Benjamin Bocquelet, known as Ben Bocquelet, is a French-British animator, director, writer, and producer. He is the creator of The Amazing World of Gumball. He was also the director of a short film called The Hell's Kitchen in 2003. When Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe was created in 2007, Bocquelet was hired in order to help people pitch their projects to Cartoon Network after dismissal of Nickelodeon and Jetix subdivisions of Europe. However, when the studio decided to have its employees all pitch their own ideas, he decided to take some of the rejected characters he had created for commercials and put them all in one series, with a school setting. Daniel Lennard, the Vice President of Original Series and Development at Turner Broadcasting Systems UK, likedthe idea and the series was ultimately greenlit.
Career
''The Amazing World of Gumball''
After leaving Studio AKA, the creative director at the studio encouraged Bocquelet to join the new Cartoon Network studio in London, Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe. He received a job there helping other people pitch their ideas to Cartoon Network, and came up with his own idea while doing so. He pitched his idea to the producers. His idea was a show called Gumball about reject cartoon characters attending a remedial school, but producers felt this concept was too sad. He then revised this idea and made it more cheery, taking on the structure of a family sitcom. The producers liked this idea, and work went underway for what would become The Amazing World of Gumball. He named some characters after his relatives. The Wattersons themselves were named after the author of the comic Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson. On 6 September 2016, Bocquelet revealed that he was departing from the show after the completion of Season 6, but production would continue. However, on 7 October 2018, he retweeted that the show would end after the sixth season, though the author of the article made a follow-up article saying that more seasons are still possible.
