The Copycats

"The Copycats" is the twelfth episode of Season 5 of The Amazing World of Gumball. It is the 168th episode overall.

Synopsis
Gumball and Darwin are confused when they meet Chi Chi and Ribbit, a pair of siblings that copy everything they do and say. Then they find out this copycat family is making money online from imitating the Watterson family.

Plot
The episode begins on a relatively slow day for the Wattersons as they do their family shopping. As they walk around the store, Gumball and Darwin take a notice to the new exotic food section. As expected, the two begin to sample some of the food and make humorous comments about the ludicrous food selection. The boys begin to walk away as they finish their commentary, but shortly after, another pair of siblings named Chi Chi and Ribbit with oddly uncanny resemblances to Gumball and Darwin respectively walk up to the exotic food section and begin repeating everything the Watterson brothers just said. Before they can continue, however, Gumball calls them out and starts engaging in a face-off of sorts with Chi Chi. The face-off proves to be fruitless, though, with it ultimately resulting in all four boys constantly gagging.

Confused, the brothers rant to their family about the scuffle with their supposed doppelgängers at the supermarket. At first, their parents try to downplay it by telling them everyone has some sort of doppelgänger, but then they notice the copycat family of Watterson doppelgängers, including the two from before, riding in a nearly identical car in the road parallel to them. Richard and Nicole see their doppelgängers, and they copy Richard and Nicole's reactions. The Wattersons are so distracted by this they end up crashing into a toll booth as the doppelgänger family drives away.

Gumball does some investigating and discovers that this supposed family of doppelgängers are actually popular television stars in China. Although the family initially laughs it off, mocking the poor translations of the character descriptions on the show's official website and even laughing at Anais' lack of a counterpart, much to her dismay, they are soon angered by the realization that these actors have been getting rich by copying the family's previous adventures while they were left to financially struggle. A conversation among the family on how to make up for their financial losses leads to Richard tipping the couch down. Video footage of the imitators doing the exact same thing is immediately uploaded, and it leads to Gumball deducing that the family of copycats have been surveilling them the entire time.

Fed up with their unlawful copying, the Wattersons burst out of their house to confront their doppelgängers. What was supposed to be a peaceful discussion of their disagreements turns into a full-out battle between the Wattersons and their copycat doppelgängers, which does not go anywhere because each of the Watterson's doppelgängers are equally matched to them. Eventually, Anais calls out the pointlessness of the battle, and instead suggests that the copycats do not copy them out of malice but rather out of flattery. This prompts the rest of the Wattersons to push the doppelgängers in the right direction and steer them away from the path of unorginality in the form of a song. Of course, the doppelgängers end up making no progress, as they upload their own version of the song and a video of Chi-Chi copying Gumball's reaction to the previous video.

Anais gives her family the idea to live their lives to deadly extents, and thus, potentially kill the copycats. The next morning, the Wattersons make it their goal to live their lives as dangerously as possible; however, the point is lost as their counterparts somehow survive all their dangerous acts. Deciding enough is enough, the Wattersons decide to escalate things one step further.

The Wattersons perceive taking actions one step further as driving a speeding truck heading towards an unfinished bridge being followed by a flaming trail of gasoline. Realizing their impending doom, the Wattersons flail their arms and scream as they desperately try unsuccessful plans to escape. All hope seems lost for the Wattersons until Anais grasps that she can use her small size to unlatch the truck from the tank. Out of options, Nicole obliges to the idea, and to her and everyone's delight, Anais ends up succeeding at disconnecting the truck from the tank in a fiery explosion. Before they can truly rejoice, Nicole notices that the truck is still speeding towards the unfinished bridge. Quickly, she puts her foot on the brake pedal and barely stops the truck in time. Once out of the truck, the family takes a moment to hug each other before noticing their copycats' truck falling down the bridge in a fiery explosion as there was no Anais doppelgänger small enough to disconnect the tank and the truck. They managed to barely survive the crash, fortunately.

The following day, the Wattersons are relieved to find that all evidence of The Incredible World of Chi Chi has vanished off the internet, probably due to the doppelgängers being too messed up from the accident to be on TV. Gumball and Darwin's moment of celebration, and stating that they're irreplaceable, is quickly interrupted as they "glitch" during this and receive new voices in the process, ending the episode.

Main Characters

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Nicole
 * Richard
 * Anais
 * Chi Chi (debut)
 * Ribbit (debut)
 * Chi Chi's Mom (debut)
 * Chi Chi's Dad (debut)

Minor Characters

 * Milk Guy
 * Pigeon
 * Anais Rip-off (debut)
 * Tobias
 * George
 * Felicity
 * Karen
 * Bandage Paramedic

Trivia

 * Ben Bocquelet talked about the progress of this episode on November 4, 2016 for the Pictoplasma conference in New York City.
 * This episode was released on the Cartoon Network app and Video On Demand services 3 days before it aired on TV.
 * This was the first episode to premiere in 2017.
 * This is the last episode in which Jacob Hopkins and Terrell Ransom, Jr. voice Gumball and Darwin, and the first episode Nicolas Cantu and Donielle T. Hansley Jr. represent their voices as the two main characters.
 * Cartoon Network conflicted the continuity of Gumball and Darwin's voices when they released "The Ollie" on Video On Demand services first.
 * When designing Chi Chi and his family, the production team had to consult legal advice to make sure the designs weren't too similar to the original Miracle Star designs, hence why they were only used in storyboards.

Continuity

 * In a similar way to "The Kids," at the episode's climax, Gumball and Darwin 'glitch' and their voices become more childlike due to their voice actors being replaced after hitting puberty. The characters take notice of this, breaking the fourth wall again.

Cultural References

 * The copycat Watterson family is based on the main characters of Miracle Star, a Chinese bootleg version of Gumball.
 * The absence of a bootlegged version of Anais is also referenced, as she was excluded from Miracle Star because during its airing, China had a policy stating that families can only have one child owing to the country's overpopulation problem (with Gugu/Ribbit, the frog character from the show being counted as a pet). As of now, they can only have two children in a family in China.
 * The first video of The Incredible World of Chi Chi on Elmore Stream-It is a recreation of a real scene from Miracle Star which copied the first episode of Gumball, "The DVD."
 * When the copycats' website was translated, Ribbit's profile said he was green, but he was actually blue. This may be because Traditional Chinese lacks a word that differentiates blue and green. It instead uses the word qīng (Chinese: 青) to describe both colors. However, the modern Chinese language now differentiates blue as lán (Chinese: 蓝/ 藍), and green as lǜ (Chinese: 绿 / 綠).
 * When Richard drools about what ever Gumball says, it is similar to Homer's "Mmmmisms" from the TV show, The Simpsons.

Goofs/Errors

 * When the Wattersons crash into Milk Guy's booth, a blue van can be seen in the background, but when they wake up, it disappears.
 * The copycat family's website is named "The Wonderful World of Chi Chi," but the image on the website says "The Incredible World of Chi Chi."
 * When Gumball reads about Chi Chi, "center" is spelled the American English way, but when it shows the page again as Darwin reads about Ribbit, it is spelled "centre", the British English spelling.
 * In the copycats' recreation of the "The DVD," when Chi Chi's mother raises her fists, part of her left hand disappears for a frame.
 * On the Elmore Expressway, a sign can be seen that says "Interstate 95." Interstate 95 is an east coast highway, and Elmore is likely in California.