The boldness and specificity of the episode is striking.
I would have thought this was a late season one, early season two episode. I’m surprised that something as wild and dynamic as “The Ghost” appeared so early in season one. There’s elements in this episode that work, but beyond that it’s inessential. Gumball will use both anthropomorphism, exaggerated internal shots, and other cartoonishly perfect metaphors to represent the characters physical and mental states, and this is the first of a long line of brilliant visuals that the show will utilize. There is one small bit that worth noting though – the two brief bits that “anthropomorphize” Gumball’s insides, when he’s hopped on sugar and when the subsequent crash hits. It feels like the episode is just trying to see if they could get away with that kind of twist, but it doesn’t really add to anything, comedy or story-wise. And that’s… fine, but with no other narrative or thematic to hook that twist with, the end just feels like a mean ironic twist for the sake of it. He jumps out of his lethargic state right before Nicole comes home, and she blames the kids for overworking the father while they’re the ones that seem lazy. The ironic bits are the strongest elements in the episode – including the bit above, and the also the dick move that Richard pulls at the end. It’s delightfully ironic, an entire bit that the show itself basically declare is a waste of time. Larry indeed goes back into his “Lazy Larry” state, but is so lazy that he doesn’t bother with helping the kids. Gumball and Darwin appear in increasingly ridiculous places as their cries of “Please do it, Larry!” become a comically hellish mantra, triggering Larry to lash out at a costumer and his wife, costing him his job and his wife (he loses his car when he leaps out if, unable to escape the sights and sounds of the Watterson boys as well). The only really inspired, and semi-dark, sequence is the extended scenes in which Gumball and Darwin continually berate and annoy Larry into engaging in their lazy-off with their father, if only due to the insane, wildly-cartoonish ways the episode handles it all.
THE AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL NICOLE PERIL SERIES
Yet considering what the show will become – and even compared to the few episodes that we’ve seen so far – it feels all so unnecessary, just a series of gags in which The Amazing World of Gumball takes the lazy dad trope to its extreme.Įxcept it’s really not to any extreme at all ( Gumball will try this idea multiple times throughout the run, and I’d be hard pressed to think of any of them that actually works). And it’s all fine, cute, and occasionally funny. First they compete in keeping up with Richard’s unwillingness to move from the couch, then they try to recruit Larry to engage in his past laziness to take their father on. Here, after semi-conning Gumball and Darwin to taking out the trash – a responsibility that was given to him by Nicole – Richard begins a series of competition with his kids concerning the extent of his laziness. There have been some bits of character ideas and depth even this early in, but “Richard as the lazy and whiny butt of all jokes” is how they defined the patriarchal pink rabbit, and they’ll utilize that characterization for… perhaps a few seasons longer than necessary.
It’s a fine, if weak, character beat to lean on this early in the show’s run. Right now though, Richard is the laziest person in all of Elmore, and he’s willing to stake a WHOLE WEEK OF CHORES on it. Nicole will lean more on the breadwinner, bill-paying, nine-to-five position, while Richard will be the caretaker and the stay-at-home dad (in incredibly broad terms the show will blur these lines when the episode calls for it). One of Gumball’s smarted, most slyly cleaver developments will be an adjustment of gender roles. Richard is the early Homer Simpson, the proto-Peter Griffin: the fat, lazy slob who will only push himself when absolutely necessary or confronted with an absolute obstacle. I mentioned this in my last review, but The Amazing World of Gumball will struggle mightily with Richard, perhaps longer than it feels like it should. The Amazing World of Gumball S01E06 The Laziest… by Yu-Gi-Oh-the-offical
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