Bandage Doctor: Only a small percentage of the world doesn't age - mostly people on TV.
Gumball and Darwin's voices begin going haywire, despite not aging. When the doctor tells them that their voices breaking is normal and means they'll be growing up, Gumball and Darwin try to cling to their childhood as tightly as they can.
This episode is the last one for Logan Grove and Kwesi Boakye (the voice actors of Gumball and Darwin from seasons one and two) and the first one for Jacob Hopkins and Terrell Ransom, Jr. (the replacement voices for Gumball and Darwin...until season five's "The Copycats").
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Growing up means ending your childhood, but it opens up a whole new world of activities to do as an adult.
- Art Shift: Half of the musical number was animated by the French animator collective "crcr" (the same collective that animated the CN Summer 2013 station identification bumpers), giving it a very interesting look
◊. - Baffled by Own Biology: Gumball and Darwin start undergoing puberty when their voices start cracking — which results in them going so deep that the world around them shakes from the bass and uncontrollable volume. This leads to further confusion and hijinks. When asked what is happening to them, the doctor can't help but giggle at the situation because they don't know what it means that their voices are breaking.
- Comic-Book Time: Hilariously referenced when Gumball and Darwin go to the bandage doctor about their changing voices. He says that only 1% of the world doesn't age, usually people on television.
- Compliment Fishing: Richard asks Darwin and Gumball to guess his age, but they keep making ridiculous overestimates ("Was it B.C. or A.D.?") until Richard storms off.Nicole: What did you say to your father?
Gumball: It's not our fault! It was a trap!
Nicole: Ooh, was he fishing for compliments again?
Gumball: Yeah. And some reality got caught in the net. - Continuity Nod:
- The musical number mentions a "sharkbearagator", a made up creature Gumball said Darwin was like in "The Gi".
- Richard roars like a lion after his morning ritual the same way he did in "The Limit" when trying to stand up to Nicole.
- Cruel Twist Ending: Gumball and Darwin get their wish to never grow up, just as they come to terms with growing up and began to anticipate it.
- Disney Acid Sequence: Near the end of the episode, Darwin and Gumball begin singing "Make the Most of It", a song about enjoying their youth while they still have it, and it's accompanied by very unusual visuals representing their imaginations.
- Growing Up Sucks: Gumball and Darwin find out their voices are changing, and lament that they're not going to stay as kids. They then find out they're not aging, and realize Not Growing Up Sucks worse.
- Historical Longevity Joke: The bathroom scene at the beginning of the episode:
- When Richard asks Gumball and Darwin to guess his age, they mock him by answering Ice Age, then 1592..minus 100 ("1492? That's when America was discovered!"), and then ask whether it was BC or AD. Richard doesn't take it any well.
- After Nicole arrives and the boys explain it all, they start making the same kind of jokes on her, but she finds it Actually Pretty Funny...until she gets fed up and lectures them that nobody is young forever.
- Homage: Gumball calls Penny's dad but his voice cracks and he sounds like a creepy guy. Mr. Fitzgerald's response parodies Liam Neeson's warning to the kidnappers in Taken.Now listen to me. I have a very specific set of skills. Skills I've acquired over a very long career. In real estate. If you never call by daughter again, that... will be the end of it. But if you do, I will look for you. I will find you. And I will build a house around you. With no doors.
- Inopportune Voice Cracking: Darwin and Gumball's voices breaking causes them no end of grief:
- As Gumball calls Penny's house, his voice is so deep and croaky that Mr. Fitzgerald doesn't recognize him and threatens him for trying to talk to his daughter.
- When getting on the bus, the driver, assuming from their "manly warrior voices" that they're adults pretending to be kids for cheaper bus fare, refuses them service. The passengers all pelt them with trash.
- While at a store, they lose control of the volume of their voices when talking to Larry. He thinks they're harassing him, even as they try to state otherwise, so security asks them to leave.
- They lose their voices almost entirely right as Penny rides by in her car, which makes her dad think Gumball is giving her the silent treatment.
- The musical number ends when both's voices drop so low that Billy and his mom think they're "short men" "believing that they're still young and cool."
- Lame Comeback:Gumball: (rapping) I don't wear suit or a stupid tie! I dress with my eyes close and I still look fly!
Louie: (talking) You look like you got a leg transplant from a wiener dog.
Gumball: (talking) Yeah, well you... (resumes rapping) and when I don't have comeback I can always cry! - Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Gumball says "I've been twelve for like forever now." and counts to three on his hand. This episode premiered just about three years after the series premiere.
- Right as Gumball and Darwin's voices break even with their new voice actors, the screen looks as if it's glitching out from someone altering reality: everything warps, Darwin and Gumball's silhouettes are replaced with a distinct static-like pattern, the whole screen flashes negative briefly, comes back, and everything returns to normal. A set of swings in the background can be seen fixing itself.
- Mundane Utility:
- Richard successfully shaves his face with a hatchet.
- A dwarven bus driver uses a battle axe to push the pedals.
- Only Sane Man: Aside from Gumball and Darwin understanding their voice problems, the doctor understood their problems and explained why their voices are changing and tells them that they are growing up.
- Rule of Three: Three different times we get a scene of Darwin and Gumball walking along while they're depressing with Gumball kicking several objects, the last of which causes something bad (a soda can that sprayed on him, Rosie who he punts across the street, and a dodgeball that bounces back in his face).
- Special Guest: The dwarven bus driver was voiced by Clive Russell (a British actor whom most American audiences may recognize from the TV adaptation of Game of Thrones as Brynden "The Blackfish" Tully).
- Split-Screen Phone Call: Gumball calls the Fitzgerald house and there's a diagonal split screen. Mr. Fitzgerald mistakes who Gumball is and starts threatening him, causing his side of the screen to expand while Gumball's side of the screen shrinking starts compressing his head into a triangle shape in the lower corner.(Darwin is looking upward)
Gumball: What are looking at?
Darwin: I dunno. What are you pointing at? - Temporary Bulk Change: Gumball demonstrates how still being a kid gives him a "crazy metabolic rate" where he can go from normal to fat to emaciated and back to normal in seconds.
- Title Theme Drop: The chorus to "Make the Most of It" has a remix of the show's opening theme song.
- Vocal Dissonance: Literally. In this episode, Gumball and Darwin sound like teens, and when they don't, like actual men.
- You Are Fat:Richard: Hey kids, do I look old to you?
Gumball: It's hard to say. I guess that's the good thing about being fat: it fills out all the wrinkles.
