Recap / The Amazing World of Gumball S3E26 "The Lie"

In this Christmas Episode parody taking place after Christmas, Gumball and Anais invent a new holiday called Sluzzle Tag to counter the January doldrums, but things get complicated when everyone else in Elmore gets in on it and Miss Simian sets out to prove that the whole thing is a scam.

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Tropes:

• Art Shift: Darwin gets so depressed and sunlight-deprived that he loses all his color and gets the shakes, making him look like a perpetually bouncing character from a 1930s cartoon, right down to the scratchy, vinyl sound in his voice.
• Baffled by Own Biology: Principal Brown tries to hibernate to skip the January doldrums only to be surprised his species (which he doesn't even know) cannot do that.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Gumball gets so caught up in celebrating Sluzzle Tag that Anais has to point out everyone is expecting gifts to be delivered by Sluzzle Dude, who doesn't exist.
• Bowdlerization:
  • The version shown on Cartoon Network Asia curiously cut the part where Richard leaves the supermarket and chugs the cup of coins held by one of the Sluzzle Tag carolers^note The edit was probably done out of fear that kids would imitate it.
  • In Turkey, the entire part where Richard creates the Sluzzlewurst by using the transformation sequence from Sailor Moon was cut because the censor thought Richard was naked (which, coincidentally, was why the breast and crotch outlines were digitally removed in the DiC North American version of Sailor Moon in the 1990s).
• The Can Kicked Him: Banana Joe gets sent a treadmill Richard didn't want. It's sent up his toilet while turned on, sending the toilet flying upward. When the toilet falls back down, it lands on the moving treads of the treadmill, sending it flying into Joe.
• Christmas Episode: Depressed by the fact that it’s January and all the holidays are over, Gumball creates a new Christmas-like holiday for everyone to celebrate.
• Christmas in July: A Christmas Episode that takes place in January.
• Christmas Special: Parodied. The episode begins with a Christmas-esque Second-Person Narration that speaks in rhymes, with Pastel-Chalked Freeze Frames lined with mistletoe to boot. It's eventually replaced with barbed wire, skulls, and doberman heads.
• Color Failure:
  • All the extra holiday spending leaves the Watterson's credit card drained of all color with a pair of fang holes on it, as if it was exsanguinated by a vampire's bite.
  • Darwin being so depressed that he turns into a black-and-white 1930s cartoon character.
• Dark Age of Supernames: Gumball says Sluzzle Dude's van is pulled by dobermans named Trasher, Smasher, Rancid, Rageslayer, and Rabies.
• Didn't Think This Through: Gumball doesn’t realize until Anais reminds him that, since Sluzzle Dude is fabricated by him, it isn’t possible for the citizens to get any gifts.
• Driven to Suicide: The black bird on the Wattersons' roof in the beginning throws himself down the chimney during the opening narration of how depressing January is.
• Dumpster Dive: In a rush to come up with Sluzzle Tag presents, Gumball and Anais pick up the discarded presents from the previous Christmas out of the trash.
• The Door Slams You: The door to the Watterson house is opened by Gumball the wrong way, albeit without visually damaging it, hitting Ms. Simian as she was spying through the mail slot.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: When Gumball imagines what everyone’s reaction will be to Sluzzle Tag being fake, he pictures the earth exploding. Anais, rightfully, points out how overdramatic this is.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: Ms. Simian tries to show a picture of Anais and Gumball putting gifts by the toilet out, proving Sluzzle Tag was fake, but first shows a picture of her rear end by mistake (which looks like a scene from "The Apology" where Principal Brown notices that Miss Simian's skirt has been hiked up and Gumball and Darwin were trying to call attention to it as discreetly as possible). The narrator explains that it was her attempt to see what her own butt looked like from behind.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: Anais calls Grandparents’ Day and Valentine’s Day made-up holidays.
• Everybody Knew Already: After Gumball admits he made Sluzzle Tag all up, everyone says they suspected or knew it was fake and just played along because they were so depressed.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: It takes Gumball a moment to realize the issue with making up a holiday.
  Anais: So, who’s going to bring all of the presents?
  Gumball: Sluzzle Dude will of course - Oh, I see what you mean now.
• Eye Am Watching You: Miss Simian makes this gesture while watching Gumball and Anais through a window while standing on a ladder. While doing this, she accidentally pushes her fingers against the window, causing to tip backwards on the ladder.
• Face Palm: Anais does one in the freeze frame after Gumball admits the whole holiday is a lie.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Miss Simian tries to announce that Sluzzle Tag is a lie after she catches Gumball and Anais delivering Darwin’s present, but she slips on the bathtub during her dramatic entrance.
• Fictional Holiday: "Sluzzle Tag", a holiday created by Gumball to cheer everybody up, is the focus of the episode.
• Foreshadowing: When Ms. Simian first tries to get Gumball to admit Sluzzle Tag is fake, every adult she tries to tell pops out of their depression to cover for him - even though it would be the first time they're even hearing about it. It isn't until much later that it's confirmed that no one even cares if Sluzzle Tag is real, and just go along with it to cheer each other up.
• The Grinch: Miss Simian doesn’t believe in Sluzzle Tag and is determined to prove to everyone that Gumball is just making it up. She even does a classic Grinch grin when she forms her devious plan.
• Grindcore: The style of music played during Sluzzle Tag. Rocky helpfully explains the difference between Grindcore, Black Metal, and Viking Metal.
• Hey, That's My Line!: The narrator pauses the episode when Gumball speaks briefly in rhyme.
  I'm the one here who does all the rhymes, so wait for your own... times.
• Indy Ploy: Anais and Gumball stop to think up a plan, but Anais says running helps her think. Gumball runs in place while she stands still.
• Irony: Those pie-eyed, rubber-hosed, perpetually bouncing 1930s cartoon characters were always shown as happy and cheerful since those cartoons came out during The Great Depression and people needed that sense of cheer and hope. Here, Darwin taking on that appearance is used to show how depressed he is.
• Line-of-Sight Alias:
  • Gumball is thinking up a description for Sluzzle Dude, the main figure of Sluzzle Tag, and starts making up details based on sounds in the background: a car drives by, then he says Sluzzle Dude rides a van. After some dogs bark, Gumball says that van is carried around by dobermans.
  • Later, he tries to make up a traditional meal for Sluzzle Tag while at a grocery store and he looks at the shelf opposite to him saying "roasted bleach fertilizer with a shampoo garnish". Realizing that wouldn't work he looks at the other side of the aisle and comes up with "baby dog paste". He takes that back too and just says junk food.
• Literal Metaphor: All the holiday spending at inflated holiday prices leaves Richard's card literally sucked dry by the card reader, complete with vampire fang marks.
• Medium-Shift Gag: Anais envisions the townsfolk's reaction if they find out Sluzzle Tag is fake: a clay model of Gumball being crushed by a live-action fist.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Richard creating the Sluzzlewurst playing out like Usagi's^note Serena for those familiar with the North American dub transformation into Sailor Moon (complete with same colored background and using the music from the original Japanese dub — or a very convincing soundalike of it).
• Musicalis Interruptus: Gumball tries to sing about keeping everyone from being depressed, but his ever-increasing pitch makes Anais beg him to stop and he's relieved to do so.
• My New Gift Is Lame: No one really likes the gifts they got from Sluzzle Tag—they are literally presents no one wanted before being thrown out—but everyone is so glad to GET a gift that they're happy anyway.
• Nonindicative Name: Anais claims that anything with the name "fun" in it is not actually fun, including "fun-sized", "fun run", and "fungus".
• Nutritional Nightmare: Richard is told to celebrate with the worst junk food he can think of. He combines a bunch of cheeses and processed meats to make the "sluzzlewurst", a sausage with "everything in and on it", including bacon, fries, a donut, and liverwurst. When Anais eats one, she sweats butter. It catches on instantly.
  Darwin: Each slice of that thing has enough calories to get us to next Sluzzle Tag.
• Production Lead Time: In-universe, someone tried to make a Sluzzle Tag holiday special, but the holiday was invented earlier in the same day, so it cuts off after a few seconds of very choppy CGI animation to a disclaimer that animation is a lengthy process and this is all they could come up with on such short notice.
• Pseudo-Santa: Sluzzle Dude
• Rhyming Episode: The episode is narrated in rhyme as a play on Twas the Night Before Christmas.
• Special Guest: Sir Derek Jacobi narrates, even getting a special note in the opening credits, making this the second time in the show's history to have a celebrity guest voice.^note The first time was when Brian Blessed voiced the amnesiac homeless man who turns out to be Santa Claus on the season two episode "Christmas."
• Spoof Aesop: After everyone laughs at Principal Brown and Ms. Simian happily stating they hated each other's Christmas presents, the narrator sums up the real lesson we learned here.
  The end of our story is now drawing nigh,
  and the Sluzzle Tag model is not hard to spy.
  That when life is tough, and joy hard to come by,
  most people are happier believing a lie.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guy: Miss Simian spends most of the episode trying to prove Sluzzle Tag isn't real even though it's making everyone happy.
• Subbing for Santa: Gumball and Anais have to fill in for Sluzzle Dude by delivering gifts to everyone in Elmore because he doesn’t actually exist.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion:
  Banana Bob: To be honest, I kind of knew it was a lie all along.
  Nicole: It was kind of weird when I saw a snowman wearing studded leather pants.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Gumball's lie travels fast around town and has already caused people to declare school days, raise prices, and decorate. The only Christmas tradition that couldn't be replicated was an animated special, because those take a long time to make, and there was only time for five seconds.
• Take Our Word for It: Darwin's scream in reaction to finding out Sluzzle Tag is fake is skipped over and only described by the narrator and other characters.
  Narrator: We'll save you the pain of how loud Darwin's sound was—just imagine the scream of a million chihuahuas.
• Take That!:
  • Rocky describes Viking metal as "like banging a trash-can with an axe".
  • One of the castaway Christmas gifts recycled as Sluzzle Tag gifts is a DVD of a movie called Daybreak—it's even on-screen right as the narrator says Gumball was "leaving everyone garbage".
• Toilet Teleportation: Sluzzle Dude, the equivalent of Santa for Sluzzletag, comes into houses through the toilet because getting covered in soot going down the chimney would be disgusting.
• Transformation Sequence: Parodied. Richard undergoes a Magical Girl transformation when Gumball tells him Sluzzle Tag food is the worst junk food he can think of and he creates the “Sluzzle Wurst”.
  Richard: By the power of cheese! By the power of bacon! By the power of processed meats! By the power of carbs and deep-fat frying!
• The Unsmile: Mr. Small was so depressed that he couldn't smile unless he held his face in place with tape. The results were rather creepy—as was his actual smiling face after he tore the tape off, taking his face fuzz off with it.
• We Have the Keys: Gumball tries to open a door with an axe, but Anais points out it's their door. He chops it down anyway because he already broke it earlier.
• Who Is Driving?: On the bus, Rocky leaves the wheel to talk about Sluzzle Tag. Once Banana Joe points this out, the bus starts to swerve, but somehow makes it several blocks away to the school without the driver before crashing into Ms. Simian's classroom (which is on the second floor).

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