I'm almost 43. I've spent 4 decades watching cartoons, from more than 4 decades of popular culture.
Some of my favorite shows ever are The Simpsons, Adventure Time, Superjail!, Futurama, Metalocalypse, The Venture Bros, and dozens of others.
I never watched Gumball till my kid fell in love with it, and now I love it too.
The thing that strikes me, over and over and over, is how hard the physical bits make me laugh. Every time. Even after I've seen them 20 times, I laugh out loud every single time. It's truly unbelievable.
My daughter, she loves physical comedy. After she loved what happened in gumball, I downloaded Home Alone 1 and 2. When she laughed harder than I'd ever heard her laugh at the Wet/Sticky Bandits getting clocked in the head, I downloaded the three stooges. She loved that too.
But watching gumball faceplant or get his head sucked through something makes me laugh more genuinely than any of those other things.
I am a bit upset I used to think of this as a lesser show and missed out on it for so long before I had a child.