He's blue. He has a giant head. He wears a sweater he found in the trash. If you’ve spent any time watching Cartoon Network over the last decade, you know exactly who I’m talking about. Gumball Watterson is the face of The Amazing World of Gumball, a show that basically rewrote the rules for what 11-year-olds can get away with on TV. But there’s a weirdly common question that pops up in fan forums and parent groups alike: what actually is he?
Gumball Watterson being a cat is the foundation of the character, but because the show’s art style is a fever dream of mixed media, people get confused.
Honestly, it’s not that deep, but also, it’s entirely the point. Ben Bocquelet, the creator of the show, didn't just pick a cat because they're cute. He picked a blue cat because he wanted something that felt like a classic cartoon mascot but lived in a world that looked dangerously close to our own reality. Gumball isn't just a pet or an animal in the traditional sense; he’s an anthropomorphic middle-schooler who happens to have whiskers and a tail.
The Design Logic of a Blue Cat
Why blue? Why not orange like Garfield or black and white like Sylvester?
In the early pilot stages of the show, Gumball actually looked a bit different. He was always meant to be a cat, but the specific shade of blue was a conscious choice to make him pop against the live-action backgrounds and 3D environments of Elmore. If you look at the Watterson family tree, the genetics are... chaotic. His dad, Richard, is a giant pink rabbit. His sister, Anais, is also a pink rabbit. His mom, Nicole, is a blue cat.
Gumball took after his mom.
This isn't just a random design choice. It creates a visual split in the family that the show plays with constantly. You have the "responsible" ones (Nicole and Anais) and the "chaos" ones (Richard and Gumball), but the species don't align with those personalities. Nicole is a terrifyingly competent blue cat, while Gumball is a walking disaster zone who happens to share her fur color.
The show uses his "cat-ness" sparingly. He doesn't usually act like a feline. He doesn't hunt mice. He doesn't use a litter box. He eats at the table, goes to school, and suffers through the existential dread of being a pre-teen. However, the animators occasionally throw in a "cat" moment for a gag—like his ears pinning back when he’s scared or his pupils dilating when he sees something shiny. It’s a subtle reminder of his biology in a world where his best friend is a goldfish with legs.
Why People Question If Gumball Watterson is a Cat
Look, Elmore is weird.
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In one classroom, you have a T-Rex, a piece of toast, a ghost, and a cloud. When the environment is that diverse, the "normal" characters start to look strange. Some viewers have theorized that Gumball might be some kind of hybrid or an experimental creature, especially given the "Void" lore introduced later in the series.
But the "The Kids" episode and various creator interviews confirm it: he's 100% a cat. The confusion usually stems from how he’s drawn. He has no nose. That’s a big one. Most cartoon cats have a little pink or black button nose, but Gumball’s face is just eyes and a muzzle. It gives him a more "human" expression, which makes his frequent screaming matches and over-the-top facial contortions land better.
Also, his ears are tiny.
Compared to his mom, Nicole, whose ears are more prominent, Gumball’s are often tucked away or simplified. This was done to keep his silhouette clean. If you're an artist, you know that a character's silhouette is everything. Gumball’s head is basically a circle with two small triangles on top. It's iconic. It’s simple. It’s easy to animate when he’s being flattened by a falling piano or stretched like taffy.
The Genetic Chaos of the Wattersons
We need to talk about Richard Watterson.
Richard is a rabbit. Nicole is a cat. In the real world, that’s a predator-prey relationship that ends poorly. In Elmore, it’s a marriage that produces two rabbits and a cat. (And Darwin, but Darwin was a pet who grew lungs because he loved Gumball so much—that’s a whole different article).
There is no "cat-rabbit" hybrid in the show. The kids either come out as one or the other. This avoids the "Cousin It" problem of creating a monstrous middle-ground character. By keeping Gumball Watterson being a cat as a distinct trait inherited from his mother, the show maintains a visual link between the two most intense characters in the house. Nicole is the source of Gumball’s untapped potential and his occasional streaks of absolute competence.
Think about the episode "The Limit." When Nicole loses her mind, she becomes a literal demon. Gumball has shown flashes of that same intensity. The fact that they are the same species highlights that Gumball isn't just a lazy kid; he’s a younger, less-disciplined version of his mother’s raw power.
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Reality vs. Animation: The Meta Context
One of the reasons The Amazing World of Gumball is so successful is its meta-humor. It knows it’s a cartoon.
In the episode "The Name," we find out Gumball’s real name isn't actually Gumball—it's Zach. "Gumball" was just a nickname that stuck. When he starts going by Zach, his personality changes into a generic, cool-guy persona, and the show’s animation style starts to shift around him.
This proves that Gumball’s identity as a "blue cat" is partly tied to his own self-perception and the "role" he plays in the universe. He is the protagonist. He is the "funny animal" archetype. But the show isn't afraid to deconstruct that.
There’s also the voice acting. Over the years, Gumball has been voiced by several different actors (Logan Grove, Jacob Hopkins, Nicolas Cantu, and Duke Cutler) because, well, boys hit puberty. The show actually addressed this in-universe by having Gumball and Darwin notice their voices cracking. Most "animal" characters in cartoons stay the same forever. Mickey Mouse doesn't age. Garfield doesn't get old. But Gumball Watterson, despite being a blue cat, is subject to the passage of time and the awkwardness of growing up.
Cultural Impact of a Blue Feline
Gumball has become a bit of an internet legend.
If you spend five minutes on TikTok or Twitter (X), you'll see Gumball reaction memes. Why does a blue cat resonate so much with Gen Z and Gen Alpha? It’s because he’s written with a level of cynicism and self-awareness that most "kid" characters lack. He isn't a role model. He’s a jerk sometimes. He’s lazy. He’s incredibly overconfident in his own stupidity.
Basically, he’s relatable.
The fact that he’s a cat is almost secondary to his personality, which is exactly why the character works. If he were a human boy, his antics might feel mean-spirited or annoying. But because he’s a stylized blue cat in a world where a banana can be his classmate, you accept the surreality. You accept that he can be disintegrated in one scene and be fine in the next.
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Key takeaways about Gumball's "Cat" Status:
- He is a blue cat based on his mother Nicole's species.
- His design lacks a nose to allow for more expressive, human-like animation.
- He is part of a "split" species family (cats and rabbits).
- His species is often a vehicle for visual gags rather than biological plot points.
- The blue color was chosen for contrast against complex, multi-media backgrounds.
Misconceptions People Still Have
I’ve seen people argue that Gumball is a dog.
I don't know where this comes from. Maybe it's the floppy way his ears are sometimes animated when he's sad? Or the fact that he's so loyal to Darwin? But no, he's definitely a cat. The show explicitly refers to him as a "stupid cat" or a "blue cat" dozens of times throughout the series.
Another misconception is that his blue fur is dyed. It’s not. In the episode where we see Nicole as a child, she is the exact same shade of blue. It’s just how cats work in the Watterson bloodline. Interestingly, Gumball’s "cat" traits are actually more prominent in the early seasons. As the show progressed, the writers focused more on his dialogue and his relationship with the town of Elmore, moving away from simple animal-based humor.
What to Do With This Information
If you're a fan of the show, understanding Gumball's design helps you appreciate the effort the team at Cartoon Network Europe put into the series. They took a very simple concept—a cat and a fish—and built one of the most complex, visually stunning, and hilarious shows of the 21st century.
If you’re an aspiring animator or writer, look at Gumball as a masterclass in character silhouette and personality-driven design. He doesn't need to look like a real cat to be a "cat." He just needs to be Gumball.
To see the evolution for yourself, you should go back and watch the pilot episode (often found on YouTube or as a bonus feature) and compare it to "The Inquisition" (the series finale). The change in his "cat" features—the roundness of his head, the placement of his whiskers—shows a character that was constantly being refined to fit a faster, sharper comedic timing.
Pay close attention to Nicole Watterson's action scenes next time you watch. You'll see the "feline" agility that Gumball inherited but rarely uses because he's too busy playing video games or trying to impress Penny Fitzgerald (who, by the way, is a shape-shifting fairy, just to make the species conversation even more complicated).
Check out the official "The Art of Gumball" materials if you can find them. They detail how the character was stripped down to his most basic elements to allow for the hundreds of different animation styles the show cycled through. Whether he’s rendered in 8-bit, CGI, or hand-drawn 2D, Gumball’s identity as a blue cat remains the one constant in a world that is anything but.