Premise and plot The season revolves around the various antics of two fraternal twins,
Dipper and
Mabel Pines, who were handed over to their Great Uncle (or "Grunkle") Stan, who runs a tourist trap called The Mystery Shack, in the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. They soon realize that the town holds many secrets, and when Dipper obtains a book that he finds in the magical land he's transported to, he and Mabel find their everyday life changes. Alongside them in their antics are Soos Ramirez and Wendy Corduroy, who work for The Mystery Shack, the latter of whom Dipper has a crush on. Prior to 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". This way, the show could be readily enjoyably by children and adults alike. 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 (and was subsequently
green-lit)
Gravity Falls.
Production Hirsch explained in an interview with
The A.V. Club during production of season 1, that a typical episode is conceived in a room reserved for writers, where a simple synopsis is presented, and from then on
dramatic structure is defined, and the plot is modified to include a character-driven subplot, which Hirsch expresses 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 are created, and are given to a writer to produce an
outline, which is then subsequently checked-off by Hirsch for feedback. The writer produces a draft from these edits, where more notes may be given. Hirsch states that he and
creative director Mike Rianda may personally create a draft for themselves before a final script is produced, in which the dialogue from the draft received from the writer is majorly revised; Hirsch states 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 48 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". A script is delivered, which then gets translated into a
storyboard, where feedback is received from Hirsch to the board artists if a certain element, such as a
gag, doesn't work. Afterwards, a
pitch for the episode is given to the network, where they do a read-through, and then the episode is either checked out by the network, or retooled in the small amount of time allocated before an
animation studio must receive something to work with. ==Cast==