Richard Watterson

Richard Buckley Watterson is one of the main characters in The Amazing World of Gumball. He serves the role of the father in the Watterson family. Unlike the traditional father, however, Richard is not wise, nor is he a good role model for his children in any way. Despite his misguided advice and uncouth mannerisms, Richard has good intentions and loves his family all the same.

Appearance
Richard has a similar appearance to his daughter, Anais. They are both pink rabbits, but whilst Anais is very small, Richard is overweight. He has short, black whiskers on both sides of his face and unusually long eyelashes. It was revealed in The Stars that Richard is bald.

Even though he is unemployed, Richard is almost always seen wearing a work uniform; this consists of a buttoned-up white polo shirt, rolled up light brown pants and a dark grey clip-on tie. His lower torso is big enough to cast a shadow on the upper area of his leg. As his wife and son, Richard goes around barefoot. Oddly, though, when he is in his sleepwear, he wears brown slippers. He also wears a brown sleep robe. His tongue is red.

In Season 2, his appearance changes slightly. The shadow under his belly becomes much lighter, his eyes and overall body become a little rounder, and like Anais his ears are shorter than they were in Season 1. Also, his tongue was changed from red to light pink, and the inside of his mouth is pink as well, as his son, Gumball, and has a pink nose, as his wife, Nicole. Also, he is a lighter pink than the last season, and his lower teeth are shown when he is talking, but in Season 1, his lower teeth are shown just when he yells.

From Season 3 to now, Richard's eyes are permanently round like the rest of his family. However, he can sometimes be seen with his regular oval eyes. As of "The Kids," it is revealed that Richard has ice blue eyes.

When Gumball was a toddler, Richard wore an outfit based on the grunge fashion of the 1990's. This outfit consists of a red-and-black plaid shirt with white sleeves, a black t-shirt with a yellow smiley face on it (referencing the Nirvana smiley face T-shirt), and ripped blue-gray jeans. He also had stubble on his upper lip and chin.

As seen in The Choices, in his early adolescence, Richard had freckles, and wore a yellow jacket over a green sweatshirt, with blue jeans and a red and white hat with a blue heart on the front.

Personality
Richard is the father figure in the Watterson family but doesn't seem to possess any responsibility or common sense. He is very childlike and lazy and is not a good role model for his children either. However, Richard genuinely loves his family, and has good intentions, despite his severe lack of intelligence and maturity as seen especially in "The Prank" and "The Authority."

He also greatly enjoys eating, especially when it comes to sausages. As a result, he is overweight. His obsession with food can sometimes be his undoing, such as when he was supposed to help his wife in "The Spoon," but he ends up licking a sausage on the floor instead. He can also sense when there is toast nearby, as seen in "The Recipe." Due to his continuous hunger, he gained an instinctive-like nature, as seen in the "The Game" and many other episodes, where he runs toward any food he sees.

Richard is very childlike and has been seen exhibiting childish behaviors in several episodes. His tactics include believing ghosts, joining in some of Gumball's misadventures, believing in Santa, and many others. He also has a very hypocritical sense of humor. He enjoys pulling pranks and laughing at people, but hates it when others prank or laugh at him, saying that "it's only funny when it happens to someone else."

The motive for Richard's personality was shown in "The Authority," where it was revealed that Granny Jojo sheltered Richard his entire life, leading him to grow up as an unintelligent and lazy person. In "The Man," it was revealed that Richard's father walked out on him when he was young, claiming he was going out to buy some milk. Richard still believed it out of denial, even into his adult life.

Despite his incompetency and childness, Richard can occasionaly spout out some good advice. In "The Gift," he was the one telling his sons to give Masami friendship (which they later did), and he manages to tell Nicole some very good, philosophical advice about life. It is also possible that Richard has a sufficiently sized brain, just he neglects to use it. As seen in "The Fuss" when he tried to think, a large cramping mass was seen making his veins stand out on his head, and grew rapidly in size.

Abilities
Despite being incapable in most situations, Richard has a few skills of his own, such as being able to run very fast despite his weight, and speaking Spanish fluently as shown in "The Remote."

Richard appears to be quite handy, as shown in "The Car," when he rebuilt the Robinson's car, albeit leaving it extremely fragile, and is seen using tools frequently in the show.

Richard is also shown to be a terrible driver in "The End," when he had trouble driving the car off as he did not disengage the handbrake. After disengaging the handbrake (with the help of Gumball), he set the gear to reverse, hence crashing into the Robinsons' car. When he finally set the car to the correct gear (with the help of Gumball again), he crashed again. In "The Bumpkin," Richard went every other place in Elmore but Idaho's home in an emergency.

In "The Man," Richard is shown to be able to play the guitar, as in the flashback, when he plays a serenade to Nicole.

Richard has shown that, despite his weight, he is significantly strong. This is shown in "The Prank," when he was able to break through their house walls, despite breaking a few ribs, yet, somehow endured it. This was seen again in "The Remote," where he was able to rip the door to their station wagon's driver seat right off its hinges. It happens again in "The Flakers," when he broke the bathroom mirror just by doing nothing more than throwing a bar of soap at it, and once more in "The Return," when he broke several windows just by punching them with presumably little or no effort.