When Gumball, Darwin, and Anais realize that everything they normally get is low-rent, the trio decide to search for why the family doesn't have the money to buy good things and uncover a dark family secret.
Tropes:
- And This Is for...: After the address in the locked suitcase seemingly leads to a dead end, Gumball and Darwin do this out of their frustration with the situation.Darwin: (Hits the mailbox with the shovel with each new sentence.) This is for wasting our time! And this is for keeping me up all night! And this is for the rain! And this is for not breaking how many ever times I hit you!
Gumball: And this is for giving us pointless clues! Like this stupid bunch of doodles! - Bittersweet Ending: The Wattersons are content with being poor, as they have a star out in space that symbolizes their love. Then the star dies out.
- Brick Joke: Some picture found in the attic shows Gumball was incredibly bizarre and ugly looking as a baby. At the end of the episode, Richard mentions that, right after Gumball was born, the doctors were trying to figure out why he was so ugly.
- The Con: Turns out Richard lost the family's saving on an internet scam claiming to sell stars.
- Don't Look Down: Anais says this to Gumball and Darwin as they try to cross a log bridge. Naturally, they do and become too freaked out to move until the log starts falling.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Anais and Darwin laugh at a picture they find in the attic of a baby Gumball with a head shaped like an eggplant. Gumball responds by picking up a similarly embarrassing picture of Darwin.
- Epic Fail: Anais ends up destroying the chimney, thinking the treasure is inside it.
- Foreshadowing: At the beginning of the episode, Richard is having a bad dream when he said that it was the internet's fault and the internet sent him to space, this foreshadows the reason why the Watterson family aren't able to afford good stuff.
- Gasshole: The Panda from "How to Ratatwang Your Panda".
- Gross-Up Close-Up: Gumball discovering he was a mule in a past life (who turns around to reveal its hideous face) immediately followed by discovering his latent hypnosis abilities and his eyes turning into live-action close-ups.
- Homemade Inventions: Most of the Watterson's appliances are other appliances jury-rigged in some way: their "MP3 player" is just a calculator with a headset stuck in while their "blender" is an electric fan pointed at a bowl.
- Humiliation Conga: Anais makes herself look like an idiot by destroying the chimney, gets smacked in the face by a floorboard, fails to get her brothers' interest, and gets cut off just before she can make her deduction as to the episode's mystery ("Nooo! You stole my thunder!").
- Hypno Fool: Darwin hypnotizes Gumball by looking at him with Hypnotic Eyes to get him to remember what the key they found is from. Gumball ends up remembering a past-life as a hypnotist and they take turns hypnotizing each other.
- Insubstantial Ingredients: Darwin claims the higher-quality orange juice Nicole picked up by accident "has oranges in it instead of letters and numbers".
- Medium-Shift Gag: When Gumball hypnotizes Darwin, Gumball's eyes are suddenly portrayed with Synchro-Vox.
- Mind-Control Eyes: Darwin gets swirling eyes after Gumball turns into a hypnotist and hypnotizes him.
- Minimalist Cast: The main five Wattersons are the only characters to physically appear in this episode.
- Mundane Luxury: Nicole accidentally takes home someone else's groceries, and her kids are rather impressed at the non-discount food items.Darwin: This orange juice has oranges in it, instead of letters and numbers!
- No Infantile Amnesia: Gumball recognizes an indistinct key he once saw when he was apparently only weeks old, and with some hypnosis could remember the whole moment it happened.
- Past-Life Memories: The hypnosis to make Gumball remember a memory from his infancy ends up making him remember things from past lives, most of which don't hold his interest.Gumball: I'm a school teacher, it's boring. I'm a pharmacist, totally boring. I'm a banker! That's really boring. Optician, boring, librarian, boring, prospector, boring, farmer, bor— Wait, wait, wait, prospector? Hey that's pretty good, and I just found the gold— Wait a minute. I'm not the prospector. I'm the mule.
- Saying Too Much: Nicole starts to explain why they can't afford good things, but realizes mid-sentence and keeps drawing out "if it wasn't fooorrr..." until leaving when the camera is off her.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Multiple times Gumball and Darwin regret their willingness to try and find the treasure with Anais, and attempt to leave only for her to keep dragging them along.
- Sleep Squashing: While Gumball is sleeping in his parents' bed to get the lock box, Richard grabs him in his sleep. Gumball shrugs it off, but Richard starts moving again, and starts pushing Gumball with his hands. Eventually, Richard just rolls over him, and Gumball has to squeeze his way out.Gumball: Oh, that was like being born.
- Slow-Loading Internet Image: Circa 2000, Richard clicked a link before the image finished loading to show the full line for the ad was "better future for your children (of your children's children's great-grandchildren)"
- Stupidly Long Filler Sound: Nicole accidentally starts explaining why the family's always been short on money, then stops herself by droning on one syllable ("If it wasn't forrr...") until disappearing between camera shots.
- Take That!: The Wattersons have a bargain-bin mockbuster version of Kung Fu Panda called How to Ratatwang Your Panda, a clear shot at notable Z-list animation studio Vídeo Brinquedo.
- Talking in Your Sleep: Richard starts the episode off by talking in his sleep, saying it's the internet's fault and that he clicked the wrong button, sending him into space. This turns out to be how Nicole knew about Richard losing all the family's money.
- Treasure Hunt Episode: The kids find out most of the family's saving were spent on something, then try to find what it was exactly. It turned out to be a star Richard bought in an internet scam.
- Vehicular Sabotage: The kids try to take their bikes to an address they discovered, but find the tires have been slashed. Anais, having gotten way too overexcited from the whole ordeal, reacts as if this will make them explode.
