Darwin and Gumball don't have enough money to see a new movie, The Screamening, and the duo must spend an entire week not being exposed to anything that can spoil the ending while Anais tries to get them to bring her along.
Tropes:
- Appointment Television: Darwin and Gumball can't see the movie when it premieres because they're short on cash and Anais will only pay if they bring her along. They refuse because the movie is too scary for her to watch, forcing them to wait until their next allowance day at the end of the week.
- Ass Pull: In-universe, Darwin clears out the theater for The Screamening by revealing the ending is everything being a hallucination because the entire cast are the same man's Split Personality. Gumball calls the ending so terrible that he's glad it got cut off halfway, because that way he got his money back.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Gumball gets stuck in a chair while he, Anais, and Darwin run from Larry who thinks they're trying to pirate a movie.Gumball: You guys go and leave me behind.
Darwin: (quietly) Noooo—
Gumball: And go give yourselves up.
Anais and Darwin: What?!
Gumball: Well at least one of us can make it. - Bittersweet Ending: Darwin has to spoil the movie to Gumball to avoid getting them caught. But Gumball is ultimately fine with it as he admits that it is a terrible ending and he's glad that he didn't have to watch the whole thing now.
- Black Comedy Burst: Gumball eats everyone's lunch so they can't use it to act out any more spoilers. When Anton continues talking about the movie anyway, Gumball eats him as well with everyone at the table looking on in horror.
- Bowdlerise:
- Gumball eating Anton was cut in Cartoon Network Asian's broadcast.
- Gumball choking on the music player Anais bakes in her cake was cut in Poland and Spain.
- Brain Bleach: Darwin tries to clear spoilers out of Gumball's head by shaking him like an Etch-A-Sketch, erasing his face before drawing it again by grabbing his ears.Didn't work, but thanks anyway.
- Catapult to Glory: Gumball says they can escape Larry by using the theater seats as a catapult, but he just gets jammed inside of it.
- Coincidental Broadcast: As Larry hunts the kids down for bringing a movie camera into the theater, the sounds of the movie correspond to their actions.Man in the movie: It's in the bush. It's coming!
(Larry shoves the door open and enters, points his finger accusingly)
Larry: Hey, movie piracy is a federal offense! - Comically Missing the Point: Carrie makes an ElmorePlus post about The Screamening and puts a spoiler warning at the very end of the post. Gumball writes a post heavily criticizing her for this, but Masami makes another post which talks about the movie.
- Continuity Nod: Gumball probably remembers the events of "The Recipe", and that Anton is one in a series of Expendable Clones, as he doesn't hesitate to eat Anton just to shut him up.
- Crazy-Prepared: Gumball sets off to see the movie with his allowance, affordable candy (since the concessions are grossly overpriced), blankets and woolly clothes because theaters overdo the air-conditioning, hairdressing supplies (in case someone in front of him has hair blocking his view), a red carpet so he can make a grand entrance and feel special, and an anti-spoiler blindfold and earmuffs. Nothing really goes wrong with any of these apart from him not being able to leave his room without walking into everything.
- Exorcist Head: One of the increasingly angry-looking faces Gumball makes involves his head doing a 360 before shooting out a snake tongue.
- Fake Static: When Mr. Fitzgerald reveals he's eavesdropping on his daughter and Gumball's phone call, he pretends to be disconnected by faking a dial tone. Gumball asks if the spoiler he mentioned was real, so Mr. Fitzgerald pauses to confirm this, apologizes, and continues the fake dial tone.
- Fetus Terrible: The Screamening seems to mostly be about a husband and his wife who is pregnant with a demonic baby.
- Fingore: Gary, the mailman, opens the mailslot to talk to Gumball about The Screamening because he assumed he'd seen it already. Gumball ineffectually throws a bunch of stuff at him, then Anais closes the slot on his fingers.
- Food as Bribe: Anais offers Gumball a cake she "kinda accidentally" baked that says "Gumball is Awesome" on it when trying to get him to bring her to the movie. Despite also having an MP3 player inside, Gumball still refuses.
- Funny Background Event: Gumball angrily slams a hotdog into his lunch tray, causing the hotdog to shoot into the background, landing in the mouth of Hot Dog Guy. Later in the same scene, he throws a plate to the back and it landed on The Green Bear's head, causing him to have a Cranial Eruption.
- Furry Reminder:
- Darwin thinks Gumball's nipples allow him to make cheese, and Gumball tells him he still has some things to learn about mammals.
- Darwin digs into the inheritance left by his biological parents, who were non-anthropomorphic goldfish. It's just a toy treasure chest with bubbles in it.
- When Anais is hiding in Gumball's bag, he pulls her out by the ears, visually invoking Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat.
- Hypocritical Humour: Pantsbully, who is a member of the audience during the movie screening tells Gumball, Darwin and Anais to be quiet... because he's taking a phone call (Later, Gumball, while taking the time to stop several other audience members from making noises despite being chased by Larry, grabs the guy's phone and throws it away).
- Impossible Theft: Darwin and Gumball tell Anais that they already spent most of the money she had saved up. When Anais tries to show them she still has $30 their mom just gave her, it's already in Gumball's hands.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Anais keeps trying to get to see the movie, even though Gumball thinks it's too scary for her. She ends up being the only one in the theater who saw the scariest part, leaving her paralyzed with shock. Humorously, Penny's younger sister, Polly, who is basically the same age as Anais, ended up seeing the film and was even able to remember some details about it. Needless to say, Anais is annoyed to realize that Polly saw the film even though she's very young.
- Movie-Theater Episode: The last act takes place in the movie theater, as Gumball, Darwin, and Anais try to avoid getting caught by the usher.
- Not What It Looks Like: Larry sees Anais brought a movie camera into the theater and assumes she's trying to pirate it. She was actually just planning to hide in Gumball's bag during the movie (she bought a ticket) and watch the recording herself, although that's still technically illegal.
- Offscreen Teleportation: A radio plays Rocky talking about the movie on a phone from an unspecified location. Gumball steps offscreen with a shovel and Rocky is heard being knocked out a second later.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Gumball's reaction when Darwin points out that the tooth he's about to remove for money is an adult tooth.
- Darwin's reaction when finding out that the movie's gonna be scary. Complete with a Scare Chord in the soundtrack.
- Gumball's reaction after he blurts out that Larry's IQ is as small as his paycheck, giving away his location.
- Paranoia Gambit: Darwin keeps asking for spoilers because he wants to make the movie less scary. Annoyed, Gumball gets back at him by faking him out.Gumball: Can't handle suspense, huh? Then you're really not gonna like it when I—
(Gumball strikes a threatening pose, pauses for several seconds, and returns to his seat)
Darwin: What?!
Gumball: To be continued.
Darwin: Noooo! - Screamer Prank: Gumball tests if Anais is really prepared to see The Screamening by having the screen cut to a closeup of a piranha's face accompanied by a yell, causing her to go stiff and white with shock. He's also doing the same thing to the audience.
- Sequel Snark:Gumball: We're talking about The Screamening! It's the only film in ten years that's not a remake, a sequel, a remake of a sequel, or a prequel of a sequel of a remake!
- Split-Screen Phone Call: Happens when Gumball and Penny have a conversation over the phone. At first, it's just the two of them, until Patrick gives away that he's eavesdropping and appears in his own segment on the screen, closely followed by Darwin. Gumball then asks if anyone else is listening in on the call. Richard, Nicole, Anais, Polly and John, a government agent wiretapping on everyone's calls are all then revealed to be listening too.
- Stab the Salad: Banana Joe detaches his head, covers it in spaghetti like hair, and starts sticking his fork into it when trying to feed Darwin movie spoilers.Darwin: Does someone...?
Banana Joe: Oh yeah. The dentist's wife is a hairdresser. - Stating the Simple Solution: Gumball screams and buries his head in the ground to avoid listening to spoilers on a radio behind him. Darwin asks why he doesn't just turn the radio off, and Gumball screams again.
- Sticky Situation: While crawling along the theater floor, Gumball goes over some old, sticky soda. Darwin is worried it's so sticky they'll have to lose their clothing to get out, but Gumball says it's just a minor inconvenience—in fact, it helps them by camouflaging them in discarded popcorn.
- Stylistic Self-Parody: Gumball tries to bury his head to avoid spoilers, but Darwin tells him it's so big it would be easier to put it in an empty swimming pool.
- Subliminal Seduction: Anais tries to get Gumball to bring her to the movies by asking while he watches an entirely-untranslated clip of some anime that looks like a spoof of Pokemon with spliced-in flashes of a screen that says "YES" (in English).Anais: Will you take me to the movie this weekend?
Gumball: No.
Anais: What about the subliminal message?
Gumball: Sorry, I don't understand Japanese. - Sudden Anatomy: Gumball's chest is usually featureless when he's shirtless, but when he asks if he could sell a nipple, he suddenly has little dark circles on his chest.
- The Television Talks Back: Gumball hears Billy Parham calling into a radio station and explaining why the movie is called The Screamening.Billy: "Screamening" is a portmanteau of the words "scream" and "awakening", which is the sound the dentist makes when he wife gives birth to a demon baby.
Gumball: Aaaah!
Billy: Yes, just like that. - The Tooth Hurts: Gumball wants money from the tooth fairy, so he ties his tooth to a string attached to an arrow he fires out a window. After firing the arrow but with the rope still slack, Darwin points out he tied an adult tooth to the string, and Gumball frantically tries to get it off (he doesn't, but the string just pulls his face into the window).
- Translation: "Yes": Juke moves a few peas around on a plate, from which Darwin gets a rather detailed message about the movie's plot:The dentist and the hairdresser inherit a remote cabin in the woods from their crazy uncle but they found out it's on an ancient cowboy burial ground? And their car breaks down? And—
