Amazing World of Gumball : The E-mail, The

I am one of the many many people who have worked on the Cartoon Network show, The Amazing World of Gumball. It's one of the lesser known shows on the network nowadays but I still feel very honored to have had worked on it. For those who don't know, Gumball is a show that follows the adventures of an anthropomorphic cat named Gumball and his adopted brother Darwin who happens to be a fish with legs.

I am fucking honored to be animating with these guys. Even after the events I am about to describe I am still grateful for my job, which is why I am going to be very vague about exactly what I work on. All you need to know is that I'm an animator.

The show is done in a mixed media format and due to that there is a lot of people working on it. We have people working on 3D animation, 2D animation, character design, photography, It's crazy. The reason I am writing this in the first place is because it would be hard to find out who I am. But even now it is hard for me to talk about this. This... incident happened all the way back in 2012... All I remember was that it was the middle of Season 2 and we were working on the episode "The Game". I remember it quite vividly. We were laughing and animating a scene where a pizza grows legs and crawls out a window- it makes more sense in context I swear.

Anyways, me and many other colleagues were huddled around the computer and working on little details in the animation when I heard my phone's notification sound effect go off. Then the guy behind me's phone went off. Then one by one everyone's phone began to go off. One after the other the sounds of "dings" and "pops" were filling the air.

Everyone looked around at each other noticeably startled. But then we laughed it off thinking it must just be a mass e-mail from a higher up with some announcement. We all brought it up on our phones to find that it wasn't from any of our work e-mails. The e-mail contained a video attachment along with some garbled text. Hell if I remember what it said, I deleted that e-mail years ago. I do remember the video attachment's name though. Probably because it was actually in fucking English... "The.Amazing.World.of.Gumball.S02E00.The.mp4".

The video title lead us to believe it was an episode of Gumball. There was no episode name after "The" however.

Someone quickly logged into their e-mail so that we wouldn't all have to watch it separately since that would be kinda stupid with us all in the same room watching the video on separate phones- you get it. Anyways, the screen was black for a couple of seconds. Before the typical Gumball intro appeared. Nothing out of the ordinary. After the flashy title sequence ended the episode card appeared and as expected there was nothing but the word "The".

The episode began with Gumball and Darwin walking down the sidewalk to their house. The animation looked very unfinished. Gumball and Darwin's movements were choppy. The assets in the video were clearly all flash assets from our animation studios though. So it had to be an animator who was working on this show who created this.

Me and the people watching were in a daze just on how ridiculous the situation was. We didn't really question why someone from the animation team did this and sent it to us. It made no sense. But we just kept watching.

Gumball and Darwin were just shooting the shit and talking about random stuff. This is how most episodes start but something about it felt a little too... loose. Like there was no real main subject that could lead to any plot. Eventually Gumball and Darwin reached their house.

Suddenly there was voice acting, not from Gumball or Darwin but there was suddenly a narrator.

"It is on normal days like this that tragedy strikes". This snapped everyone to attention. The voice sounded distorted and way too low.

Gumball and Darwin reached their front door. They opened the door and the screen cut to black. After a couple seconds of darkness the VLC media player logo appeared. Signifying the end of the video.

After a couple seconds a voice from one of the staff broke the silence "What the hell was that?". Everyone in the room chuckled and shrugged it off as someone fucking around with our copies of flash and accidentally sent it out. I mean if it was on accident that would explain the e-mail's text being all fucked up.

At the end of the day we all clocked out and went home. The video we had received was still on my mind and I decided to analyze the video on my laptop when I got home. I downloaded the file and played it. Trying to make sense of it.

I noticed something about how the video cut off when the video ended. Right before it cuts to black there's a bright flash on the screen. I thought it may just be the way the video was rendered or something but... I decided to go back and slow it down anyways.

God, I love my job. I love my job so much. There are people who like me there. I have friends who like to draw like me. I always have fun. It's a great distraction. But I always go home in the evening and feel like shit. Because I no longer have a distraction. I am BLESSED to have such a good job. I am BLESSED to have such a nice place to work. I mean I almost forget about...

EDIT :

I'm sorry. I guess I should explain. My daughter went missing 10 years ago. Along with her cats. A mother and a son. She was never found but... I always hoped... I always hoped she was still alive. But sometimes I just got so depressed. So this job has been a great place for me to get rid of that depression. It's a nice distraction...

But that fucking frame ruined it. Now I can't even enjoy my work anymore. Yet I constantly come back because I know I'm never gonna find a better or friendlier place to work. I will never find a better distraction... But there is no distraction anymore. Even work is a constant FUCKING reminder.

The last frame of the video... I can't even bring myself to fucking say it. It was a photo of my daughter chained up to a wall... her... eyes... her eyes were so full of fear. She was so young yet her face... fuck. FUCK.

She was chained up looking directly at the camera alongside the corpses of our two cats... they were painted blue.. god damn it. Fucking asshole who took her has a sense of humor I guess.

It took a lot of balls to write this. I still try to forget. I still try to make the event more little then it was in my mind but honestly... writing this like it's just some "strange" or "crazy" event isn't the way to go. That's how I was trying to write before. Make it seem more calm and composed. But now I don't even know what I'm saying. I'm just typing whatever comes into my head... Hahaha. This was a shit idea.

I still work at the animation studio but... it's not a happy place for me anymore. I wish I never saw that image. I wish I could just forget.

I don't know who sent that to me but the thing that disturbs me the most about it to this day is that it has to be someone who I work with on this show.

~