Ever scrolled through YouTube and felt like you were glitching? You see a blue cat and a walking goldfish, but their eyes are just a little too wide, their colors a bit too saturated, and the humor is... well, it’s not there. Most fans of Cartoon Network’s surrealist masterpiece know exactly what I’m talking about. We are talking about Miracle Star. It is the most blatant example of the copycats The Amazing World of Gumball ever had to deal with, and how the show responded is basically legendary in animation history.
Animation is expensive. It is grueling. Because of that, most studios try to protect their IP like it’s the crown jewels. But in 2014, a Chinese snack food company decided to skip the "inspiration" phase and go straight to "carbon copy." They produced a series called Miracle Star (Qi Miao Xing) to promote their goat milk snacks. It wasn’t just a similar vibe. It was a frame-by-frame, character-for-character imitation of the Watterson family.
Why Everyone Lost Their Minds Over Miracle Star
If you look at the side-by-side comparisons, it’s actually kind of jarring. You have a blue goat instead of a cat (Gumball), a frog instead of a goldfish (Darwin), and the house—down to the kitchen tiles and the living room rug—is a 3D recreation of the Gumball set. Even the character movements were traced. It’s the kind of thing that usually ends in a massive, boring lawsuit that takes six years to settle in a dark courtroom.
But Ben Bocquelet and the team at Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe did something different. They didn't just send a cease and desist. They made an episode about it.
That’s how we got Season 5, Episode 12, titled "The Copycats." It is arguably one of the most meta moments in television history. Instead of ignoring the existence of the Chinese rip-off, the writers brought the "copycat" family into the world of Elmore. They named them the Chi Chi family.
The episode doesn't hold back. It’s brutal. It mocks the lower animation quality of the imitators and the fact that they are essentially hollow shells of the original characters. When Gumball and Darwin realize they are being copied, they try to change their own behavior to see if the copycats will follow suit. It spirals into a bizarre, dark commentary on intellectual property, creativity, and the "uncanny valley" effect of seeing a bootleg version of yourself.
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The Real-World Fallout of the Gumball Rip-off
Most people think Miracle Star just vanished after the episode aired, but the reality is a bit more nuanced. The Chinese show was never really meant to be a global hit; it was a localized marketing tool. However, the internet made sure it didn't stay localized. When the "The Copycats" aired, it served as a massive "calling out" that resonated with creators everywhere.
It's actually quite rare for a show to acknowledge its imitators so directly. Usually, creators are told by legal teams to stay quiet. But The Amazing World of Gumball has always been a show that breaks the fourth wall with a sledgehammer. By turning the plagiarism into a plot point, they effectively "claimed" the narrative. They turned a frustrating legal headache into one of their highest-rated episodes.
The Chi Chi family in the show eventually meets a pretty grim end—literally being erased or destroyed because they can't keep up with the original family's increasingly dangerous stunts. It was a bold move. It was also a very public signal to other studios: if you steal our work, we won’t just sue you; we will make you a laughingstock in front of millions of kids and adults.
How the Animation Industry Views These Copycats
Look, plagiarism in animation isn't new. You’ve probably seen the "mockbusters" in the $5 bin at grocery stores—movies like Ratatoing or The Little Cars. These are usually ignored because they are so low-budget they don't pose a threat.
But the copycats The Amazing World of Gumball encountered were different because they looked just good enough to confuse people. It wasn't just a 10-minute YouTube spoof. It was a produced series with a budget.
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Industry experts often point to this incident as a turning point in how creators handle online "clones." In a world where AI can now replicate art styles in seconds, the Gumball team's approach feels ahead of its time. They leaned into their identity. They proved that while you can copy a character's silhouette, you can't copy the "soul" or the specific comedic timing that makes a show work.
Honestly, the Chi Chi family episode actually had some of the most complex animation in the series. They had to intentionally animate "badly" for the copycat characters while keeping the high-octane energy of the Elmore world. It was a technical flex.
Why Miracle Star Failed Where Gumball Succeeded
It's pretty simple: Miracle Star lacked the subversion. The Amazing World of Gumball works because it's a chaotic mix of 2D, 3D, stop-motion, and live-action. It's a show about a dysfunctional but loving family living in a world that makes no sense.
Miracle Star was a show about... selling goat milk crackers.
When you strip away the heart of a story and just leave the visual shell, the audience feels it. Even kids, who are the target demographic, can tell when they are being fed a "fake" version of something they love. The pacing was off, the jokes felt recycled, and the charm was non-existent.
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Interestingly, there have been other "Gumball-esque" shows over the years. Some people pointed at Paws & Tales or various mobile game ads that seem to "borrow" the aesthetic of Elmore. But nothing ever reached the level of the 2014 incident.
Lessons for Content Creators and Artists
If you are a creator, there is a lot to learn from how Cartoon Network handled this. You shouldn't always play defense. Sometimes, the best way to handle someone riding your coattails is to lean into your own uniqueness so hard that the imitator looks ridiculous by comparison.
- Protect your IP early. Ensure you have trademarks in multiple territories, though international law is messy.
- Lean into your voice. Style is easy to copy; perspective is not.
- Engage with your community. The only reason the Gumball team knew about the copycats so quickly was because fans on Reddit and Twitter started tagging them in screenshots.
- Don't be afraid of the meta. If someone is copying you, acknowledging it can actually build more loyalty with your existing audience.
The Gumball copycat saga is a weird, hilarious, and slightly dark chapter in internet history. It showed that in the digital age, you can't hide plagiarism anymore. Someone, somewhere, will find it, and if you're lucky, the original creators will turn the whole thing into an award-winning episode of television.
To really understand the impact, you have to watch the episode "The Copycats" back-to-back with the original Miracle Star clips. The attention to detail in the parody is staggering. They even copied the specific "unfocused" look of the rip-off's backgrounds. It’s a masterclass in petty brilliance.
Next time you see a weirdly familiar looking character on a generic snack box, just remember that the Wattersons are watching. And they aren't afraid to get weird about it. If you're interested in the technical side of how they matched the animation styles, looking into the "making of" segments for Season 5 reveals a lot about the compositing techniques used to make the Chi Chi family look distinctly "off" compared to Gumball.
The best way to support original animation is to watch on official platforms and call out blatant theft when you see it. The industry is small, and creators talk. By keeping the conversation going about these specific incidents, we make it harder for companies to profit off the hard work of actual artists. Keep an eye out for the "uncanny" signs of a rip-off: stiff joints, mismatched lighting, and jokes that don't quite land. Those are the hallmarks of a copycat that just hasn't been caught yet.