The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The Code

"I remember something! Something from a time long forgotten, a mystical repository of long-lost knowledge, which the ancient people called... a Byuek." "Are you trying to say book?" "Exactly! A Byuek..."
While unreasonably high expectations might have led to slight disappointment, this was no doubt a fine episode. While many people probably expected this to be an episode to fully commit to a singular theme (a la "The Signal") of Gumball and Darwin hacking into their neighbor's computer, it took a decidedly more standard approach. That's not to say that the episode would've been better had they simply extended the hacking segment, but I digress. We'll get to that.

Why I'm Covering The Amazing World of Gumball

Why the heck am I gonna start covering a cartoon?

Well, there are two shows that I follow religiously: one, of course, being SNL, while the other is a little cartoon called The Amazing World of Gumball.

It has to go down as criminally underrated, one of the few shows on Cartoon Network to not have an established fanbase, and it desperately needs one. It succeeds on every possible level for the kind of show that it is: the visuals are stunning, the characters are a lovely palette, and most importantly, the stories are unique. It's one of the few cartoons to beat the living crap out of the fourth wall without coming across as desperate and it's experimented with the medium more than any other show I can think of. Heck, one episode is built around the episode glitching out while another makes fun of cartoon's consistent resetting and reverting back to normal after every episode by forcing the titular family (The Wattersons, for future reference) to frantically fix everything.

The show's discussed nihilism, the meaning of life, depression, and everything in between perfectly whereas so many others have offered little insight. It even flip-flops genre, covering prison drama, dystopian fiction, zombie thriller, and more. Heck, its most famous scene features their entire world deconstructing, flowing into a computer-generated nightmare, storyboards, and Post-it notes.