The Helmet

The Helmet is the thirty-fifth episode of season one of The Amazing World of Gumball.

Synopsis
Gumball, Richard and Nicole become obsessed with a lucky helmet, which has to be destroyed.

Plot
Gumball is getting bored and annoyed at how his new lucky hat allows him to succeed at everything he does. Even though he has been using it for a week, his family is unaware of its power. He demonstrates the luck at the dining table by catapulting a clump of his food in the air. Through an extremely lucky chain of events, Richard's food gets launched directly into Gumball's mouth. Everyone at the table gasps in awe, except for Gumball, who just looks bored. He considers throwing it away, but Richard begs his son to let him use it to get onto a show called Win or Don't Win. Anais, being a firm believer in science, states the absurdity of a hat being lucky, but Richard completely misunderstands. Before Anais can say anything else, Gumball plops the lucky hat onto Richard's head. The effects are immediate - the phone rings to tell Richard that he's been given a spot on the show. Nicole, like Anais, doesn't believe a hat, tin foil or otherwise, can grant luck to its wearer. She is quickly persuaded to the contrary, however, when Richard puts the hat on her. Again, the effects are immediate - Nicole receives a call from her company saying that they are considering her for a promotion and a pay rise. All she needs to do is ace an interview. Anais solemnly rings a death knell, believing that the obsession over the lucky hat will be the cause of doom for The Wattersons.

At school the next day, the kids practice gymnastics. Penny, being a cheerleader, performs flawlessly. While waiting for his turn, Gumball explains to Darwin that he wants a little failure in his life. He goes on to epically fail at the gymnastic stunt they were practicing, which gives him the satisfaction of failing, at the cost of great pain.

In their next class, he continues to explain why always being successful in life would be boring. He demonstrates in their science project - into an ant farm, he pours a "pinch of success", a "dash of failure", and then he mixes it together, and calls the result a great life. Figuratively beautiful, though in reality the two chemicals he mixed caused an explosion. As if being burned by the explosion wasn't enough, the ants cover every inch of his body and start biting him violently.

At lunch, he still continues to believe that failure makes life great. He tries to do the same trick he did at the beginning of the episode, but without the luck of the tin foil helmet, a chain reaction of Banana Joe bumping into William, causeing him to become scared and crash into Tobias, which succeeds in ruining Tina's sandwich. In retaliation, Tina shoves Gumball into Darwin's mouth.

After that third display of failure, Gumball still tries to believe in how failure makes life interesting. Three's the charm, though, so Gumball breaks down crying. He begins wishing he had his helmet back, entering the beginning stages of obsession.

Back at home, Richard and Nicole are arguing over who should get to use the helmet. Richard and Nicole's appointments are, unfortunately, at the same time. Richard needs the helmet to win a speedboat, while Nicole needs the helmet to ace her job interview and get a promotion and pay rise. Nicole, explaining how her promotion would be good for the entire family, persuades Richard to give her the helmet. However, being the cunning, selfish rabbit he is, Richard changes his mind at the last minute and instead gives Nicole a plain old paper mache helmet, keeping the lucky tin foil one for himself.

At Nicole's job interview, the panel of interviewers applaud at her perfect resume, though they chuckle at her funny paper mache hat. Nicole, upon hearing that the hat is paper mache, realizes that Richard duped her. Already starting to get angry, she turns on the TV and sure enough, there's Richard wearing the lucky hat and winning a boat. That did it for Nicole. She goes on an all out rage, completely trashing the office. Because of that show of anger, her bosses turn her down for the promotion.

At dinner that night, Gumball, Richard, and Nicole all fight for the helmet, while Darwin and Anais look on in horror. After a few minutes of this fighting, Anais finally screams some sense into them. Richard and Nicole agree to let Anais get rid of the hat, but Gumball is still obsessed over it. When Anais takes the helmet from him, he goes insane, yelling and lunging at Anais. Richard and Nicole restrain their troubled son as a shaken Anais and Darwin watch.

Darwin and Anais resolve to throw the helmet into the garbage crusher to make sure no one can ever use it again. Unbeknownst to two, Gumball was stalking them. As they trek up to the garbage crusher, Darwin gets curious and tries the helmet on. Instantly he finds enough jewelry and bling to cover his entire body. Halfway up the mountain, the treasures he's found becomes too heavy. Much to her annoyance, Anais ends up having to carry him the rest of the way.

At the summit of Mount Dump, Darwin runs to the garbage crusher to dispose of the helmet. Right before he is able to finish the job, though, Gumball ambushes him and takes the helmet back. He puts it on as Anais and Darwin corner him. They try to knock the helmet off by throwing random things at it, but they miss every shot. Gumball decides to retaliate with a tennis ball machine that was conveniently lying next to a power generator. At this point, Anais finally concedes that the helmet is lucky. Anais and Darwin duck for cover as Gumball opens fire on them. Darwin, refusing to let his best friend be consumed by the evil of the helmet, runs out of cover with a stale baguette, intending to deflect a tennis ball into the helmet. He succeeds, but not before getting knocked out by one of the tennis balls.

The helmet starts rolling towards the garbage crusher, with a panicked Gumball trailing behind. Gumball, unfortunately, did not make it in time to catch the helmet though he does, to Anais and Darwin's horror, jump in after it. All hope is not lost though - Gumball and the helmet are hanging off of adjacent branches. As Gumball reaches towards his helmet, his branch breaks, but Anais catches one of his hands. Despite this, he still keeps reaching over for the helmet. He succeeds in grabbing it, but Anais can't lift him up without his other hand. After a few sentimental statements ("But-...but without it I'm nothing!" "Gumball, we're nothing without you!"), Gumball finally decides to let the hat go. The hat, instead of landing into the jaws of the garbage crusher, lands off to the side. Gumball, Darwin, and Anais again throw random things at the hat until it finally gets knocked into the fire.

Back at home, Richard drives the boat...on land. They need to continue doing so for 100 miles, ruining the road and making quite the fools out of themselves as the episode ends.

Characters

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Anais
 * Nicole
 * Richard

Minor Characters

 * Shooting Star
 * Librarian
 * 3D Cube Employee
 * Mr. Small
 * Carmen
 * Molly
 * Banana Joe
 * Tina
 * Anton
 * Tobias
 * William
 * Penny
 * Juke

Quotes
": [strikes a pot lid like a gong] : What was that? : That. was the sound of doom for the Wattersons."

": Stop it! Look at what have you've become, this stupid hat is driving you crazy... : Actually, it's a helmet. : It's not a helmet or a hat! It's a piece of tin foil and it's tearing this family apart, look at you. You're behaving like animals."

": Oh, look! A tennis ball machine. : Pfft. Good luck finding a power supply for that. : Oh, look! A generator. : Okay, maybe that helmet is magic after all. Run!!"

": What do you know? My lunch is on the floor. Hey, who's the funny guy who did that? : [nervously points to Gumball] : [nervously puts Darwin's arm down]"

": [after sandwich falls to floor] Butterside down, just like poor Uncle Eddie."

Trivia

 * This episode aired in South and Central America two months before the U.S. premiere.
 * This was the first episode based on an idea by the development team.

Continuity

 * Darwin calls Richard and Nicole "mom" and "dad", even though in most episodes, he calls them "Mr. Dad" and "Mrs. Mom".

Cultural References

 * This whole episode is a parody of the Lord of the Rings. The scene where Darwin and Anais throw the helmet into the garbage crusher is based on the scene in which Sam and Frodo journey up Mount Doom to destroy the Ring. The way Gumball behaved parodies that of Gollum, and the nature of the helmet itself is based on the evil power of the One Ring.
 * The scene where Gumball tries to get the helmet closely resembles Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where the main character, Indiana Jones, tries to grab the Holy Grail.
 * "Win or Don't Win" is a parody of the game show Deal or No Deal.

Goofs/Errors

 * Many errors occur during the scuffle for the helmet: at one point, Gumball's teeth become the same color as the background, his tongue disappears, Richard's eyelashes and whiskers disappear, and Gumball's hip becomes transparent.
 * Gumball's whiskers disappear on one side when the ants crawl over him.
 * In the scene where Nicole smashes the TV, Nicole's hand penetrates it before smashing it.
 * Anias told the Wattersons that they were behaving like animals, when they are actually animals.

El Casco