The Amazing World of Gumball Review: The News

"News news news news, blah, blah, blah, filler, filler, filler. Which leads us to the most important question: what was the point of all that?"
First of all, "The News" is, by no means, a flawless episode. I know some people have said it is, that it's the pinnacle of the series, blah blah blah... but it's not. Even with the inevitable hits and misses, though, "The News" offered up something genuinely exciting, especially so late into this season: risk-taking. This is (or rather, was, but I'm trying not to let that frustrate me too much - save it for the "Quotes and Notes") a live-action fake news program masquerading as an episode of a children's cartoon. That's one of the most ambitious things the show's managed to pull off, throwing all caution in the wind at the chance to try something different. And, in all fairness, the show did a pretty great job at it.

Also, apologies in advance, this review will be a mess. Trying to cohesively discuss an episode centered around incorporating as many premises as possible is frustratingly difficult.

First of all, let's just get what didn't work out of the way. While I wouldn't say that there were any duds outright, the episode, being entirely skit-based, was prone to have a few misses here and there. A frequent issue was in the construction of the jokes in regards to how methodically they were delivered - I think the biggest offender here was the "Al Paca" gag, which took too long to establish where the joke actually lay. The idea of an alpaca going to G8 summit isn't surreal enough in TAWOG to come across immediately as a joke, and the ultimate revelation of the swap-up both doesn't make much sense and doesn't sustain enough energy to drive the punchline home.

Similarly problematic was the house fire scene. The scene starts out with enough going for it, namely in the gag of a line of marshmallow cops melting in the fire's blaze, but the ultimate announcement of its cause - Gumball saw a spider - is so frustratingly simple and predictable that it doesn't really work. The build-up is creative, yet the ultimate punchline isn't.

Elsewhere, the special news correspondents were good, but not great. The "Is Science Bad?" segment was admittedly truncated by technical issues in the version of the episode I'm judging off of, but the joke came and went too fast when it should've piled on in regards to the simplicity of the question and Kip's refusal to properly accept it. Meanwhile, the sports segment was too simple and repetitive without heightening, and the weather report, while not bad, was a strangely humdrum note to end the episode on.

However, bookended between a slightly weaker, crowdpleasing front and a fizzled-out back was a great sweet spot for the episode that, in my opinion, really drove the episode to victory.

Up first was the quick report on a waste disposal strike, which boils down to interviews with talking toilets regarding their poor conditions and mistreatment. It's juvenile, sure, but it's enjoyably surreal and in-line with the show's humor in peak form: just run with a dumb premise to some insane extreme until it works. Also largely successful was the "celebrity meltdown" parody featuring Daisy the Donkey getting fed-up with her special guest's script improvisation. The joke by itself isn't that hilarious because of the pettiness of the "feud," but the ultimate reveal of the fight being in the hands of a single puppeteer, who rolls about on the floor as his puppets tear each other apart was a nice way to  reinvigorate the formula. (Also, the "community service" gag... perfect.)

Then were the two best segments from the episode. First, there's the cheery little tune discussing the woes of a stock market crash. Even if I wasn't as taken away by it as a lot of other people - I feel like it doesn't hammer in that cynical, helpless feeling as well as "Your Life Doesn't Count" - it's still a smart little bit of commentary: just package up that tragedy in a form that's easy to digest.

My favorite portion, though, and the most effective as satire, was the oblong investigative report on nothing at the lack of anything legitimate to comment upon. The result is an increasingly desperate attempt to spark conversation with intentional vagueness, filler B-roll, and an increasing sense of helplessness as the segment struggles to tie itself up. It's a nice little spoof on how news shows always have one final, take-it-or-leave-it segment designed to fill time, with this particular instance being upfront about its lack of even remote substance. It's a simple, stupid idea that's masterfully executed.

All in all, "The News" did what it wanted to do, and it did it as well as you could've hoped.

NOTES AND QUOTES:
-Okay, so the great debate over Newspaper Kip: I wasn't that big of a fan. I understand why the change was made - perhaps having a real-life person as the news anchor staring us dead in our souls was a bit too much of a departure from TAWOG's traditional style - but a lot of the punch of being a news parody was lost in the process. Newspaper Kip was limited in deadpan and an ability to articulate his expressions compared to a person, and the result feels less mock-serious and more wacky, which doesn't work as well for the angle the episode was trying to skewer. Then again, sometimes knowing is the true culprit to failure - had that rough cut not leaked earlier, we might not have taken offense to it at all. Knowing truly is a double-edged sword. (Looking at you, "The Puppets.")


-I watched a bit of the first episode of The Day Today, and I will say that I can definitely see strands of that shining through here. (Yes, I know it was deliberate homage, but I'm reaffirming that the show did a decent job at homage.) My understanding of British news satire is more based in Mitchell and Webb, who I assume derive from the same source. Either way, top deadpan form from Kip.
-The repetitive, over-the-top, 45 second-long intro was gold. Jokes of its nature, reliant on dragging themselves out as much as possible without a perceivable end, are difficult to pull off (see: "The Grieving" gag from "The Compilation"), so points where it counts. They made it work.
-The sheer amount of new characters trotted out was actually kind of impressive.
-Mike, consistently being out-of-breath as the sole news reporter running across town, was a nice gag, as were Kip's constant interruptions at the hands of his make-up artist in between segments.
-The investigative report on nothing also reminds me a whole lot of this bit from the Eric Andre Show, where battling news anchors ask unsuspecting bystanders where they stand on an unarticulated "issue."

FINAL GRADE: A-. "The News" is by no means a flawless episode, through and through, but you have to commend it for its sheer willingness to almost entirely drop the show's formula and pull off arguably one of the most original episodes in the entire series. Granted, I'm not as smitten about it as a lot of people, and the whole Kip switch-up probably cost the score a tiny bit... but "The News" was just an enjoyable episode, through-and-through, and with Season 5's insistence on safe episodes, the sheer level of joyous experimentation on display was a delight to behold.

For the last review of "The Puppets," CLICK HERE.