Thinus Ferreira
The voice cast of The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball sat down for an interview about the new adventures of the multi-coloured animation family on Cartoon Network and how the new stories, even more than before mirror the absurdity, challenges and wackiness of modern-day family life and help to open conversations between kids and parents.
The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball on Cartoon Network (DStv 301) is a new continuation of the beloved animation series following the misadventures of Gumball Watterson, a blue 12-year-old cat, as well as his adopted 10-year-old brother, Darwin who is a goldfish.
There is also blue cat mom Nicole, pink rabbit dad Richard, as well as younger sister and pink rabbit Anais.
Although a revival of Gumball, The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball is really the 7th season of Gumball with 20 (of about 40) new episodes available and released so far.
TVwithThinus sat down with Alkaio Thiele, who voices Gumball, Hero Hunter voicing Darwin, Kinza Syed Khan voicing Anais, Teresa Gallagher, who is the voice of mom Nicole, as well as Dan Russell, who is Richard.
Episodes of the new "7th season" of The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball are thoroughly 2025 and don't shy away at tackling and exploring issues and themes which are all extremely relatable to modern family life.
From AI to the struggle to eat healthily due to expensive and bad food availability, body shaming, traffic, deteriorating schools and a lack of proper school funding, video-sharing app addiction, drug-use, economic inequality and various difficult extended family dynamics (hello Granhy Jojo!), The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball touches on it all with humour, sharp commentary and stories relatable to both kids and parents.
Right off the bat I wanted to know from the voice cast what they make of the new season and all of the fascinating, and interwoven contemporary issues that have been made stories, and which are so relatable to anyone watching in the crazy world of 2025.
"I feel like they balance the craziness of it all very well and put in into little lessons so well so that we can all learn from it, but also enjoy the laughs and the giggles of all the crazy things they put in," Kinza said.
'all that wackiness,
kept relevant to today'
"I completely agree," said Teresa. "To have messages and lessons with a very heavy hammer in anything - you know, the fun disappears, whereas I think the balance is exactly the right word, Kinza. I think they've managed to bring in all that wackiness, keep it all relevant to today and the scenarios."
"We are all trying to find our way through the social media circus of some things and I think they've done a really good job of getting that balance just right."
Alkaio says that " when you're watching a series, especially like an unenjoyable series, sometimes it's because it feels like they are hitting you over the head with the moral of the story".
"The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball put you as the viewer into such ridiculous, dramatic situations that would never happen, that you don't realise until after you finish the episode that they really did give a message. But you got that message while enjoying the episode."
Dan notes that The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball "has an effortlessness to it that can be very hard to achieve".
"They do great things without appearing to be trying very hard. And that's a really cool and a very clever thing to do."
One of the standout things within The Wonderfull Weird World of Gumball continues to be the depiction of the emotionally involved and fully rounded parents within the story and the experiential world of Gumball and his siblings.
The parents love their kids, are flawed characters, try their best, have their own issues and insecurities and challenges and themselves don't always make the best or the right choices.
Nicole gets them trapped in traffic on the way to an amusement park, dad Richard has a body image cheerleader past story, there is parental disapproval across generations, and parents feeling unable to live up to expectations depicted in an episode about a neighbour who has a swimming pool.
"I've played many mothers in various series through the years, and Nicole is, I can honestly say = she is flawed but my goodness, you know, the love of family - she will do anything for her children and her husband," Teresa said.
"Sometimes she has some really weird ways of going about things, and her anger issues, yeah, still need addressing."
"I can't take any credit at all for the way that the parents come across, but I think that's one of the reasons, certainly, why an awful lot of adults also still engage and continue to engage with the show - it is because of that lovely portrayal of deeply flawed characters that we can all understand and recognise."
'a lovely portrayal of
deeply flawed characters
that we can all understand'
Dan says someone once asked him what he does to be Richard. "And I said no, that's the trick. And I've kind of been that way as a dad in real life as well".
"Richard doesn't kowtow, he doesn't order around, except within his own capacity to do so."
"Perhaps, quickly, one of the best words I can say, my kids were eight and ten when Gumball started, and they'd seen me on television and stuff before, and we were sitting there watching, and they watched Richard and Nicole, and Richard just being complete Richard - I'm eating butter for no reason, or whatever it is. And I said, so what do you think of that?"
"And they looked at me and just said, 'dad'. They couldn't tell the difference between Richard and me."
"So I consider that a bit of an accolade that I've managed to stay hands-off enough with my kids. On a serious note, you can, you know, you have such power over kids, and you've got to be very careful not to wield it. You've got to be careful to let them see you fail, for real."
"The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball, and sorry, I don't know if it's too intellectual or not, but I like the way they just let the parents be the parents."
'they just let the parents
be the parents'
Alkaio says "as a kid who thinks he might be in touch with his parents and adults, I think Gumball does a really good job of opening conversations for kids and adults, and how they can watch it together".
"It doesn't give all the answers, and it doesn't explain everything, but it introduces younger people to topics that they wouldn't normally be introduced to, so that the parents can maybe have something to reference to, and can explain it in a very safe way."
Besides parents not always making the "right" or best choices the kids are also very prone to making wrong decisions and then having to deal with the chaos of the outcomes.
"At the end of each episode Gumball learns something," explains Alkaio.
'That's part of the beauty: Because sometimes characters can get a little redundant, and they're kind of the same every time, and I really didn't know what Gumball was gonna try and pull off this time in each of the episodes, and learn about life."
Kinza says she feels "like the characters around Gumball like to join him in his mistakes, but also try to learn from him what not to do".
"So I think it's really like trying to figure out and learn from your mistakes, but also try to have fun."
Hero says "In life we all make mistakes, but we learn from them. And I think that's cool how they do that in the show with Gumball, Darwin and Anais - I think it's cool how we'll all make mistakes".
"And in the end, at the end of the episode, we'll all learn from that mistake".
'learn from your mistakes,
but also try to have fun'
"It's really so easy to get overwhelmed by all the negativity that we're fed and I've got to have hope all the time," says Teresa.
"If The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball can teach us anything, it's that we know that the core things will get us through life: Love and friendship. So let's be positive."
Alkaio says "I really think everything in the world is just so complicated and it takes a lot to fix something, even something really small. It takes work to fix it and make it right."
"But part of the beauty of Gumball is that things sometimes can be so simple. Like having a remote that just controls everything in the world and clicking a button and things are just magically fixed. But also in terms of storylines in Gumball, where you don't need much to make a storyline for Gumball."
'part of the beauty of Gumball is
that things sometimes
can be just so simple'
"There's a lot to be distrustful about the world today, but that doesn't mean you have to live your life as a cynic," says Dan.
"As the great Paul McCartney once said, he thinks there are more nice people in the world than not nice people.
"I remember when I was once at a lake in New Hampshire where we went every summer and there was a very wealthy, lovely man who went up there from New York and he was in his 80s."
"And I'm not going to let you guys do any math at all, but if he was in his 80s, he was born in about 1880. That's how long ago this was."
"And he was sitting there one afternoon working on his second rum and Coke. And he creased himself laughing because somebody had given him a newspaper from when he was 18 years old. And he laughed and laughed and laughed - this wise guy from Wall Street."
"And he said, you know what? Nothing's changed. Everybody was arguing about the same stuff."
"You know, you got to ask yourself: Are there any design faults in humans? And I think we can all, we just work on our own design faults and just be good people."
"And getting back to Gumball, there is this kind of a gentleness about it and a wisdom about it that I really, really like."
The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball is on Cartoon Network (DStv 301), on weekdays from 6 October 2025
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