This image shows the Watterson family: (from left to right) Gumball, Darwin, Nicole, Richard, and Anais. It belongs to Cartoon Network.
The Amazing World of Gumball was one of my favorite shows growing up. It follows the not so sensical adventures of a cat named Gumball, and his adopted brother Darwin, who is a fish. Gumball has a tendency to stir trouble and make schemes for his own benefits, but is usually stopped by his own stupidity or overall comedic bad luck that prevents him from achieving his goal for the episode.
The Family
Gumball and Darwin are a part of the Watterson family, who are all sort of outcasts in their community. The Wattersons are a sort of play on the "perfect nuclear family," but are actually the complete opposite, if anything, they are actually far from normal. Their mom, Nicole, is a hardworking cat and breadwinner of the family with anger issues, unmatched karate skills, and, for some reason, is a demon. Their dad, Richard, is a lazy, overweight bunny who spends most of his time at home lazing around and eating absurd amounts of food. Anais, the youngest, is a child prodigy who is able to manipulate situations to her favor. Darwin was actually the Gumball's pet fish before he grew lungs and a pair of legs due to his magical brother connection to Gumball. I really enjoyed watching the adventures and shenanigans the Wattersons get into, stirring up even bigger trouble when together.
Animation
The fictional city of Elmore, itself, is pretty weird too. It is a place where fantasy and reality mix. The background and layout of the environment and objects are all realistic, appearing as if there were from real life. The cast of characters all vary from species and animation style, which added a lot of flavor to scenes, being able to see how they all interact. The characters ranged from other anthropomorphic animals, talking plants, sentient objects (such as a balloon and a mound of clay), and mythical creatures.
Most were animated in the traditional two-dimensional way, commonly used in kid's television shows, but the creators also utilized other forms of media to add personality and life to the characters and show. This includes: CGI dinosaurs, claymation (which is stop-motion for clay), green screen, and some 3-D animation for ghosts. There were also special scenes in some episodes where a different animation style was used, such as the karate showdown between Gumball's mom and her cloud rival, which was animated similarly to anime.
Humor
There are actually little to no human characters, who were only shown in episodes that mock the perfect student, school, and family stereotype. But Elmore manages to weird their way out of losing their individuality. Which is another thing I like about the show and its comedy style, other than the usual children's humor and slapstick, it uses a form of meta humor. It likes to poke fun at tropes in entertainment, and even the show itself.
From the episode "The Sweaters," Darwin and Gumball face off some pretentious human characters from a rival school at tennis. The image belongs to Cartoon Network.
For example, The Amazing World of Gumball made an episode acknowledging its Chinese rip-off show and having the original characters trying to teach the rip-off characters to "be your own you," even though it inevitably fails.
There was another episode acknowledging the super fans of the show that group together in fandoms, which are basically communities where fans of a piece of media share and discuss said media. It was shown by a sentient ice cream cone who obsesses and fangirls over Gumball. She stalks him, writes fanfiction about them being together, and even making fanart of them together, as well as other citizens in Elmore. It was creepy, obviously, but it was entertaining in the fact that the show acknowledges these real fans.
The Wattersons face off against their impersonators in the episode "The Copycats." This belongs to Cartoon Network.
Even if it is a children's show, I still enjoy watching it from time to time to remember by childhood, but also to admire its animation and jokes that I might've missed when I was younger. I totally recommend that you watch it.