The Vacation

"The Vacation" is the tenth episode of Season 3 on The Amazing World of Gumball. It is the eighty-sixth episode overall.

Synopsis
The Wattersons set off on a relaxing vacation, and end up running for their lives!

Plot
The episode starts out by introducing the Watterson family driving in the desert. Here, Gumball is shown telling a ghost story about an animal with the body of a cooger, the wings of a bat and the head of a duck causing his siblings and Richard to get scared. Nicole tells the kids to save the ghost stories for their camping trip but they keep telling stories anyway. After Anais and Richard tell their stories, Nicole tells the kids a real ghost story about a family like them going camping. In the story, the family's car breaks down and then a scary old toothless man who lives in an abandoned gas station takes them to his home and eats them.

Everyone laughs because they know it is not real but suddenly their car breaks down. Nicole opens the front trunk and finds out that Richard stored marshmallows in the engine, which is now coated in melted marshmallows. Nicole then tells Richard to go get help since they are stranded in the middle of the desert. 12 hours later, Richard comes back dehydrated and says that his compass is broken. But Nicole tells him that his compass is just a watch, and has been following it in a circle.

Then suddenly an old man with one tooth appears and asks if they need assistance. The kids get scared though Darwin states that the man has one tooth and is not like the man in the story. Nicole asks the man if he could push them to his house. He says yes with an evil chuckle and suddenly his one tooth falls out. When the old man pushes the car to his house the family sees that he lives in a derelict gas station just like in the story. Nicole tells the kids that he can't fix the car so they are going to have to spend the night there. The kids get really freaked out, but Nicole emphasizes that she only gets 5 days off a year and so far all their holidays have all been failures. Flashbacks of the disastrous holidays are shown.

She asks the old man to tell them when dinner is ready and he replies by saying "Oh, don't worry. You'll be the first to know." At night, the family stays in a tent and Nicole is trying to get everyone to calm down and have some fun. Nicole looks outside and sees the old man, carrying a saw, with his mother. Everyone, including Nicole, get so scared that they jump out of the tent and run away, failing to notice the pizza in the woman's hands. The old man pursues them. As the Wattersons flee, they are separated from each other.

Richard falls in a mud pit, and gets beat up by Nicole and Anais. Gumball and Darwin both get black eyes by running into each other. They stand in a dark cave, startling Nicole, but they reveal themselves to her. The old man chases them back to the gas station, where the Wattersons fall into five holes the man had previously dug. They plead with the old man, but he simply states the holes are makeshift restrooms for the family. They realize the old man has no evil intent and literally just wants to serve them dinner.

The next day, the old man sees the Wattersons off as a tow truck carries them away. While they are being towed to Elmore, the desert creature from Gumball's story suddenly appears and abducts the old man, while the Wattersons laugh at how silly they are for believing such stories exist, oblivious to what had transpired behind them.

Main Characters

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Nicole
 * Richard
 * Anais
 * Scary Old Man

Supporting Characters

 * Scary Old Lady

Minor characters

 * Granny Jojo
 * Driver

Trivia

 * This episode reveals that Anais may have inherited Nicole's immense strength.
 * Nicole reveals that she gets only 5 days off per year.
 * This episode is one of Guillaume Cassuto's favorite Season 3 episodes.

Continuity

 * After Gumball tells the family a scary story, Anais says she wishes she still wears her diapers, this contradicts "The Responsible."
 * The Halloween flashback may be a reference to the cut scenes in "Halloween," in which Richard scares his own family.
 * Nicole's heat vision from "The Limit" returns.

Cultural References

 * A piece similar to the theme from the movie Psycho is used in this episode.
 * This episode features elements from The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
 * Nicole used a map of Switzerland to find a garage to fix their car.
 * An episode from the show Chowder is also called "The Vacation".
 * The move Nicole used on Richard is Chun-Li's Hyakuretsukyaku from Street Fighter.

Errors/Goofs

 * When the car breaks down, Gumball's eyes are shaped like they were in season 2.
 * Anais flees from the scary old man into the car's passenger seat, but suddenly appears in the back with Gumball and Darwin.
 * In the same scene, the old man's hand disappears during the Psycho theme.
 * When Anais tells her scary story, if you look closely to her, her eyelashes are not seen.