User blog comment:ThatGuy456/A Guy's Thoughts: A Look Back at Gumbomb/@comment-31194372-20170605045821

Finally, somebody understands what made "The Vase" as good as it was! It's just a classic bit of comedy executed as perfectly as possible. Interestingly, there's also a perfect balance of the two things that make TAWOG as good as it is: smart visual gags and excellent writing. Usually, episodes veer towards one angle more than the other - "The Sorcerer" and "The Boredom" were all about the visuals whereas episodes like "The Heist" and "The Detective" are more writerly, focusing on telling a compelling narrative - but "The Vase" strikes a perfect in-between. Either way, it's just a fun episode.

As for "The Stars," I actually like it even less than I originally did. I completely agree with you that the episode direly needed some character to counterbalance the Wattersons' lunacy as a straight man, because the episode just ends up almost formless without it. It's the worst kind of episode: there's a lot of effort put into making a sound concept, but at the same time, there's almost no effort invested in characters. It defies what makes TAWOG work: they usually avoid the whole concept of "wrecklessness for wrecklessness' sake," something so many other cartoons are undeniably smitten with (well, the bad ones, at least), but this episode buys into the concept entirely, and it sinks. (Also, you seriously have to dial it back on the whole "balding" thing, dude. Inhale. Exhale. I'll wait.

And "The Sorcerer" is just ehhhhh. I'm honestly tired of Internet jokes because nobody is ever willing to change them or take them to a new level: what you get is the same joke told with slight variation instead of anything truly daring or innovative. It just feels like the writers were like, "Wow, we're so clever, aren't we?" but they just weren't. It's too self-indulgent, and while I can get behind that when the episodes deserve it ("The Job," "The Money," "The Copycats"), this one didn't.

(Also, I re-typed this three times because the power kept going out. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.)