Review: The Amazing World of Gumball “The Gumball Chronicles: Vote”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Didn’t you hear me? It’s a clip show.

OUR TAKE

It’s been over a year since the sudden series finale of Gumball ended on a literal universe shattering cliffhanger, and it’s looking more and more like that might never get resolved as we’ve yet to hear anything about the supposed movie that the creator wants make being greenlit. Instead, Cartoon Network has opted to show several different clip shows with the least amount of new animation possible in order to keep interest in the series there while they drag their feet. People talk about Simpsons being in a zombie era since Season 11, but The Amazing World of Gumball is now pretty much a corpse being resuscitated every now and again to be dragged around for an hour before being dumped back in its grave. Fitting considering this is right after Halloween and just before the scariest actual election of my lifetime so far! In this case, we have a few “episodes” focusing on Gumball trying to find a running mate for an upcoming school election and running through why specific characters may or may not be good choices for him. And like with previous clip shows, the dialogue is pretty much entirely told through chat windows so that we barely have to animate the characters talking while they interact.

Like just…what is the point of these things? If we’re not going to be getting any actual new episodes, why bother with these clip shows if they’re not promoting anything? Are they working on the movie in secret and just need to keep it under wraps while making sure people are still aware of the show? At this point they might as well just throw it onto HBO Max like they have with Infinity Train, Adventure Time: Distant Lands, and other shows that were originally meant to premiere on the network. But no, I’m pretty certain that this movie is pretty much never happening at this point, and this could be a harbinger of a dangerous new era for the channel where old shows are given specials like this in order to hold onto even the slightest bit of attention regarding the IP. Or maybe I’m just being overly cynical. Either way, the main thing to talk about with this special is simply that you should just rewatch the show. It’s strange that this wasn’t used as a way of polling which character Gumball should run with to lead into a follow-up special that would air this week, but clearly they’re not really thinking ahead on this show, only backwards. Oh and, if you haven’t already, VOTE.