I've always loved Cartoon Network, when I was growing up it was my favourite channel to watch. Even today it has some good shows in reruns, like Adventure Time and Regular Show. One of the newer shows on the network at the time of this incident, The Amazing World of Gumball, was a cute and clever show about a family of cats and rabbits that live in a crazy town called Elmore. I initially thought it wasn't really my cup of tea, it was a little immature, but I caught a few episodes due to my brother watching it and loved it. I own a lot of merch of the show now. Posters, figures, shirts, you name it. I even have a relatively rare full series DVD collection. I did have an encounter with a bizarre episode of the show, as I will dictate here, but it did not tarnish my love for the series. Rather, it simply gave me questions to never be answered.
One day, a year or so ago, I was watching Adult Swim when I realized that I'd been up so late that I hadn't even kept track of the time, it was already 4 AM. I don't recall ever watching [AS] this late, so I stayed awake to see what would happen when it ended. A little bumper showed up at the bottom of the screen during a commercial break, it said that a special episode of The Amazing World of Gumball was about to come on. I was a little confused about an episode of a very popular show coming on this early, but I was bored and decided I would watch it; thinking it might come on later in the day so I could spoil it for my brother. Sort of mean, I know, but he's annoying too, so we both make mistakes.
The flashy and energetic intro theme played, although it was played a little differently than I recall. The music was a little different, and the show's logo wasn't animated. Its colours were done rather sloppily as well, almost like something a little kid would do on a Lite Brite or some sort of coloring book. I ignored it, because it was the opening logo, why would I care? The title of the episode was "The Grieving", a sort of sad title. Maybe that's why it was special. Would some character die?
It began with Gumball, the show's 12 year old protagonist, standing alone facing a corner of his dimly-lit classroom. He looked absolutely miserable, a far cry from the cheerful demeanor he usually had. There was no one else in the room, not even his best friend and adopted brother Darwin the goldfish, and the windows in the room clearly showed the night sky outside. I was really starting to get confused. Why would he be at school at night, and why was he standing in the corner all sad and alone? This was very out of character, pretty obviously so to even a cursory watcher just like myself.
After about what seemed like a minute of Gumball standing somberly in the corner, the scene suddenly changed. We were in Gumball's house, once again the scene is silent and a little disquieting. Richard, Gumball's enormous rabbit father, walked in from the kitchen. He looked even more miserable than Gumball had in the previous scene. Richard wasn't wearing his usual attire, he was dressed in a fancy black suit, a little uncharacteristic of him, as he's usually quite a slob. He sighed, and slumped down onto the sofa, and started sobbing intensely. It wasn't hyper-realistic by any means; indeed, it had the usual "slightly exaggerated" quality of most of the crying on the show, but it still was a little disquietingly authentic-sounding.
I was starting to get a little creeped out, where was the silly, fun cartoon that I usually looked forward to watching with my younger brother? This was something completely different. After all, the episode had been much quieter than the show usually was, only subtle sounds and very little music, and the animation was not anything to write home about either. It was very stiff-looking from a distance, the character designs were somewhat sloppy and rushed looking, and the real life backgrounds used for the show looked different and had less contrast.
As confused and somewhat frightened as I was, for some reason, I kept watching it. Poor Richard was still sobbing on the sofa, as the front door opened suddenly, making me jump a bit at such a loud noise, and Gumball's mother Nicole stepped in. Like Richard, she wasn't wearing her usual outfit. She was in a black dress and was wearing a black hat to match, which I immediately assumed was funeral attire. Nicole sat down on the couch to comfort her husband, although she was looking a bit saddened herself. By this point Richard's crying had began to get more pained and miserable sounding, so much so that I felt somewhat like crying myself.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the sad scene at their home ended, as it shifted back to the school. We weren't in Gumball's classroom this time, we were in the office of Principal Brown, the school's Cousin Itt-like ball of hair principal. Nicole and Richard were there, in their usual clothes, looking more normal than they had before, but still tense- Nicole in particular looking like she was about to snap. Principal Brown however, looked extremely sad. He quietly and somberly informed them that their children, Anais and Darwin, were not present after lunch earlier that day. They hadn't been seen at all the rest of the day. Nicole instantly began to shout at him. "WHAT?!" she screamed. "I PAY GOOD MONEY FOR MY CHILDREN TO BE ENROLLED IN THIS SCHOOL AND YOU DON'T EVEN LOOK AFTER THEM WHEN THEY WANDER OFF?! GOD DAMN SCHOOL BOARD HIPPIES!" she concluded to no one in particular, sitting down in a huff as Richard looked worried. I was surprised at the use of "god damn;" the most serious curse that the show had used from what I saw was "what the what," not straight up "god damn." I was knocked out of my train of thought, though, as Principal Brown looked miserable and cleared his throat, beginning to speak.
His eyes began to tear up as he informed them that they eventually were found, but one had not been found alive. He then breathed in and was about to speak, but suddenly it cut to a real-life image of a goldfish floating upside down in the water, and one of a rabbit lying down on its side, presumably dead but with no blood or marks to speak of. I could hardly believe what was happening, how could such a cheery and fun kids show be taking such a dark and twisted turn? I was considering turning the television off, but I was too scared to be left in the dark by now, nearly frozen by fear and disturbed intensely.
Another flashback, the scene was earlier that day, and the animation in this scene was even worse than earlier- basically storyboard quality, fitting for a flashback. Mr. Brown began to speak, saying that he believed that the kids had simply ran off and decided to skip school, so the school board called in the police. They said it was very uncharacteristic of both Darwin and Anais to go skipping school like delinquents. Darwin was a little naive and impressionable, but he was a good kid and wouldn't have even dreamed of doing something like that (if anything, Gumball would be more likely, but that's not related), and Anais was even less likely to run away, she was a straight-A student, despite being only four, which also troubled the police, seeing as a defenseless four year old little girl was missing as well as an older boy.
The school had been thoroughly checked, so the police started to search the heavily wooded area outside of the school. It took little time for the police to discover the unnerving fate of Anais. In a small clearing outside of the school, Anais was found slumped over a tree's limb, eyes blank from unconsciousness, a large welt on her head, and one shoe dangling from the branch of a tree by its shoelace. I gasped, my eyes welling with tears. She was only 4... who did this to her?
Thoughts of turning the TV off swarmed in my head but I refused to leave myself alone, in the dark, after watching something awful like this. And besides, a sick, twisted part of me wanted to know what happened to Darwin.
Darwin apparently fared even worse.
Principal Brown had said there was a note Anais's hand was tightly clutching that they pried from her. He never specified what the note said, but it apparently lead to Darwin.
Unlike Anais, who was simply knocked out and draped over a tree, Darwin's cause of death was clear. Someone had wrapped a plastic bag around his head and tightened it until he was unable to breathe, eventually drawing his final breath. The bag was still taut around his head and a note was written in Sharpie on it that made me gag from the sickening "humor" of it all:
"CAN'T BREATHE NOW, CAN YOU, FISH BOY?"
It was then I noticed that the show had been running twice as long, it usually ran for eleven minutes, but this episode was running for about thirty. My horrific curiosity was now getting the best of me, and I sure as hell didn't want to leave myself alone in the dark, as usual, so I was going to press this as long as I could, then take some melatonin and a nice cold shower in the morning.
Gumball's parents were still talking to Principal Brown when I focused on the TV; Principal Brown had apparently finished his story, choking back tears. He had said that his hypothesis was that Darwin was ambushed on a detour to the school and when Anais came in to protect her brother, she was knocked out cold as a "lesson." Nicole was asking him if Gumball was alright, apparently since she hadn't remembered him when Principal Brown told her what had happened to Darwin and Anais. Principal Brown gently put a hand on Nicole's shoulder and assured her that Gumball was still fine. He had seemed very shaken, however. He was currently silently sitting in his teacher, Miss Simian's, classroom.
Nicole and Richard rushed, eyes wide, out of the room and into the classroom, hugging Gumball as tears came to their eyes. Richard was blubbering incoherently and Nicole was staying silent, her face saying everything.
It then cut to a funeral scene. Everyone from the series was there (well, not everyone, obviously not every single background character was, but I remember the whole school being present) and, most notably, Gumball was sobbing and pounding on the casket. Anais was there, trying to hold her brother back from his act of grief as others stared.
After this, it switched to a tombstone, a photo clearly taken at a cemetery. It read "DARWIN WATTERSON: BELOVED PET/SON. THIS WORLD IS REMISS WITHOUT YOU." I first thought that it was a Photoshop job, like a lot of stuff in the show, but I realized quickly that the text was clearly engraved on. Who made this tombstone?
A quick montage of day and night passed by in the background. It then cut to a car pulling up to the gates of a cemetery, looking like the old station wagon the Wattersons owned. However, the two who stepped out of the car, on opposite ends, were none other than an adult Gumball and what seemed to be his wife, his fellow classmate Penny.
Penny gently laid a hand on Gumball's shoulder as they walked through the graveyard (but I guess Penny floated; she's more of an energy being, after all). "You really don't have to do this, you don't seem to want to, and we were going to do game night-" she began, before being interrupted by a teary-eyed Gumball.
"No," he responded simply. "Closure."
The two walked further and further for what seemed like 2 or so minutes until they came to a headstone which was clearly Darwin's from earlier. Gumball knelt down as he placed flowers at the foot of Darwin's grave and smiled gently, tears flowing down his face.
"You can breathe all you want now, Darwin," he said simply, choked up. "Miss you every day, buddy."
The tears faded from his face and he linked arms with Penny and his smile faintly widened, the two slowly walking out of the gates, and it scrolled up to the sky as audio of laughter from Gumball and Darwin rang out. Then it instantly smash cut to the Amazing World of Gumball logo and a copyright notice for 2020. Then the TV suddenly cut to black.
I was between crying and vomiting. On one hand, what happened before was hideous but on the other hand there was also a sick beauty to what I saw, the return of everything good to Gumball's life. I took 3 melatonin (more than usual) and drank a whole glass of warm milk that night but only got around 3 hours of sleep.
When I woke up, the TV downstairs was blaring Looney Tunes shorts (seemed it hadn't turned off) and light was beaming through my windows. I went to the living room and decided to contact Ben Bocquelet on Twitter via DM to see if he was even aware of what happened.
He responded quickly with a message that shook me to my core, but was still bizarrely the reason that I was able to move on.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
——————————
Author's Notes:
This is the pasta I wrote that I got the second-closest to crying to- CSM Date Game being the first.
I'm not a huge fan of most of VibingLeaf's retakes that grind the story to a halt for a sad vignette, but this story was just perfect for it. I still get a little choked up at the "closure" scene.
Anais originally also died but I feel like killing the 4-year-old after Darwin already got killed was just needlessly cruel- granted, this is still quite the shocking pasta originally, but I felt like I could at least reign it in a bit.
This was a unique case where initially I just copy-pasted the entire story and edited the grammar and events in the pasta to make it a retake- explaining the explanations of who the characters are- but then I ended up writing everything from around halfway down from scratch.
——————————