Like the best cartoons ostensibly made for kids, it doesn’t underestimate its audience, what it might understand or can handle. Many “Gumball” episodes devolve into a sort of authentically disturbing horror movie. .... It also demonstrates an adult skepticism about the world that might profitably infect young minds. There are critiques of capitalism, consumerism and online culture.

I’m happy to report that the new Gumball—whatever title you want to call it—is just as cheeky, clever, and fascinated with rear ends as it used to be. .... What ensues is a comedic melodrama about body positivity that’s also a pitch-perfect parody of any earnest “very special episode” with a moral at the end.

The gloriously anarchic Hulu series, which is actually a continuation of Cartoon Network's The Amazing World of Gumball, whose six-season run ended in 2019, plunges its imaginatively motley crew of characters into often heightened situations that are dazzling in their freneticness.