Gravity Falls
Gravity Falls is an American animated mystery comedy television series created by Alex Hirsch for Disney Channel and Disney XD. The series follows the adventures of Dipper Pines and his twin sister Mabel, who are sent to spend the summer with their great-uncle Stan in Gravity Falls, Oregon, a mysterious town rife with paranormal incidents and supernatural creatures. The kids help Stan run the "Mystery Shack", the tourist trap that he owns, while also investigating the local mysteries.
The series premiered on June 15, 2012, and ran until February 15, 2016. On November 20, 2015, Hirsch announced that the series would conclude with its second season, stating that this was "100% choice" and that "the show isn't being cancelled – it's being finished" and was reaching its intended conclusion. The series ended on February 15, 2016, with a one-hour finale, "Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls". Hirsch later stated that he remains open to continuing the series with additional episodes or specials, with the story continued in written form with the 2016 replica of Journal 3, the 2018 graphic novel Gravity Falls: Lost Legends and the 2024 teen-oriented novel The Book of Bill.
Gravity Falls received critical acclaim for its writing, characters, voice acting, animation, and humor. Additionally, the series won two Emmy Awards, three Annie Awards, and a BAFTA Children's Award, among various other wins and nominations. Gravity Falls garnered high viewership amongst children, teenagers, and young adults during its run and was Disney XD's highest-rated show in 2015 and early 2016, while also setting several ratings records for the network. The series has attracted a broad and passionate fandom, is considered to be an influence for many animated shows that followed it, and spawned a variety of official merchandise.
Premise
For their summer vacation, 12-year-old twin siblings Dipper and Mabel Pines are dropped off from their home in Piedmont, California to the fictitious town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, to spend the summer with their great uncle Stan Pines, who runs a tourist trap called the "Mystery Shack". Soon after they arrive in Gravity Falls, Dipper accidentally uncovers a mysterious journal that details many different paranormal or mythical creatures that live in the town. With Wendy Corduroy, Mystery Shack cashier; Soos Ramirez, a friend of Dipper and Mabel and handyman to Grunkle Stan; plus an assortment of other characters, Dipper and Mabel always have an intriguing day to look forward to.Episodes
Main seriesShorts
'''Other specials'''
Voice cast
- Jason Ritter as Dipper Pines, the 12-year-old twin brother of Mabel Pines and the straight man to his sister's antics.
- Kristen Schaal as Mabel Pines, the 12-year-old hyperactive and fun-loving twin sister of Dipper Pines.
- Alex Hirsch as:
- * Stanley Pines, the greedy, grumpy, yet loving great-uncle of Dipper and Mabel Pines and owner and manager of the Mystery Shack.
- * Jesus "Soos" Ramirez, the 22-year-old handyman at the Mystery Shack.
- * Bill Cipher, an interdimensional demon that can be summoned and released into a person's mind. He resembles a one-eyed yellow triangle superficially similar to the Eye of Providence and wears a top hat and a bow tie. He serves as the main antagonist of the series.
- Linda Cardellini as Wendy Corduroy, a tomboyish 15-year-old part-time cashier at the Mystery Shack and Dipper’s unrequited crush.
- J. K. Simmons as Stanford Pines, Stanley's six-fingered long-lost older identical twin brother and the author of the journals.
Production
Conception
Before working on the series, series creator Alex Hirsch's primary inspiration growing up was the popular animated sitcom The Simpsons, where he observed that "animation could be funnier than live-action. That animation didn't have to just be for kids. That it could be satirical and observational and grounded in a sense of character interaction". Hirsch graduated from the California Institute of the Arts, and was hired to work as writer and storyboard artist for the Cartoon Network series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, where he was paired up with Pendleton Ward, the creator of Adventure Time. Afterwards, he moved on to co-develop the Disney Channel animated series Fish Hooks, shortly before he pitched Gravity Falls, which was subsequently green-lit.Hirsch said he was at the California Institute of the Arts when he turned down DreamWorks Animation executive Jeffrey Katzenberg out of a desire to work for Disney. He first developed the concept for the show in an 11-minute low-budget student film that he made at the institute. Hirsch was called in to do a pitch for Disney Channel for a show based on the short pilot. Disney Channel bought the idea and the series premiered on June 15, 2012.
The series was inspired by Hirsch's own childhood experiences and his relationship with his own twin sister growing up during their summer vacations, such as roadside attractions including the Mystery Spot and Oregon Vortex, and a road sign for a town named Boring. He inserted many of his real-life experiences in the show, such as living in Piedmont, California, and trick-or-treating with his sister as kids. Dipper is based on Hirsch's memory of how it felt to be a kid. When Hirsch was around Dipper's age, he "would record self and play it backwards and try to learn to speak backwards". Hirsch described himself as "that neurotic kid who would carry 16 disposable cameras everywhere I went". Mabel Pines was inspired by his twin sister, Ariel Hirsch. According to Alex Hirsch, just like Mabel, his sister "really did wear wacky sweaters and have a different ridiculous crush, every week." In the series, Mabel gets a pet pig, just like his sister had always wanted when she was a kid. Grunkle Stan was inspired by Hirsch's grandfather Stan, who according to Hirsch "was a guy that told tall tales and would frequently mess with us to get a rise out of us. So, my family really inspired the characters on the show."
Writing
In an interview with Oh My Disney, Hirsch claimed he already had the beginning, middle, and end of the story for Gravity Falls planned out when he first pitched the series. He originally thought the series would "be two or three seasons". However, Hirsch had never created a TV series before and after experiencing how "incredibly draining" it was, he initially wanted to end the series after season one and, ultimately, on a cliffhanger. After the series premiered and became a huge commercial success, Hirsch began to rethink his decision. Two people convinced him to return and do a second season: Jon Stewart, the former host of The Daily Show, who told Hirsch that his kids loved the show, and Patrick McHale, who created the animated series Over the Garden Wall. McHale had been watching the series and told him: "Look, after that cliffhanger, you've got to finish it." Hirsch decided that he had about ten more episodes left in him, so he went to the network, who said, "We only take seasons in twenties". So he said, "Okay, one more season, … Before we started the season, it said in my contract, before I put pen to paper, that this is my last season." The studio agreed, under the condition that Hirsch could not tell anyone. As a result, Jason Ritter, who voices Dipper, did not know the series was ending until after he read the finale script, claiming that "when I read the finale I thought, this feels like, not just the season finale. It feels like a series finale."Hirsch explained in an interview with The A.V. Club that during the production of season one, a typical episode was conceived in a room reserved for writers, where a simple synopsis was presented, and from then on dramatic structure was defined, and the plot was modified to include a character-driven subplot, which Hirsch expressed as "the hardest thing... to find a character story that actually uncovers, explores, or pushes tension—on something our characters care about—that is properly explored via the magic or monster or impossibility of the week."
B- and A-stories were created and were given to a writer to produce an outline, which was then subsequently checked-off by Hirsch for feedback. The writer produced a draft from these edits, where more notes may have been given. Hirsch stated that he and creative director Mike Rianda may have personally created a draft for themselves before a final script was produced, in which the dialogue from the draft received from the writer was significantly revised; Hirsch stated that the revising process "is not a discredit to our writers—it's just we have a very particular vision. In particular, I usually rewrite almost all of Dipper's dialogue and most of Mabel's dialogue, just because I have them in my head. Me and Mike will stay up for about 24 hours prior to the delivery of every script. We'll take the weekend, we'll work all night, we'll drink Red Bull, we'll sleep on the couch in shifts like maniacs, we'll slap each other in the face."