‘The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball’ Creator Ben Bocquelet Dishes on His Critically Acclaimed Show’s Comeback

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Among the many explanations for Gumball’s lasting appeal since its 2011 debut on Cartoon Network is the series’ unabashed desire to make viewers laugh with its surreal, reality-warping universe. This summer, a new spinoff (not to be confused as a seventh season) of The Amazing World of Gumball will arrive from Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. Titled The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball, this 40-episode, bite-sized cartoon bonanza will make a splash on Hulu in the U.S., and Cartoon Network and HBO Max in international territories later this fall.

This colorful incarnation of the zany show featuring the antics of anthropomorphic blue feline Gumball Watterson, adopted goldfish brother Darwin, younger sister Anaïs, parents Richard and Nicole, and oddball friends and classmates continues its predecessor’s tradition of fusing 2D and 3D animation, live action, puppetry and CGI.

On the eve of its anticipated arrival, we connected with Gumball creator Ben Bocquelet and executive producers/series directors Matt Layzell and Erik Fountain to hear what’s on tap for the kooky denizens of Elmore, California, when The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball premieres.

Elevating the Cat

“We really wanted this to be kind of a continuation of where the show left off,” Layzell explains to Animation Magazine. “So we wanted more of the same great Gumball stories, like returning to some of our favorite characters. Really doing more of the same and trying to elevate things and tell new stories with the characters we already had. That was the mission, to do as good and even better than what fans were already familiar with.”

As mastermind of the worldwide Gumball phenomenon, Bocquelet says one of the things he’s most thrilled about with this spinoff series is to not be doing it all by himself this time.

“With Erik and Matt working it over, it was a new process that was involved,” he adds. “It was a little tricky because we had a Gumball movie planned in between, so we had to reinsert ourselves into the continuity of the show without that big special story to kind of bridge things. But we’re entering all that stuff about the overarching plot in the new season itself. I’m just excited to be doing more stupid things with these characters and friends right here.”

“It costs tears, blood and other body fluids, but we know that’s how it is,” he jokes. “It’s all up on the screen.”

— Gumball creator Ben Bocquelet

To keep the momentum and flow, animation duties for The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball fell again to the talented folks at Studio Soi, which is headquartered in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

“I’m a longtime Gumball fan, and this is my first season working on the show,” Fountain notes. “TV has a very limited pipeline and everything is written, designed and planned out in Burbank, and then it’s packaged up and sent off somewhere overseas, and you cross your fingers and you hope you get back something good. So I was so curious how a show like Gumball got made on the same budget and it looked so diverse and crazy. Just from a production standpoint, it blows my hair back. Because it’s an international show; it’s written in one country and made in another.”

Fountain says the team at Studio Soi is creatively invested on a level he hasn’t seen before. “A lot of the times you get people that are just working at a gig,” he notes. “Here the animators care, the designers care, the modelers care, and they want it to be really good. And they’re up for the challenge. You don’t get that with a lot of productions. It’s pretty wild. It’s all coming from Ben. He set the style and the tone, and he’s such a funny writer, and he’s so good about never taking half measures. That’s the guide to follow, where you make something the best version of itself, take it as far as it can go and then try to carry that through every step of the process. Hopefully we’ve done that. We tried really hard to maintain that high standard.”

Bocquelet echoes Fountain on the effort that goes into delivering Gumball to kids and their families across the planet.

“It costs tears, blood and other body fluids, but we know that’s how it is,” he jokes. “It’s all up on the screen. Ideas for stories come from our private lives, stuff we share and think it’s amongst friends and in a safe space … then no, we can make money with it! It’s a lot of things that would happen to a child or an adolescent or something like that, and it often stems from real places.”

It’s a tricky task to keep conjuring up the Gumball’s special brand of animated magic. But that’s exactly what the franchise has done, earning it broad appeal and longevity in the process.

“When we were writing it, we always wanted it to come from a real place, and I think that’s where real comedy comes from,” Layzell points out. “If it feels real and is connected to a real human experience. As we were making it, we realized that the episodes of Gumball kind of fall into three categories, to help us think about how to plan out the season.

“The first was a story that came from a real kid place, like something that we’d gone through personally, or we’d seen someone experience in high school, an awkward type of situation, or some sort of family dynamic funny story.” he adds. “The second was more of a social commentary on something happening in the world now and trying to put a funny spin on it. The third was, in classic Gumball fashion, like more of an experimental episode, something that really used a special animation technique or focused in on a specific character that we’d tell this crazy story through. So, as we were shaping the season, that’s how we’d go about each episode. Either of those categories we were sure to dig in on it and make it the best version of what it could be.”

Recapturing the Visual Magic

The other aspect that sets Gumball apart from other shows is the production’s ability to farm things out to artists for special animation sequences, which only adds to the maelstrom of creative madness.

“But the bulk of the show, even though it’s so varied, is all done through one studio,” Fountain adds. “Another person carrying a lot of the weight is our art director in London, Joe Sparrow. He exceeds his title. He’s not just an art director; he’s also an incredible animator, and sometimes if we need to execute something that’s a big ask, he’ll be crucial in making sure that gets done.”

Obviously, there are imitators out there trying to capitalize on Gumball’s popularity, but the creators, though teasing that they’d like to crush all their enemies, maintain that there’s always room for more.

“Making Gumball, you kind of have your blinders on,” explains Layzell. “It’s such a cool sandbox to play in and you’re building off of six seasons of what I think is the best animated TV show out there. You’re in it and you have to try and pop your own ideas and really challenge everyone working on it to elevate what they’re doing. I just got consumed with that, and that’s part of the beauty of Gumball, in that it is its own special world and you can really get lost in there.”

The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball premieres July 28 in the U.S. on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

The show airs on Cartoon Network in the U.K. and will roll out internationally across EMEA, Latin America and APAC and on HBO Max (excluding the U.S.) on October 6.