Gravity Falls

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Gravity Falls is an American animated television series created by animator Alex Hirsch for the Disney Channel. The series follows the adventures of Dipper Pines (voiced by Jason Ritter) and his twin sister Mabel (voiced by Kristen Schaal) in the fictional town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, while on summer vacation. In each episode, Dipper and Mabel fall in unexpected situations that involve various paranormal and supernatural creatures. The series officially premiered on the Disney Channel in the United States on June 15, 2012.

For their summer vacation, 12-year-old twins Dipper and Mabel Pines are dropped off from their home in Piedmont, California to the fictitious town of Gravity Falls, Oregon to live with their Great Uncle Stan (often shortened to Grunkle Stan). Things are not what they seem in this small town, and with the help of a mysterious journal Dipper finds in the forest they realize that their everyday lifestyle has changed. With appearances from Wendy, Dipper's crush; Soos, 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.

Tropes used in Gravity Falls include:
  • Ambiguous Gender: In Soos and the Real Girl, Soos tries flirting with an Emo-looking person outside an Edgy on Purpose store.

Soos: So, you're probably a girl, right? Wrong? No, I was right the first time. ...Wrong?

  • B-Movie: In Into the Bunker, all the low-budget movies featured on the Gravity Falls Bargain Movie Showcase. The movie shown at the start of the episode, aptly titled Nearly Almost Dead But Not Quite!, features copious amounts of Bad Bad Acting.

Announcer: Coming up next: The Widdlest Wampire, The Planet People of Planet Planet!, Help! My Mummy's a Werewolf!, Attack of the Exclamation Points!!!!!!!!, The Man with no Taste, Ghost Turtle, Help! My Mummy's a Werewolf! 2: This Again!
Dipper: You want to never watch this channel again?

  • Battle Discretion Shot: In Little Gift Shop of Horrors, at the end of the Clay Day short, the Mystery gang (and Claymation animator Claymore) watch a battle between clay figures rage on, while we the audience only see shadows.

Stan: "Stop-motion is pure evil!"
Soos: "And probably really expensive."
Claymore: "Incredibly expensive."
Soos: "This is an impressive fight, though. I'm glad I'm facing towards it."

  • Behind the Black: In Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained - Lefty, Dipper investigates a man who only shows his left side to people. And when we say 'only shows his left side', we don't mean that he wears special clothing to cover his right side; we mean he only appears from the left, moving in strange ways so as to never be viewed from any angle other than the left. An amusing gag, to be sure, but a bit of a headscratcher when you try to figure out how he could possibly avoid showing his right side in open spaces like a public park, or how he would deal with several people looking at him from different angles.
  • Brother-Sister Team: Dipper and Mabel.
  • City of Adventure: The town of Gravity Falls.
  • Claymation: Mabel's phobia.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Both Mabel and Soos, to varying degrees.
  • Confusion Fu: In The Golf War.

Franz: You call yourself a golfer? Without us, that club is useless in your hands!
Mabel: Oh yeah? What's ten minus six?
Franz: Ten minu- what- hang on...
Mabel: FORE! (Sends the tiny Franz flying)

  • Dating Sim: In Soos and the Real Girl, Soos decides to brush up on his dating skills by naively renting a game called Romance Academy 7. Right from the moment he picks it up, the show mercilessly lampoons the genre.
  • Deliberately Cute Child: Lil' Gideon.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: In Soos and the Real Girl, Giffany introduces herself as follows:

Oh, hi there! My name is Giffany. I'm a schoolgirl at School University.

Mabel: Darn! Poop heck darn!

When the cherry petals of Romance Academy are in bloom... anthyding can hadplen.
Soos: That is so true.

Soos' Grandma: I do not want to pressure you, but you are a man now. In a way. It's time for you to start meeting girls. I would like to see you settled before I ascend to heaven and leave with the angels.
Soos: And with grandpa!
Soos' Grandma: [Beat] No, he is not there. [turns gaze downward]

  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Grunkle Stan.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Averted with both Dipper's hats and Mabel's sweaters.
  • Man Child: Soos. Disney even uses that exact word to describe him.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Lil' Gideon. Mabel goes on a pity date with him, and emotionally manipulates her into accepting two more.
  • Meet Cute: In Soos and the Real Girl, Soos hits it off with a real girl named Melody, who works at a restaurant called MeatCute.
  • Mutants: In Mabel's Scrapbook: Petting Zoo, animals mutate in bizarre ways when they drink the runoff from a nearby factory. A goat is shown instantaneously developing a second head. And the featured animal, Octavia, is a cow that grew four extra legs out of its back. It also has laser vision and a giant frog-like tongue to reel in prey.
  • Nice Hat: Grunkle Stan really seems to like his fez.
  • No Pronunciation Guide: Parodied in Soos and the Real Girl. Giffany's name is alternately pronounced "Giffany" with a hard G, or "Jiffany". This is a reference to the .gif file type, and how people cannot agree on whether it's pronounced "Giff" or "Jiff".
  • Precocious Crush: Dipper has one on Wendy, the 15-year old girl who works at The Mystery Shack.
  • Pungeon Master: Mabel.

Mabel: Hah! YOU'RE over Wendy?! Allow me to put on my 'skepticles'. (Makes circles around her eyes with her fingers) Whooop!

Soos: Isn't electric clothing kinda like a fire hazard?
Mabel: No. It's a fun hazard.

Mabel: Don't worry, bro! You're still... (slaps a sticker with a dinosaur on his cheek) ...Ext-roar-dinary!

Stan: "You see, Mabel, those monsters are just tiny clay figures moved around one frame at a time by an antisocial shut-in."
Soos: "Those people are called animators."

  • Special Effects Failure:
    • Copious amounts of terrible chroma-keying feature in Grunkle Stan's advertisement for the Mystery Shack, and in the Fixin' It With Soos shorts.
    • The Fixin' It With Soos shorts also have free-trial watermarks in the intro.
  • Sweet Tooth: This is Mabel's third most prominent idiosyncrasy (behind being a Genki Girl and Cloudcuckoolander. She's even shown consuming raw sugar packets.
  • Write What You Know: Alex Hirsch based the series on the childhood summers he and his twin sister spent camping with their great-aunt.
  • Write Who You Know: Mabel was named after and heavily inspired by Hirsch's sister. One example is that Mabel Hirsch wanted a pet pig when she was a kid, so Alex gave Mabel a pet pig in the show.
  • Yandere: Giffany from Soos and the Real Girl is a stereotypical instance of one.
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