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What is wrong with you?! You just ruined the whole thing for me, again! I don't believe it! You've got to be the most insufferable, annoying, selfish person I've ever met! [...] In fact, I think I really... really... REALLY... [...] HAAAATE YOUUUU!!!
~ Rob's breakdown towards Gumball.

Rob, briefly known as Dr. Wrecker, is the main antagonist in the Cartoon Network animated series The Amazing World of Gumball.

He was initially a nondescript background character and a student at Elmore Junior High, but was later exiled into the Void, a dimension where all the world's useless entities (deemed "mistakes") are sent. After escaping, he became disfigured and developed a vendetta against the main character Gumball Watterson, blaming him for leaving him behind and inadvertently forcing him into the role of the villain.

He is voiced by Charles Phillip, with David Warner voicing his Dr. Wrecker persona. His Superintendent Evil disguise was portrayed by Garrick Hagon.

His Qualities[]

What Makes Him Entertaining?[]

  • He has several comedic traits:
    • His occasional incompetence often leads to humorous situations, and he frequently becomes the subject of over-the-top, unwarranted punishment. In "The Nemesis," his traps against Gumball and his brother Darwin backfire, and ironically prove more effective at injuring himself: he ends up launching a car battery at his face and sliding down a road covered in oil. During "The Bus," he mistakenly flees with a suitcase he believes contains money, though it actually holds his own bomb, which then detonates and launches him back to the scene, landing him on a police car. In "The Inquisition," just as he attempts to reveal an untold truth about Elmore, Tina Rex unceremoniously smashes him into the ground with her tail. Some of his villainous plans are also not taken seriously at all, such as trying to blow up Banana Joe with an exploding burger in "The Ex" or hijacking The Amazing World of Gumball to replace it with a corny spinoff in "The Spinoffs."
    • His irritability creates memorable comedic moments throughout the series. He repeatedly grows angry at Gumball for forgetting his name (a running gag that enhances his comedic appeal), and in "The Ex," he has an infamous breakdown when his trap for Banana Joe fails, leading to an outburst against Gumball where he strangles him and his eye displays fire. This also coincides with the on & off "frenemy" relationship he has with Gumball, which is also a comedic dynamic, especially in the aforementioned episode, where he engages in a psuedo-romantic "break-up" with his own arch-nemesis.
  • He demonstrates high intelligence and a strategic mind, making his villainous plans both cool and exciting. He has devised multiple intricate schemes that nearly succeeded, such as the ransom plot in "The Bus," where he manipulated adults into staging a fake hostage situation under the pretense of teaching children a lesson, allowing him to steal $1 million from the police. Another plan involved his acquisition of the Universal Remote in "The Disaster" and "The Rerun," which he used to nearly eliminate Gumball's entire family before ejecting him from his own show and trapping him in the Void, which was also notable for how surreal and metafictional it was. In "The Future," he uses oracle Banana Barbara's brush to conjure hazards into reality, ruthlessly fighting Gumball, Darwin, and Banana Joe using a bazooka, a crack in the floor, and a shark, which was very action-packed.
    • He also delivers some cold and witty lines. In "The Disaster," when the remote malfunctions, he deliberately throws it into the Void, knowing Gumball must follow to save his family. He taunts Gumball with the line, "Well, I guess you're gonna do what any hero would do to save the ones he loves: you're gonna follow the remote." Similarly, in "The Rerun," as Gumball begins physically devolving due to a time paradox, Rob cruelly observes that Gumball has run out of both luck "and fingers" as the devolution continues.
    • In addition to his intelligence, he is also shown to be agile and capable in hand-to-hand combat, as seen when he fights Gumball in "The Bus," "The Disaster," and "The Rerun."
  • He is a tragic and insecure character, as his role as a villain is rooted in trauma and understandable anger, as he became vengeful after being banished to the Void for being deemed a "mistake" unworthy of existence due to being a very minor character initially, where he endured isolation until his escape, leaving his body severely distorted and his identity lost.
    • Furthermore, his villainy afterwards is reluctant, as he mainly accepts the position as the "bad guy" because it's the only one available to him in the show (or at least the only one he knows how to fulfill due to his internalized anger and lack of purpose/identity otherwise), while recognizing that Gumball's protagonist status prevents him from being anything else. Moreover, his situation never improves and he remains pitiful and sympathetic throughout, as he reluctantly remains the villain for the rest of the series and then later falls into the Void when it obliterates Elmore after failing to save everyone because he was antagonized.
  • He breaks the 4th wall by acknowledging that nothing in Gumball's universe is real, and is the only character consistently aware of this. It also stands out from most metafiction as particularly entertaining because it is treated as existential and somewhat uncanny.
  • He has some moments of heroism/anti-heroism. After devastating Gumball's life, he finds himself unable to deliver the final blow and instead reverses his actions with the Universal Remote, even selflessly destroying the powerful tool after deeming it too dangerous too exist. In season six, Rob evolves into an anti-villain and a well-intentioned extremist. Though his methods are questionable (kidnapping Banana Barbara to paint future predictions and forcibly transforming everyone into humans) his motivation is noble: preventing everyone's absorption into the Void.
  • His character design, particularly after his transformation, is intricate and striking due to its polygons, static, various colors, and glitchy aesthetic, making it one of the most memorable and unique in the series.
  • His two voice actors contribute greatly to his characterization due to their charismatic performances that bring out his personality. Charles Philip (Rob's normal voice) is great at delivering his angry outbursts, voice cracks, and sometimes timid delivery, and David Warner (Dr. Wrecker's voice) is a perfect fit for Rob's alter-ego as a cliché, deep, gravelly, British "supervillain" voice.
  • In a mostly episodic comedy series, Rob stands out among most of the other characters for consistently contributing to the show's lore and an overarching plot of sorts, which is also a narrative that often darkens the mood of the show. This way, long time viewers are rewarded with something that breaks the slice-of-life formula that the show is usually known for.
  • The final scene of "The Inquisition" where Rob falls into the Void, while controversial due to its cliffhanger ending, is still generally regarded as one of the more memorable and eerie moments of the series, only tainted by the fact that nothing immediately followed it.

What Makes Him Detestable?[]

  • He commits many heinous crimes in the series considering that he the show's main villain. He also stands out among most villains in the series as particularly detestable due to the highly personal nature of crimes against Gumball, along with the fact that they are often taken more seriously:
    • In "The Nemesis," Rob sets up a series of lethal traps to target Gumball and Darwin. These include launching a car battery at their heads, dropping a tree on them, hitting them with a car sliding down the road, and suspending them upside down with rope. He later attempts to flood Elmore by destroying its dam (though the dam was actually nonexistent). When Gumball and Darwin deliberately get caught in one of his rope traps to appease him, Rob simply walks away while laughing sadistically.
    • In "The Bus," Rob tricks Gumball's school into taking a field trip about "why you shouldn't skip school." He orchestrates this by having adults pose as criminals, enabling him to extort ransom money from the police through a staged hostage situation, for which they are blamed. He threatens to blow up the bus with a bomb, which could have killed multiple students. The situation escalates into a chaotic high-speed police chase, during which a plane wing slices through the bus, endangering everyone aboard. Rob also attempts to frame Gumball for the bombing by claiming he was responsible for the explosive briefcase.
    • In "The Disaster," Rob steals the Universal Remote from the Van Shopkeeper and completely erases him from existence when asked to pay for it. He then uses the remote to cause multiple cars to crash into the Wattersons' vehicle while they're inside, making Gumball's family believe he was responsible because he had been playing with the window. Rob manipulates captions to make Darwin think Gumball is saying horrible things, turning Darwin against him. He alters the personalities of Gumball's parents, Nicole and Richard, to precipitate a divorce, dims the brightness to cause a distraught Anais (Gumball's younger sister) to go missing, and frames Gumball for cheating on his girlfriend Penny Fitzgerald before causing him to push her off a balcony. Finally, he attempts to trap Gumball in the Void, presumably to leave him in limbo for eternity and take over his universe.
    • In "The Rerun," he presumably kills the Van Shopkeeper off-screen for a second time. Later, he tries again to break up Nicole and Richard, but during a fight with Gumball, the remote accidentally turns Gumball's parents into babies. This results in Anais being erased from existence, Darwin devolving into a normal fish and dying from lack of water, and (later) Gumball nearly dying. He taunts a distraught and enraged Gumball immediately after Darwin, his lifelong best friend, suffocates to death, and quickly causes Gumball to push Penny off the mall balcony for a second time. Then, while attempting to seal Gumball in the Void once more, he briefly contemplates turning Gumball "off" using the Universal Remote after endangering him by running away from his help (but ultimately decides against it).
    • In "The Ex," he tries to kill Banana Joe using various violent traps simply because he finds him annoying. While stalking Joe throughout the day, his murder attempts include trying to obliterate him with an exploding burger, crush him with a stack of bricks, and squash him with oil drums rolling down a road, triggered by his front door handle.
    • In "The Spinoffs," he ties up the sapient Internet and exploits him to hijack the show's broadcast and replace it with another.
    • In "The Future," he kidnaps Banana Barbara and keeps her in a dingy warehouse for over a week to decipher her prophetic paintings. When Barbara acts incompetently or speaks cryptically, Rob strangles, threatens, and abuses her, even attempting to crush her with a metal bar before stopping himself. He throws a metal bar at Banana Joe's face when he tries to rescue his mother, causing Joe's head to fold backward and him to collapse. He fights Gumball and Darwin ruthlessly using a bazooka, a crack in the floor, and a shark, all painted into reality. While fighting Gumball over Barbara's brush, he endangers everyone present by causing incisions in reality and nearly collapsing the warehouse. He also nearly erases Darwin from reality.
    • In “The Inquisition," he forced nearly the entire Elmore Junior High school staff and the children to become realistic against their will using transmutative technology, enforcing a strict, abusive rule with no tolerance for dissent. Banana Joe was forced to stand "upright," which split his normally curved body into multiple pieces. Teri was forced to erase her drawn-on face due to the prohibition of "tattoos," which caused her to accidentally puncture a hole in her ear and tear apart Anton in her resulting blindness. William, despite being an eyeball, was forced to open a door "the normal way," which involved him smashing himself against the door until eventually turning the handle by forcing his body into it, inadvertently getting himself locked in a broom closet. Alan's balloon body was contorted and forced to have a "body," and it is implied that his lower intestine is in his mouth "judging by the taste." Carrie was buried under a grave of manure due to being undead. He also brainwashed the students into enforcing his rules.
  • In terms of personality, he tends to be arrogant, controlling, entitled, and prone to deflecting responsibility. Even when his methods prove destructive or his ideas unreasonable, he shifts blame onto others. For example, in "The Disaster," after eliminating Gumball's family, he insists that Gumball has "only himself to blame," even though Rob is evidently taking out his frustrations on him due to feeling lost. Similarly, in both "The Future" and "The Inquisition," he reprimands others for not following his lead or letting him take control, despite his poor communication and counterproductive methods.
    • He can be quite hypocritical, as shown when he calls Gumball "selfish" and "insufferable" in "The Ex" despite exhibiting these same flaws himself. Ironically, he makes these accusations because Gumball ruined his trap to obliterate Banana Joe, which is itself a selfish endeavor. Moreover, in "The Disaster," he tries to condemn Gumball to the Void despite his own hatred being rooted in the same experience he is sentencing Gumball to. He is also very irritable and prone to breaking down into fits of rage over minor inconveniences.
    • While he is a villain by proxy due to being metaphysically forced into the role in order to exist, he is still callous and enjoys causing suffering, this being something he has no true excuse for. He harbored an inherently malicious grudge against him up to "The Rerun" and decided to eliminate his blameless family for no reason other than revenge for an accident he made, even if it was over a traumatic experience (being left in the Void).
      • Also, given that Rob acknowledges in "The Rerun" that he still wouldn't know what to do after eliminating Gumball, it is implied that he justifies his actions because of his trauma and resentment rather than them extending from an genuinely intrinsic truth that he must be a villain, or that getting rid of Gumball would allow him to escape his typecast - essentially, he is venting and hurting others for it. To his credit, he does end up admitting to himself that his conflict with Gumball is the only way that he personally knows how to find purpose.

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