As I mentioned in my initial research, I decided to also look more in-depth at the characters from "The Amazing World of Gumball" because in my opinion, those characters look very flat and not very interesting, but somehow the show is a big hit. I am curious what causes the show to succeed, is it the storyline, the complexity of the characters, the technique in the animating process? It really interests me.
Ben Bocquelet was born in France, but he is an English writer, producer and animator (Pictoplasma, 2020). First idea for 'The Amazing World of Gumball' was not what the show is now, what Bocquelet actually pitched was a show about a school for cartoon characters, which was supposed to be very sarcastic and it appears that children do not really enjoy shows that have that sort of humor in them, therefore Cartoon Network said no, but they liked the characters (Bocquelet, 2014). I think it is a really interesting thing to think about, that children do not understand or enjoy sarcasm and dark humor. I think it is important to keep in mind. Sarcasm works well for adults and adult swim cartoons are pretty much based on sarcastic jokes. I think, when creating a concept for a cartoon, where I chose a target age being kids, I would not depend on sarcasm, but if I want to expand the age group and make it more universal there could be a little bit of the sarcastic jokes, to make it funny for all. For example one very sarcastic character, which would be funny for teenagers and adults, the rest characters would be targeted strictly at children.
Bocquelet came back to pitch an idea to Cartoon Network, with the same characters, but this time it would be a comedy show about a family and Cartoon Network bought it (Bocquelet, 2014). This shows once again that family relations are desirable in shows because they are relatable and when something is relatable, it is amusing. I think it is good that with my project I am creating characters that all a family, because that gives me the opportunity to play with the family relations.
Bocquelet (2014) mentiones also that all characters are based on people he knows, or his family and the character of Gumball is himself. I think it is interesting to base the characters on the people the creator knows, because well it helps to create a reasonable character that would not be too ridiculous, but it also creates a bond between the creator and the characters I believe. I think this can be tricky, because if for example a character is based on the creator's sister, the creator would not want anything bad to happen to the character in the story. I think in this case, the creator really needs to set a boundary if the character is only inspired by a real person or if it is based on it.
What also makes the show interesting is the mixed media. This is something I talked about in my blog post about 'Chowder', because there is the use of mixed media in that show as well. It is very likely, that 'The Amazing World of Gumball' was inspired by 'Chowder' a little bit. In 'The Amazing World of Gumball' it is possible to see 2D animation, stop motion, real-life elements and traditional animation. By real life elements, I mean real images for the background, for example the background visible in the picture below.
As visible, the background is definitely not flat. It looks like a picture, it looks real and the characters are the opposite. I think it creates contrast which is very unnatural, normally when it comes to background - foreground balance, it stays in a similar style or at least dimension. Here there is a huge contrast which definitely makes the cartoon look bizarre and weird but generally the whole show has a very weird vibe, therefore here the visuals match the plot.
Another thing that I decided to look at is how do I see that all of these character are one family. The dad and the daughter look alike and the mom and the son look alike and there is also an adopted childe that does not look like the rest of them. I was wondering if Iw as able to spot any similarities between all four of them (related family) or at least the siblings. The thing I notice that stays the same are the eyes and the eyebrows. I struggle with finding more similarities, but generally I can tell that this is a family. Their general shapes are similar and they all are very round. I think this is something very important to take away for my project. Of course all characters are a little bit different and have different personalities, but I cannot forget that they are a family and they need similar features. I think it is crucial for me to keep in mind because if I make them all as separate characters, they will not create a family and making a family is my goal.
Reference list:
Bocquelet, B. (2014) 'Interview with Ben Bocquelet, creator of ‘The Amazing World of Gumball’'. interviewed by Cowley, B. Skwigly, 7 July. Available at: https://www.skwigly.co.uk/ben-bocquelet/ (Accessed: 20/02/2021).
Pictoplasma (2020) Ben Bocquelet. Available at: https://conference.pictoplasma.com/2014/ben-bocquelet/ (Accessed: 20/02/2021).
I've not seen this animation before and you are right to say (based on these images) that there is a disconnect between the characters and the backgrounds. I'd be interested to see how you develop an environment for your characters if you have time this term to give them a stronger visual supporting element.
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