User blog:Mattalamode/Improvable: "The Test" and Going Deep



Okay, so I know I said I would get this out in either late April or early May, but things happen over and over again, permanently, forever, unceasingly, without escape.

For those of you unaware, this is the second installment in my mini-series titled Improvable. This series is an exercise to see how I can improve upon episodes that may have missed the mark in one way or another. That's not to say all the episodes I'll tackle are horrendous—these are simply episodes where I see room for revision. It's a good exercise for me too, given that I'm about to throw my life away for comedy writing. If you're going to do something wrong, you sure as heck better do it right!

In the previous installment, I tackled "The Boredom" and how it was in need of cohesive restructuring, which can be read here.

This time I chose a prized episode among the fanbase: "The Test."

The Diagnosis


I know I'm already stepping on some toes by simply featuring this episode on Improvable, so let me get this out of the way and say that I don't at all think "The Test" is a bad episode. If anything, the concept itself is one of the show's more ambitious endeavors. Rather, I feel that this concept isn't as fully realized as it could be.

What I mean is that often, the episode will bring attention to clichéd sitcom tropes without doing much else with them (or in the ending's case, actively relying on them). Now I'm not going to be needlessly unconventional and rebut the fact there's humor to something like this, but with greats such as "The Fury" and "The Console" that intricately parody anime and RPGs respectively by actively exploring the tropes and adding humorous layers to them, "The Test" leaves bit to be desired.

The closest comparison to "The Test" is "The Lady." That episode is another parody of sitcoms, more specifically The Golden Girls, but it not only mocks the tackiness of it all, it takes after The Golden Girls in tone while retaining the wit of Gumball, allowing for a more fleshed out and hilarious piece. Granted, "The Test" can't be nearly as rigid because the topic of clichéd sitcoms from the late 20th century is far broader than the niche The Golden Girls occupies, but there is still room for improvement.

Am I asking for too much? Yes, yes I am. But, these articles wouldn't be any fun if I wasn't constantly nitpicking about these inane details, would they?

The Procedure


"The Test" simply needs some cleaning up in its latter acts rather than major renovations. During the "surgery," we're going to give the bits that are a little on-the-nose with their writing and refocus them a little. Remember, y'all, we wanna dig deep, not span wide.

Before we crack this episode wide open, I need to emphasize I am not a professional comedy writer nor am I nearly as skilled as the actual writing staff. As a guy who'll be a Comedy Writing major in the very near future, I simply want to be able to break down why some works strike the right notes whereas others flounder a little. This is all in the name of EDUCATION, so bear with me, okay?

The Surgery


One of the most ingenious things about "The Test" is its utilization of Tobias. Now, I could rhapsodize about how Tobias is "subversive" and "dynamic" as I always do whenever I bring him up, and while all that certainly still holds true for this episode, it's how the episode uses him incisively to lampoon the trite nature of old sitcoms that I would like to praise this time.

To quickly recap, Tobias takes Gumball's place in the show as the lovable loser protagonist, transforming the show itself into a vapid sitcom of the 70s and 80s in the process. The writing of the sitcom becomes hokier throughout "The Test" until it climaxes once he "jumps the shark." This is brilliant as it humorously parodies the comic relief character slowly dominating more and more of the show until it shifts priorities. A classical example of this is Steve Urkel from Family Matters as his recurring guest roles slowly evolved to the point where he practically engulfed the entire show and changed it from a comedy focusing on a blue-collar family to Only Urkel Matters.

This is the kind of deep I'm talking about! The episode's never too blatant about what it's trying to accomplish with him, instead opting to gain as much comedic mileage by elevating the joke to its limits. I bring this up before the "operation" because this is what I want to model our revisions after. It's this layering of these tropes that works so well and could raise the episode from a "B" to an "A." Of course, none of my proposed alterations will be as smart as what the show did with Tobias, but alas, you will have to make do.

Let's first tackle a simpler scene: the one where sitcom Anais is introduced. Again, the scene is perfectly competent but could be improved upon to be less banal. Darwin and Sarah are great as is and serve their roles as dynamic commentators quite well, as is the flashback debacle between Tobias and Alan, but Anais' introduction comes across as jarring. Rather than demonstrate how Anais has been stereotyped into "the nerd," the episode opts to have Anais say she has a lisp and leave it at that. Instead, let's have Anais showcase how generic she's become. Make her lisp more apparent. Have her use needless technical jargon as opposed to actual words. Have her trip from clumsiness. Squeeze as much juice as possible!

Skipping ahead, I ultimately opted to remove the dinner table portion of the bit at the Wattersons' house and only keep the Christmas special portion since it's easier to go deeper with it. While sadly that means the line "Mom, have you been buying food at the gross-ery store again? 'Cause this mashed potato should be called trashed potato," was removed from this revision, it allows us to make this part more distinct. With this newly allotted time, we can really amplify the sappiness of the Christmas special. Throw in some campy music and have Gworp really bond with the family in a montage. You know, give him meaning outside of an unfunny and forced meme. It's analogous to the brief glimpse we get of Darwin and Anais hugging him, but more fleshed-out and realized.



I struggled a bit with the ending. The episode itself acknowledges that relying on the "just a dream" contrivance is lazy, yet it uses this contrivance to bridge its way to the end. Yes, the joke is that it's a lame ending to a lame sitcom, but the execution comes across more as uninspired and rushed than sharp and funny. Endings are inherently difficult, so I couldn't see a better way to end the episode until I found a way to somewhat warrant it and tie it to all the happenings of the episode. Make the scene leading up to the reveal so absurd that the dream ending works while also mocking how sitcoms write themselves into nonsensical endings.

Throughout the episode, Sarah constantly mentioned how scatterbrained the plot was while Tobias manned the station, so this is the chance to bring back all those plot threads. Bring in the two-timer date plot point with Masami and Clare! Bring in the Battle of Bands! Bring in geeky Anais! Bring in the Christmas season! Bring in Gworp! Bring in Penny and Dinner! Tobias, Alan, and Anais rock their heart out to Jingle Bells at the Battle of the Bands at Dinner to win the hearts of Masami, Clare, and Penny, with a needlessly flashy solo from Gworp with creepy CGI choreography. The events become so ridiculously insane that not only does it all being a "dream" on top of it all becomes hilarious, it provides a nice cohesive bridge to the episode's final minute.

Let's see how this turned out.

The Result


Upon taking a personality quiz with Sarah and Darwin, Gumball realizes how much of a loser he is and tries to reinvent himself. After making a complete fool of himself, Darwin informs Gumball that the best way to be popular is to be nicer and stray away from his usual "Gumballisms." Gumball does rise in popularity among his classmates, but at the cost of his health as the sarcastic venom inside of him builds up. Gumball's rise in popularity allows Tobias to take center stage. In response to Tobias' uptaking as the new loser, the show becomes a tired sitcom, with characters becoming shallow stereotypes of themselves and plot points becoming increasingly nonsensical.

Darwin and Sarah take action and try to convince Gumball to become a loser again once they see what happened to Anais, but to no avail as Gumball is far too stubborn. The two take Gumball home where Darwin is immediately transported to the rest of the family as they act out an inane Christmas special with the introduction of the useless Gworp. Before Gumball and Sarah can provide further commentary, they are transported to Dinner where things become increasingly absurd until Tobias wakes up from his dream in the hospital. At peak anger, Gumball lets out his venom on Tobias, burning his face off and leaving the heroes with a good laugh.

I'm not a comedy god or a writing genius, so this is where I turn to you guys: what do you guys' think? Love it? Hate it? Disagree with the changes? Think I should never write another one of these again? Let me know in the comments! I'm always ready for conversation!

This series takes quite a bit out of me mentally, so no guarantees as to when the next one will hit, but we will be talking about the particularly unremarkable "The Deal" once it's out. See you then.