The Treasure

"The Treasure" is the tenth episode of Season 2 of The Amazing World of Gumball. It is the forty-sixth overall.

Synopsis
Anais uncovers a secret that she's sure will lead her to the Wattersons' hidden family treasure.

Plot
The episode starts in the living room, where Richard is taking a nap on the couch and talking in his sleep as per usual, acting as a source of amusement for the kids. After poking fun at him for a bit, Nicole comes back from grocery shopping and scolds them for teasing their father. The kids help Nicole bring the groceries in, but are surprised at the high quality food she bought. Nicole explains that she took someone else's groceries by mistake, which causes the kids to wonder why they always get the cheapest things. Nicole is about to tell them the reason for their frugality, but catches herself, and disappears before saying anything else. The kids refuse to let this go, and complain about their other cheap commodities, like how their blender is a fan, and their MP3 player is a calculator with earphones jammed inside. Anais suggests finding out what Nicole is hiding, but is interrupted by the phone ringing. She answers it, and a strange voice tells her not to delve into the secrets of the Watterson family, which piques her curiosity. She succeeds in tricking the voice into telling her where the first clue is: the attic. The trio decides to begin searching.

In the cluttered attic of the Watterson house, the trio ponders where to start searching. Anais happens upon a box, which Gumball is immediately defensive of. He lunges at the box, but is held back by Anais while Darwin opens it. Inside are pictures of him as an ugly baby. Darwin and Anais crack up at the pictures, while Gumball counters with a photo of Darwin's own disfigured face. Going on the defensive, Darwin pounces on Gumball to snatch the photo from him. Their struggle knocks over a stack of boxes blocking a window. The light seeps into the room, refracts off of a snow globe, and reveals a hollow spot on the chimney. Anais picks away at the strange brick with a fire poker, but it turns out the brick was a weak point on the chimney. As soon as Anais removes it, the chimney crumbles apart. Gumball and Darwin sarcastically congratulate Anais on her discovery of the Watterson family conspiracy: that someone was trying to steal the chimney. Anais throws the brick at the floor in anger, knocking herself out with a floorboard. She comes to, and the trio discover a handful of bank statements and a key underneath the floorboard. The statements reveal that the Watterson's used to have a lot of savings, but at one point, a purchase was made to Stellar Corp. for $24,000, and ever since then, they've been poor. Gumball vaguely remembers seeing the key as an infant, but is unable to remember the context. The trio decides to hypnotize it out of him.

In the kids' bedroom, Darwin hypnotizes Gumball. He continually pushes him further and further back in his life, until he finally gets to the memory where he saw the key. Gumball was an infant, and Nicole hid a suitcase under her and Richard's wardrobe while telling Gumball not to tell anyone about it. Anais, delighted at this revelation, wants to get to that suitcase immediately. Right then, a magnet drops into the room from the window to snatch the key. Anais frantically tries to pull the key away from it and yells at the boys to help, but Gumball is still regressing further and further back into his life, until he starts reliving previous lives. At the end of the chain, he relives his life as a hypnotist, and hypnotizes Darwin, locking both of them in a duel. After successfully getting the key back by herself, Anais splashes water at her brothers to snap them out of their trances. She decides to find the suitcase, but the boys are tired and want to go to bed. Anais splashes them again, urging the two to join in the search.

Later that night, Gumball walks into his parents' room and wants to sleep with them, his excuse being that he had a bad dream. Nicole reminds him he's too old to bed with his parents, but Gumball refuses to take no for an answer, flicking the lights on and off repeatedly. Nicole reluctantly agrees to let him stay.

He lies down in the middle of his parents and is about to make his way to the wardrobe, but Richard grabs him in his sleep. Gumball shrugs it off, but Richard starts moving again, pushing Gumball with his hands and eventually rolling over him. Gumball worms his way out from under his dad's fat, disturbed by the experience. He continues on to the wardrobe and pulls out the box. He enthusiastically opens it, but only finds a receipt from Stellar Corporation and a shovel.

He goes back to his room to show the others what he has found. Darwin comes to the conclusion that Nicole spent $24,000 on a shovel. The boys, satisfied with this illogical conclusion, retire for the night. Anais wants to push onward, arguing that great treasure awaits them. Gumball and Darwin flatly refuse, and Anais coerces them out of the house.

Outside, the trio finds their bikes' tires pierced. Gumball and Darwin appear indifferent, but Anais takes this as confirmation of the greatness of the treasure that awaits. She resolves to continue on foot towards the destination marked on the map, Gumball and Darwin following behind.

Their travels take them to an empty mailbox in the middle of a cornfield. Fed up with the searching, Gumball loudly vents his frustration, while Darwin beats the mailbox repeatedly with the shovel. Just when Gumball is about to tear the receipt, Anais sees a map drawn on the back. She snatches it away from him and plots their next move as Gumball and Darwin look towards the distance in horror. Anais fails to recognize the figure rapidly approaching their location. Gumball diverts her attention towards it, prompting the trio to frantically sprint through the cornfield and into the forest.

After crossing a shaky log bridge and nearly falling into the river, the group finds the crooked tree undoubtedly marked in the map. Darwin immediately starts digging while the other two take watch. After a while, he comes across a box and pulls it out. At this moment, the kids are confronted by their pursuer, who turns out to be Richard. He begs them not to open the box, offering something else in return. Anais flippantly states that they want the contents of the box. The three giddily open it, but are severely annoyed to find another piece of paper. Richard is forced to reveal the family's current financial state.

Twelve years ago, sometime after Gumball was born, Richard was surfing the internet. An advertisement for an out of space investment opportunity for the future of your kids appeared on the computer screen, and he accepted the offer on impulse. However, the page had not yet fully loaded when he clicked "yes". The rest of the page stated that the investment would be for the children nine generations in the Watterson bloodline (his children's great great great great great great great grandchildren's children). Richard tried to get the money back, but Stellar Corporation had gone out of business, taking the Watterson's savings with it. Ashamed of his blunder, he did all in his power to hide everything pertaining to the purchase - bank statements, receipts, the certificate for what he bought.

Sarcastically remarking how interesting that story was, Gumball angrily demands what it was that cost them their entire fortune. Anais is about to tell him, excited that she would be the one to solve the mystery, but is beaten to the punch by Nicole smiling smuggly, to her dismay. The "out of this world property investment" turned out to be The Watterson Family Star. The family shares a tender moment, forgiving Richard for blowing all their money away and instead gazing at their bright, shiny star. Anais explains the science around stars, and how they are visible, even lightyears away. Darwin relates this to love, and Richard and Gumball expand on this. The poignant moment is short-lived when the star fizzles out. The Wattersons eye each other nervously, ending the episode.

Main Characters

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Anais

Supporting Characters

 * Nicole
 * Richard

Minor Characters

 * Panda (debut)
 * Mice (debut)
 * Optician (debut)
 * Librarian (debut)
 * Prospector (debut)
 * Mule (debut)

Trivia

 * This episode has the least amount of character appearances, with a total of 5.
 * This episode reveals what Gumball looked like when he was a baby.
 * This episode shows that Nicole receives $950 a month from the Rainbow Factory.
 * Like in "The Job", this episode begins with one of the Watterson parents having a nightmare; in this case, it is Richard.
 * This is the first episode where Anais gets a black eye. The second was "The Vacation."
 * The promo for this episode was put up on Cartoon Network's site over two weeks before its scheduled premiere date.
 * This episode premiered out of schedule - promos stated it would air Tuesday, October 30, but it instead aired on the 25th, on one of the rerun slots.
 * The DVD case for How to Ratatwang Your Panda carries a logo for Mic Graves Films.

Continuity

 * This is the third time Richard blames the Internet. The first time was in "The Responsible," and the second time was in "The Mustache."
 * This is the second time Darwin speaks another language: French. The first time was in "The DVD," where he spoke Chinese.
 * It is implied in this episode that the Wattersons might live in poverty.

Cultural References

 * In one of the flashback sequences, Richard can be seen wearing a Nirvana shirt.
 * The sound that played when the light shined on the chimney is an homage to the iconic sound in the Legend of Zelda games that plays when a secret is discovered.
 * When Gumball, Darwin, Anais are running inside of the cornfield, the scene focusing on Anais vision is very similar to the 2002 film Signs.
 * The movie How to Ratatwang Your Panda is a parody of Mockbusters of Pixar and DreamWorks films made by Video Brinquendo. The name is a play on the DreamWorks movie "How To Train Your Dragon" (Now as a series on Cartoon Network called DreamWorks Dragons), Ratawang/Ratatoing (a mockbuster of Ratatouille) and Your Panda/The Little Panda Fighter (a mockbuster of Kung Fu Panda).
 * The "buy a star" scheme is a parody of International Star Registry, a company where people can buy as gifts their own star named after someone.
 * Anais mentions a philosopher's stone, a legendary stone said to have great power, such as turning metals into gold.
 * While Richard is dreaming about being in space, he says, "When I scream it makes no sound!". This is a possible reference to the tagline of the 1979 film Alien: "In space, no one can hear you scream."

Goofs/Errors

 * In the scene where Gumball opens the box, he is wearing his pajamas. Then, when he shows Anais and Darwin what he had found, he has his sweater on (it switches again when he turns out the light and gets dragged outside).
 * When Gumball, Anais, and Darwin are in the attic, Anais gets a bruise after the accident, but her bruise is gone when she is in the bedroom with Gumball and Darwin.
 * After Anais splashes Gumball and Darwin with Darwin's fish bowl, it is shown to be empty. When Gumball asked if they could rest before continuing their investigation, she splashes them again even though the bowl was empty.
 * The bank statements Gumball holds are dated September–October 1976. That can not be true because Richard's flashback involves him using a 1990's style internet.
 * Although the internet did exist in 1976, it was only in businesses, the military, and government, so, very few consumers had access to it then.

El Tesoro