Gumball Watterson

Nicholas Gantu

Anais Watterson (sister)

Nicole Watterson (mother)

Richard Watterson (father)

loving

**Gumball (formerly Zach) Tristopher Watterson** is the protagonist of *The Amazing World of Gumball*. He is a twelve-year-old, blue male cat that goes to Elmore Junior High, with his adopted brother and sister Darwin Watterson and Tara Watterson and his four-year-old sister Anais Watterson.  Gumball is in Miss Simian's class. As of "The Shell," Gumball is dating Penny Fitzgerald.

## Appearance

### Early Concept

Originally, Gumball was meant to be a blue dog. Not much thought was put into this choice as it was more of a placeholder than a final design. As the creators developed the character further, they decided to make him a black cat, as it fit the personality they had in mind for him: unlucky, but optimistic (black cats symbolize bad luck). The creators found this trait to be too restricting in terms of possible plots and stories. In addition, a silhouette cat would be "hard to read" on the backgrounds planned for the show. The decision was finally reached to have him blue, a decision that Bocquelet liked because blue is not a color usually found on cats, and it had a "70's-80's Japanese mascot" sort of feel.

### Final Design

In the actual show, Gumball is a light blue cat. On his oversized head, he has six whiskers, but only five are visible most of the time, because his head is mostly shown at an angle. He usually wears grey trousers, coupled with a tan sweater, which has brown cuffs and a brown collar. Like his mother, father, and sister, Gumball lacks shoes, and he is the only member of the Wattersons without visible eyelashes, although, in some episodes, he is seen with visible eyelashes, like in "The Refund" and "The Boss." The inside of his mouth is pink, his tongue is light pink, and his nose is orange.

In Season 2, his design changes slightly. His head and his whiskers are bigger, while his eyes and tooth are rounder.

In Season 3, Gumball's eyes are permanently round along with the rest of the Wattersons.

## Personality

Gumball is a very imaginative person. Despite his mediocre academic performance, he can be surprisingly brilliant when it comes to formulating all sorts of mischievous schemes. This side of him can be seen in episodes such as "The Plan," in which he quickly formulates a basic outline to he and his siblings plan to "save" their mother, and in "The Scam," in which he forms a crafty scheme that will allow him to cleanly heist the town's candy effortlessly. Such a side may also suggest Gumball is smarter than he lets on, as hinted by his expansive vocabulary, cooking skills, and ukulele skills as well.

Gumball is also pretty optimistic. Despite his cynicism towards society itself, as seen in episodes such as "The Bumpkin" and "The Money," he is still fairly positive in what to expect out of people (though there are exceptions). When his family is financially suffering in "The Money," he reminds them of the joys of family and pushes them to be more optimistic. In "The Others," he is quick to reject Clare's notion of "no happy ending," only wanting to see her have a happy ending (no matter how forced it was). He's also happy to help others, as seen in "The Void," "The Upgrade," and "The Slide," in which in all three he went great lengths to assist Molly, Bobert, and Rocky, respectively.

In general, Gumball is very protective of his loved ones. On multiple occasions, he is quick to go into a sort of "over-protective" mode whenever anybody tries to hurt his siblings, Darwin and Anais, as seen in "The Parasite," in which he tried to nearly poison Jodie when he thought she was hurting Anais, or in "The Rerun,"in which he aimlessly tried to attack Rob out of rage when Darwin died.

Gumball has a very sarcastic nature. He's quick to diffuse all sorts of quips towards others, ranging from fairly harmless to sometimes blunt and rude. As demonstrated in episodes such as "The Stories" and "The Test," these snarky comments are impulsive.

Gumball also has a fairly massive ego, which seems to be a fault of his. When it's not tamed properly, his ego can drive him to do some pretty jerky things. Darwin tapping into his musical talents in "The Triangle" caused Gumball to have short-lived jealousy towards him before he realized he was wrong. His ego also explains his relationship with Alan; the fact that Alan is so effortlessly loved drives Gumball to expose him for being scummier than he lets on (which later turns out to be accurate). This ego also makes him very sensitive, as seen in "The Meddler," in which he an becomes an emotional wreck when he is told his cheerleading performance was terrible.

## Trivia

* He can play the ukulele and sing well, as seen in "The Knights." Despite this, he is shown to be failing music class in "The Apology."
* He apparently had his appendix removed, and he also kissed Sussie, as said by Darwin in "The Skull."
* Gumball was voiced by Nicky Jones (best known for voicing the title character of *Chowder*) in the early reel, but Logan Grove started voicing Gumball for Seasons 1 and 2. He voiced Gumball for the final time in Season 3's "The Kids." Jacob Hopkins then took his place for the rest of Season 3, 4, and part of 5. Nicolas Cantu then replaced *him* in the Season 5 episode "The Copycats."
* In*Project Exonaut*, Gumball is available as an exosuit for 1,000 coins.
* In *Cartoon Network: FusionFall*, Gumball is available as a Nano.
* Gumball's sweater was revealed to have been found by his dad in a sewage outlet in "The Date."
* Gumball is terrible at catching things, as shown in "The Quest."
* Gumball has been shown to be a horrible liar on numerous occasions.
* Although Gumball has six whiskers, only five of them are visible because of the angle of his head. In "The Poltergeist," when Gumball impersonates a pea on a fork in the attic, one can see that he has six whiskers.
	+ In "The Pressure," when Gumball squishes between Masami and Darwin at the girls lunch table, his six whiskers can be seen.
		- In "The Bros," when Penny says she needs space, Gumball is so shocked that all his whiskers pop out, similar to Richard's whiskers.
* He has very wide hips, which is unusual because this feature is more commonly seen on female characters in animation.
* In Season 1, he has a slightly wobbly outline in certain scenes.
* 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. His middle name was also confirmed as "Tristopher" on James Lamont's Formspring.
* Gumball has arachnophobia, which is a strong fear of spiders, as shown in "The Date."
	+ Gumball may have a fear of drowning, or perhaps, claustrophobia, as reflected in a dream where he hyperventilates and panics in a sinking car in "The Dream."
* Gumball's face is shown to be extremely malleable, as in "The Photo;" Darwin was able to mold it into various poses, and it has been shown to go very floppy on occasions.
* Gumball is the only member of the nuclear Watterson family that does not have any visible eyelashes.
* In "The Treasure," it is revealed that Gumball was a really ugly baby, though this may have been contradicted in "The Choices."
* Gumball is shown to be good at whistling, demonstrating his skill in "The Colossus" and "The Fridge."
* The first time Jacob Hopkins could be heard voicing Gumball was in the "Welcome to Elmore" promo.
* In "The Promise," it is revealed that the name "Gumball" is just a nickname.
	+ In "The Name," his real name is revealed to be Zach. At the end of the episode, he legally changes his name to Gumball.
* Gumball has appeared in every episode except for "The Singing," "The Sucker," and "The Spinoffs."

## Relationships

Main article:Gumball Watterson/Relationships.