I'm greedy! But don't worry, there'll be plenty for you too! | „ |
| ~ Gumball in "The Scam" regarding his plan to con everyone for free candy. |
Gumball Tristopher Watterson, born Zach Tristopher Watterson, is the titular main protagonist of the 2011 Cartoon Network animated sitcom The Amazing World Of Gumball, created by Ben Bocquelet.
He's a 12-year-old blue anthropomorphic cat who attends Elmore Junior High School along with his two siblings: Darwin, a goldfish that grew legs and became Gumball's best friend and adoptive brother, and his younger sister Anais, a four-year-old pink rabbit who is one grade higher than them. He is also the son of Richard and Nicole Watterson, Penny Fitzgerald's boyfriend, and Rob's arch-nemesis.
The series revolves around his multiple adventures and shenanigans in the city of Elmore with Darwin, where they interact with an extended cast of supporting characters. Although he is the series’ protagonist and "hero," there are numerous moments where he takes on villainous roles and commits various crimes throughout Elmore.
He is voiced by Nicky Jones in the pilot, Logan Grove in season 1-"The Kids," Jacob Hopkins in season 3-"The Copycats," and Nicolas Cantu in season 5-6 in The Amazing World of Gumball. He is voiced by Duke Cutler in The Gumball Chronicles.
Appearance[]
Gumball is a bright blue, short, anthropomorphic cat. He wears a beige sweater with brown cuffs and a brown collar, along with dark grey pants with a white buckle. He has a large head and wide hips. The inside of his mouth is pink, his tongue is light pink, his nose is orange, and he has six whiskers.
In pajamas, he wears a white T-shirt with red stripes and dark grey shorts.
Personality[]
| “ | Gumball: What I meant was, violence is never the answer. Dude, you're supposed to be happy for your friend's success! This isn't about Darwin being good at something, it's about you refusing to make the effort to better yourself. You know what the definition of that kind of person is? Leslie: You. Gumball: Exactly. |
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| ~ Gumball to Leslie in "The Triangle" |
Gumball can best be described as super annoying, insufferable, obsessive, and selfish in his worst moments, especially toward those close to him. He has an incredibly inflated opinion of himself—his ego is literally the size of his own house, as seen in "The One"—and he’s not afraid to admit to these traits. In fact, sometimes he’s even proud of his worst qualities. His selfishness and ego are so extreme that he once believed, for an entire year, that there were no other students at Elmore Junior High because he thought the world revolved around him. This is evident in "The Others," where, despite having good intentions, he constantly invades Clare Cooper's personal life and mocks her for crying about her problems, and also tries to become the "hero" of her story despite clear rejection from her.
Gumball’s selfishness and lack of care for others are often the cause of conflicts in several episodes, such as "The Faith," "The Best," and "The Triangle," where he wants everyone to be on his level and resents the idea of people being above him. However, Gumball isn’t always this way—sometimes he realizes the error of his ways and tries to change for the better, even feeling remorse for some of his actions. Despite his many flaws and questionable moments that make you wonder if he’s truly a good person, at heart, he’s a good-spirited kid who wants to be a good brother and friend. He’s even willing to selflessly put his life at risk for his loved ones.
While Gumball isn’t inherently evil, he’s also not above hurting or tormenting people for his own selfish gain or amusement. In "The Prank," for instance, he pulls cruel pranks on Richard along with Darwin, which end up injuring him. The pranks escalate to the point where they leave Richard stranded in the middle of the ocean with nothing to eat but his own clothes. Gumball also ruins Larry Needlemeyer’s life by constantly harassing him into competing in a lazy-off, against his will. This leads to Larry losing his job, his car, and even his fiancée—all just so Gumball can win a competition, without any regard for Larry’s wishes.
From Season 3 and onwards, his most corrupting qualities got worse and worse, to the point where he wasn't above torturing, harassing and even killing some of his friends. This is especially notable in "The Recipe," where he brutally kills Anton 50 times in a row with no remorse, all to discover the truth of his immortality, or in "The Society," where he began to sexually harass Elmore's Junior High School students and staff to discover "membership tattoos" of a nonexistent secret cult. Another example is "The Slap," where he sexually harassed Tobias Wilson the entire day by constantly trying to get him to slap him in the butt, or "The Cringe," where he tried to force Hot Dog Guy into taking off his clothes in front of him in the school shower. His most infamous streak of actions is in "The Saint" where he tried to psychologically break Alan Keane out of mere boredom and a desire to bring him down to his level. He did so in various ways, such as making him lose all his friends by framing him for a xenophobic post online, using a balloon with Darwin's face to forcibly kiss a number of girls at the school to frame Alan for cheating on his girlfriend Carmen Verde, and even selling his parents to human trafficking so they could be contorted alive and used as balloon animals.
Gumball’s ego, arrogance, and egotism can become a great danger to those around him, especially in episodes where he manipulates people to get what he wants or acts selfishly without considering others. For example, in "The Parents," he emotionally manipulates Nicole into apologizing to her controlling parents and telling them she wants them back, just so they can give him birthday presents. In "The Ghouls," he permits a spell that makes everyone scared of the ghouls again, resulting in chaos and anarchy across Elmore. In "The Pact," he begins stalking and psychologically torturing Principal Brown for not fulfilling his end of their deal. In "The Candidate," Gumball becomes the leader of the trapped students, denies that the school’s temperature is rising, and purposely plans to scam everyone into starvation so he can hoard all the food. This sparks a highly destructive, violent, and nearly fatal war between the students, and he later tries to make Anais take the blame. He also inadvertently causes the school to explode.
The three worst examples of him endangering others out of selfishness are: in "The Scam," where he hesitates to use his last piece of candy on Gargaroth, despite knowing the omnicidal threat he poses; in "The Console," where he purposely traps Elmore inside the Game Child's video game, a fate worse than death, for the second time only because he couldn't beat the game at 100%; and in "The Money," when he refuses to "sell out" to a corporation offering a commercial acting gig despite his family losing everything. Even as the world, the universe, and the entire show begin collapsing into nothingness as a result of the Wattersons losing money, he still refuses to sign the contract that would save everyone because of his pride, only agreeing once he saw the payment for himself.
Despite this, Gumball still preserves some of his most heroic traits over the course of the seasons, and some of his selflessness remains intact. This is seen in the multiple times he saves Elmore without expecting anything in return, when he helps Penny be herself, when he fixes Clare’s personal problems, when he tries to save Rob from the Void despite everything Rob has done to him, and when he saves the whole school from Superintendent Evil’s brainwashing (who was actually Rob in disguise).
Villainous Acts[]
- He frequently assaults some of his friends, such as Alan and Sarah G. Lato, by popping them or targeting their heads, often for very petty reasons.
- In "The Laziest," he and Darwin torment poor Larry to participate in a lazy-off against their father, Richard, despite Larry’s clear reluctance to revisit his past lifestyle as "Lazy Larry." Gumball and Darwin stalk him, repeatedly pleading for his participation, until Larry becomes so desperate and paranoid that he accidentally yells at a customer, getting himself fired. Things only worsen when he sees Gumball and Darwin in his car's back seats through the rearview mirror, causing him to panic, jump out, and let the car fall off a cliff and explode. Gumball and Darwin ignore the destruction and continue begging him. Larry finally snaps when they follow him to a restaurant where he’s with his girlfriend. Overwhelmed, Larry hurls objects at Gumball and Darwin, but accidentally hits his girlfriend, who then breaks up with him. After losing everything he worked for, Larry reverts to being "Lazy Larry" with Gumball and Darwin’s help, who show no remorse for ruining his life.
- In "The Flower," under Jealousy's influence, he tries to kill Leslie after falsely believing he is in a relationship with Penny, and later glues him to a bench before covering him in herbivorous insects, which begin to eat him.
- In "The Bet," Gumball mistreats Bobert after losing a bet, activating his "slave mode" to force him into a series of humiliating tasks, like embarrassing himself in the infirmary and attempting to divide by zero, which triggers a meltdown. Gumball’s negligence also leads to Bobert accidentally firing lasers at Mr. Small and ultimately turning hostile, setting out to eliminate Gumball with Darwin caught in the crossfire.
- Later, as Darwin pleads with Gumball to prevent Bobert’s self-destruction, with Darwin trapped behind a fallen bookshelf, Gumball’s only response is to try escaping the library alone. When this is met with disapproval, he wastes time instead of coming up with a solution. By the end of the episode, he appears to initiate another bet with Bobert, indicating he hasn’t learned his lesson.
- In "The Bumpkin," Gumball attempts to follow Idaho's Amish-like lifestyle. When he can't stick with it, he slyly persuades his family to follow the rules instead, while he secretly throws late-night parties with junk food, video games, and technology. He also tempts Idaho into joining him, feeding him french fries (ironically made from potatoes like Idaho himself), which makes Idaho dangerously sick and nearly kills him, as he’s unable to handle Gumball's lifestyle.
- In "The Promise," Gumball manipulates Darwin into ditching Banana Joe, whom Darwin wanted to make amends with by helping him make a video. Gumball insists that Darwin would be a disloyal brother if he goes, even causing Darwin to fall onto a pile of bricks when he tries to leave for Banana Joe. Due to Darwin’s absence, Banana Joe’s workout video fails, leaving him severely injured and disemboweled.
- In "The Finale," to help cover an $800,000 debt owed to the town of Elmore due to the Wattersons' reckless behavior over the series, Gumball and Darwin disguise themselves as Bobert and Alan to collect donations for a fictitious British boarding school. After a chase with the police, getting arrested, and eventually escaping prison, they retaliate against Mr. Small—who sues them for causing his claustrophobia—by compressing him into a tiny envelope and shipping him to the smallest country on Earth.
- In "The Recipe," he kills Anton 50 times in a row to discover the source of his immortality. Methods include crushing him with a bowling ball, giving him a heart attack, using him as bread in Tobias’s sandwich (resulting in him being eaten alive), shredding him in a paper shredder, blowing him up, crushing him with a door, launching a baseball through his face, getting him stomped on by Tina, and having him consumed by birds.
- Later, he disregards Anton’s autonomy by cloning him without concern for his friend’s feelings. He creates an entire army of Ant-Clones and hides them in a shed, making himself indirectly responsible for all of Ant-One’s actions, who ended up exterminating them all.
- In perhaps his most infamous actions, in "The Saint," after Alan took the blame for him damaging a library computer, Gumball decides to psychologically break Alan out of boredom and to prove he can bring him down to his level. He starts by making a xenophobic post on Alan’s Elmore Plus account to turn Alan’s friends against him, then uses a balloon with Darwin’s face to forcefully kiss other students to ruin Alan’s relationship. He eats Alan’s last meatball and even sells Alan’s parents into human trafficking to be used as balloon animals—all to feel better about his own flaws.
- In "The Spoiler," he eats Anton alive just to prevent him from spoiling a movie.
- In "The Parking," Gumball accidentally stabbed the milk carton guy with his car keys, and when he tried to fix it, he caused him to start "bleeding out" his milk. Afterwards, while he stopped the bleeding by plugging the wound with dollar bills, he simply ran away from the scene.
- In “The Parasite," believing Anais’s new friend is taking advantage of her, he attempted to kill her by poisoning her with a contaminated sandwich.
- Richard accidentally ate this sandwich instead, which left him incapacitated and extremely ill while trying to call 911.
- In "The Traitor," he obliterates four people while trying to catch Alan, knocks out Alan’s dad, accidentally pops Alan’s uncle, and later performs surgery on Alan and his mother without consent. When the surgery goes wrong, he blames Alan for being too hard to please.
- In "The Slap," he sexually harassed Tobias over and over because he wants the latter to slap his butt, and even tricked him into coming to the roof of the school under the impression that he would meet Masami Yoshida there. This inadvertently gets the two of them trapped for days, nearly dying as a result.
- In "The Scam," he and Carrie Krueger helped scam the entire school by staging a Gargaroth haunting, for which they would receive candy from each victim that they "save."
- Later in the episode, Gumball was extremely reluctant to stop Gargaroth from destroying the entire world and forcing Carrie into marriage just because he wanted a single lollipop, which was a necessary "hero's sacrifice" to stop Gargaroth.
- In “The Test," he vomited all of his venom at Tobias’s face, causing it to completely disintegrate and leaving his head with a giant hole.
- In "The Copycats," he and the Watterson family tried and get their rival copycats to kill themselves by copying their dangerous stunts, only because they were mimicking them on TV.
- In "The Stars," he and Darwin essentially enslave Larry by making him provide them new and free items under the threat of a bad review, even forcing him to create a disfigured elephant-bird hybrid against the laws of nature.
- In "The Console," he traps all of Elmore in a video game with the Game Child and forces everyone to conform to the game’s rules. Initially shocked, he soon begins enjoying it and attacks innocent citizens and animals to gain experience points. In the end, he restarts the game simply because he scored 84% instead of 100%.
- In "The Ex," he harasses Rob all day, trying to reestablish their rivalry, inadvertently ruining all of Rob’s traps set for Banana Joe. He also dismisses Penny’s advice, focusing only on Rob. Near the end, assuming he’s at Banana Joe’s house, he sets up a trap at Tobias’s house, causing a massive explosion that sets Tobias on fire and launches him across Elmore.
- In "The Nuisance," he helped his family turn Elmore into a disaster area by destroying a house with termites, pouring bath salts (or soap suds in the English version of the episode) into Elmore's water supply, and trying to convince Sal Left Thumb, a wanted criminal, to mug pedestrians in the neighborhood.
- Ultimately, he also helped burn down the entire town of Elmore.
- In "The Rival," Gumball and Darwin tried to ship a newborn Anais to the dog food factory as unlabeled meat, which would lead to her getting disposed in a crusher if they didn't regret their actions and stop it.
- In "The Candidate," Gumball becomes the leader of the trapped students, denies the rising temperature in the school, and devises a plan to scam everyone into starvation so he can hoard all the food. This eventually results in complete anarchy among the students, who begin attacking each other and destroying the school.
Quotes[]
| “ | So why don't I feel too good about myself? Well, I got the remote back, that's good. That means I can fix everything, that's good... That's it! I just doomed a guy with no family or friends to an eternity in limbo and made a stupid quip about it! *Gasps* I've become the villain! | „ |
| ~ Gumball in "The Rerun" before rescuing Rob from his own decision. |
| “ | Darwin: Maybe we should just ask him. Gumball: Uhh, maybe you should've said that before we iced him fifty times in a row. |
„ |
| ~ Gumball on his treatment of Anton in "The Recipe," attempting to learn the secret behind his immortality. |
| “ | *Gasps* I made a terrible wish, and now my whole family has disappeared!... Good. | „ |
| ~ Gumball in "The Downer." |
| “ | Molly: Hey, did I tell you about when my brown crayon ran out? Don't worry though, this story has a happy ending. Gumball: Does it involve the main character being slowly run over by a bus?! |
„ |
| ~ Gumball to Molly in "The Stories." |
| “ | Anybody else wanna go to school? | „ |
| ~ Gumball after popping Alan in "The Bus" after he suggested that the students skip their field trip. |
| “ | I sold your parents. | „ |
| ~ Gumball, nonchalantly to Alan in "The Saint." |
| “ | Gumball: Wait a minute. This Jodie's taking credit for Anais' work, getting her to carry her stuff, and eating her lunch! You know what she sounds like?! Darwin: You? Gumball: No, I meant!... *sighs* |
„ |
| ~ Gumball in "The Parasite." |
| “ | Gumball: DROP YOUR MORTGAGE IN THE BAG! Dolphin Man: Please, I have children! Gumball: Good to know, we'll come for them next... *grabs his arm* That's a pretty watch. Dolphin Man: No, please, it belonged to my grandpa! Gumball: You wanna try me?! I'll drop your credit score so low you won't even be able to get a loan at the LIBRARY, PUNK! Dolphin Man: Well, at least I'm leaving with my dignity. Gumball: No, we'll have that too. Ya pants, put 'em in the baaaag... |
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| ~ Gumball working as a banker in "The Schooling." |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In "The Club," Nicole reveals that she and Richard agreed to give Gumball the middle name "Christopher," but Richard confused it for "Tristopher" on Gumball's birth certificate.
- In "The Treasure," pictures are shown indicating that Gumball was born as an ugly baby. However, this was contradicted in "The Choices," where he appears normally as a young child in photos.
- Many people speculated that Gumball is bisexual or pansexual based on various actions of his and clues in the series. Ben Bocquelet has stated on Twitter that Gumball simply "loves who he loves."
- "The Singing" is the only episode where Gumball does not physically appear, nor is he alluded to.
- Gumball makes a cameo in OK K.O. Let's Be Heroes Crossover Nexus as one of the Cartoon Network heroes Strike summoned & defeated, and he also appeared again as one of Ben's Cartoon Network transformations to defeat Strike.
External Links[]
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 Villains
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Wilson Family Yoshida Family Elmore Junior High Students and Staff Members Elmore Citizens Others | ||