Gonna post some stuff that could have been
(Part 1)
>There was going to be an episode based on the David Bowie film Labyrinth. Mabel would love the film, but Dipper would hate it due to a fear of puppets. Dipper wouldn't admit to being afraid of the puppet; he would just call it dumb. Mabel would summon the Goblins to take Dipper away so she could watch the film. The Goblins would come out of the film take Dipper to the Labyrinth. The Goblin King would try to get Mabel to go through the labyrinth to find Dipper, but Mabel would instead want to spend time with the Goblin King. The episode would end with Dipper admitting his fear of puppets. The episode wasn't made because the studio execs didn't think the audience would get the reference, but they still managed to sneak a Labyrinth reference into one of the "Mabel's Guide to Life" shorts (where Mabel, Grenda and Candy dress Soos up as the Goblin King for one of their "flash makeovers").
>"Sweater Off Dead" would've been about Mabel finding a sweater at a swap meet that was haunted by the ghost of the old lady who'd died wearing it who possesses her. This would lead to the gang getting trapped inside the Mystery Shack where they'd have to perform a sweater exorcism on her using knitting needles. While the episode never came to be, Hirsch liked the image of Mabel being possessed Exorcist-style which lead to the idea being used in "The Inconveniencing".
>"Jimmy Snakes" would've been about an old biker friend of Stan's coming to town, who has a Ghost Rider-esque curse. You can see Stan's old biker helmet in his room in Scary-oke, which was meant to be a hint towards this episode.
>One second season episode was to have Waddles catch a severe illness with Mabel being forced to visit Gideon in jail as he was the one with the antidote.
Gravity Falls Unused Episodes and Trivia
(Part 2)
>The reason why Wendy never got a full-fledged episode of her own was because the crew never felt like any idea they came up with for a Wendy episode would gel well with her personality. One such episode would've focused on her home life where she would somehow gain weather controlling powers. The episode was very close to being produced before Hirsch scrapped it to write the episode that ultimately became "The Last Mabelcorn" in just two days (which explains why he's the sole writer of that episode).
>One unused episode, turned into an unused page of Journal 3, was about Dipper and Mabel selling Stan merchandise door-to-door after Grunkle Stan ordered too many bobbleheads. One of the people interested in buying the bobbleheads is a mysterious doll collector who wants to make Dipper and Mabel part of her collection, having already done so with Gideon.
>Hirsch described another Wendy/Stan B-plot pitch that never came to fruition at the Amazing Houston Comic Con, where Wendy was threatened by her dad to avoid trouble, before she goes on a museum heist with Stan.
>Hirsch wanted Bob Odenkirk to play Stan but he turned the offer down.
>Hirsch wanted David Lynch to play Bill Cipher, but he declined. Alex later said that it turned out to be a blessing, because not having to work around his schedule allowed them to turn Bill into the Big Bad.
>Danny DeVito turned down a role.
>Hirsch really wanted David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson (Mulder and Scully) to have a role on the show but they were too busy.
>In the storyboards for "The Love God", the Love God originally hooked the old lady up with another old lady. His necklace also originally included the symbol for transgender/genderqueer as well as the traditional male and female symbols.
(Part 3)
>In an interview, Hirsch revealed that Bill Cipher was originally meant to play a much smaller role in the series, playing a comic relief role by merely invading Dipper's dreams and yelling conspiracy theories at him just to annoy him.
>The Stinger for "Little Gift Shop of Horrors" was originally going to involve a Twist Ending where the viewer was actually M. Night Shyamalan, but they were unable to get the director to agree to the joke.
>In the original script for "Weirdmageddon Part II", Dipper kills Dippy Fresh by snapping his neck onscreen in a rather graphic manner.
>In the pilot, Journal 3 is instead a book titled "Dr. Crackpot's Index of the Damned".
>Gideon's hair was originally going to be revealed to be a wig concealing his parasitic, half-formed conjoined twin brother.
>It was considered early on for the show to go for three seasons, but Hirsch was so exhausted that by mid-season 1, he knew it wouldn't go any longer than two. The first season was actually so exhausting that Hirsch seriously considered ending the show there, cliffhanger and all. He credits Jon Stewart with convincing him to give the story a proper ending.
>The original ending to "Blendin’s Game" had Dipper and Mabel use the time wish to bring Soos’s son from the future to meet his father and let him know that he grows up to be an amazing dad.
>There was going to be a scene that showed just how Gideon found Journal 2. He found it while playing in the woods by himself.
>A Gravity Falls film was, at one point, being considered, but Hirsch ultimately decided against it when he was told it would only be a TV movie, instead of a theatrical release.
>Bill Cipher was originally going to be green, but Hirsch changed him to yellow because he thought he looked too much like a leaf.
(Part 4)
>According to the commentary for "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", Mabel was going to find out she couldn't bring Waddles back home with her, further fueling Mabel's heartbreak about the future.
>Old Man McGucket's name was going to be "Crazy Larry", but it was changed because the word "Crazy" was deemed offensive.
>Neil Cicierega composed two unused themes for the show, and an unused Villain Song for Bill cut from "Weirdmageddon Part 1".
>The phrase "Search for the Blind Eye", Arc Words that were teased between the Season 1 and 2 hiatus. Hirsch threw it in because he thought it sounded cool, then had to figure out what it meant later.
>The journals and their respective owners were not even conceived until the production of the fourth episode.
>Hirsch admits that during production of the pilot, the writers had no idea what was behind Stan's vending machine.
>The wheel of symbols surrounding Bill in the opening credits had no meaning upon conception.
>Before Old Man McGucket was revealed to be The Author's old lab assistant, he was originally just meant to be a one-off character.
>By the time the first season wrapped, Hirsch was so exhausted that he seriously considered ending the show right there, leaving it forever on an incredibly tantalizing Cliffhanger. It wasn't until he shared his plans with Jon Stewart, a huge fan who was horrified at the idea, that he decided to press on for another season.
Thoughts?
GF characters' political alignments according to Hirsch
>Hirsch threw it in because he thought it sounded cool, then had to figure out what it meant later.
Same with a lot of the overarching mystery, really.
>next few lines of trivia
Oh yeah, there you go.
>>A Gravity Falls film was, at one point, being considered, but Hirsch ultimately decided against it when he was told it would only be a TV movie, instead of a theatrical release.
Why, if you were getting burnt out by season 1, would you turn down a movie for being too small?
>>The reason why Wendy never got a full-fledged episode of her own was because the crew never felt like any idea they came up with for a Wendy episode would gel well with her personality. One such episode would've focused on her home life where she would somehow gain weather controlling powers. The episode was very close to being produced before Hirsch scrapped it to write the episode that ultimately became "The Last Mabelcorn" in just two days (which explains why he's the sole writer of that episode).
And here I thought I couldn't like the man less. Ditched the one chance to flesh out a non-character to write more Mabel-wank.
I'm seeing a lot of "one-off character becomes popular so he listens to fan wankery and includes them in his deepest lore" in here. Usually a sign of weak writing. Surprised there was no Pacifica Trivia, she was one such character that was brought back.
>Dipper is confirmed to have made a Sonic OC somewhere in his past: His name is ShadowTail the InvestiGerbil, and apparently he has a magnifying glass for a hand.
>Make hoax
>Upload to Zig Forums
>Post angry tweet about "leak"
>Delete tweet
>Let internet do rest
>By the time the first season wrapped, Hirsch was so exhausted that he seriously considered ending the show right there, leaving it forever on an incredibly tantalizing Cliffhanger. It wasn't until he shared his plans with Jon Stewart, a huge fan who was horrified at the idea, that he decided to press on for another season.
He finally got his shot at a cable tv show made by the house of mouse, then almost threw it all in the garbage? What a bitch.
All this tells me is that Hirsch's success is thanks to smoke and mirrors and he's not actually this mega talented comedic genius other people in the industry make him out to be. The fact that he throws in mysteries without knowing how it's going to resolve, giving characters bigger roles because they're favorites rather than if it's because they're good for the story, wanting to quit because he got tired. These aren't the signs of a talented writer, just a dude who got in good when Disney Channel was at its lowest point.
>smoke and mirrors
Appropriate for a mystery show. I don't think he could have had anywhere near as much success if it weren't the genre.
>He finally got his shot at a cable tv show made by the house of mouse, then almost threw it all in the garbage?
According to IMDB, he's only had bit work since 2016. He fucked up real bad.
>smoke and mirrors
>Appropriate for a mystery show.
Well, you got me there.
Foreshadowing moments throughout the show
(Part 1)
>Many of the weird things found in the Shack that are actually real and work have to do with duality. A cloning copy machine, a body-swap carpet, they're all about two different bodies: the cloning copy machine makes two or more clones, the body-swap carpet needs two bodies to work... The show even finds sneaky ways to place two Stans in one panel, and during most of these scenes, he feels misery.
>In "The Legend of the Gobblewonker", we see that Stan's license plate reads "STNLYMBL" ("Stanley Mobile"), despite his name being Stanford. Turns out his real name is Stanley.
>In "Headhunters", Stan becomes obsessed with the wax duplicate of himself Mabel made and is distraught when he's "killed". At the time, it just seems like a joke about his huge ego. Alex Hirsch later pointed out in an interview how having a life-sized model of someone who looked like him, who was then 'killed', would mess with Stan's head. Notably, Stan was terribly startled once he walked in on the newly-finished Wax Stan. He certainly hadn't expected to find a nearly identical copy of himself back in the Shack.
>Why doesn't Stan believe Gideon has psychic powers? Because Gideon keeps addressing him as 'Stanford'. If Gideon had powers, he would've known that this was not Stan's real name.
>In "The Inconveniencing", if the backwards-talking dog's speech is played in reverse it sounds like it's saying "Must distrust Grunkle."
>In "Double Dipper", Stan appears ignorant of the magical properties surrounding the Mystery Shack's copier, because he used it before.
>In "Carpet Diem", Stan once again demonstrates ignorance of the supernatural artifacts within the Shack. He also discovers a pair of glasses in a sealed-off room he may not even have known existed, which he quickly swipes. He can later be seen remorsefully staring at the glasses, as though in mourning.
(Part 2)
>In "Little Gift Shop of Horrors", Stan makes up a story which is about Waddles becoming a super-genius and eventually abandoning his project to stay with Mabel. An accurate idea of what Stan wanted to happen with his brother a long time ago.
>The top of the Mystery Shack Totem Pole depicts not the Thunderbird, but Kolus, the Thunderbird's similar younger brother who often imitates his older brother. The real Thunderbird is seen in the basement right in the room that Stan's brother returns into.
>During "The Time Traveler's Pig", Mabel and Dipper quickly flash past a Mystery Shack covered in snow, while a younger Stan looks out in confusion at the sudden noise. However, a fair number of people later compared this version of Stan with ones we saw from his memories and pointed out that there were some subtle differences in appearance... a hint to the fact that while this was *a* Stan, it wasn't the same one.
>In "Dreamscaperers", we get a flashback of a child Stan fighting in a boxing ring. A bunch of people are watching from the bleachers, including, a boy with the Pines hair tuft, face buried in a book, and his hand hidden in a boxing glove.
>One of the landscapes that flashes on Blendin's suit in "Blendin's Game" is the shore of New Jersey
>In "The Stanchurian Candidate," we see Ford flipping through one of the journals, and for a second a ripped out page is visible. It's likely the same single page Gideon kept with him while locked up in prison that listed the mind control spell, seen later in the same episode.
>Throughout the series, Stan is associated with fire and heat and every effigy of him is destroyed in such a way; the wax statue of him in "Headhunters" is melted, the puppet of him in "Sock Opera" is destroyed by Mabel's pyrotechnics, and the balloon of him in "The Love God" catches fire. In the climax of "Weirdmageddon Part 3: Take Back the Falls", after Stan punches Bill to pieces, his mindscape is engulfed in blue fire.
(Part 3)
>In "The Stanchurian Candidate", Mabel compliments Ford by telling him he has the face of a hero
>Due to his close friendship with Justin Roiland, Alex Hirsch managed to get foreshadowing into Rick and Morty. In the episode "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind", while in a field with several portals on a cliff wall, a pen, a notepad, and a mug with the Mystery Shack's question mark randomly fall out of one portal and into another. This foreshadowed Grunkle Stan losing those objects to a portal in "Society of the Blind Eye", which wouldn't air for another 6 months.
So what was your favorite piece of foreshadowing?
>Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty, and The Owl House (and maybe South Park) are implied to be set in the same multiverse
For as much griping about the way GF turned out, it looks like we were lucky to have gotten what we did.
Have you heard the fan theory that the demon rat thing on Owl House is a redeemed Bill Cipher?
My guess is that Dipper is a more toned down version of Mabel here
I personally believe Bill reincarnated into Stan
You took all that from TV Tropes, fuck off.
Someone should post the Nightmare Fuel page, I had a good laugh from that
>>Hirsch wanted David Lynch to play Bill Cipher, but he declined. Alex later said that it turned out to be a blessing, because not having to work around his schedule allowed them to turn Bill into the Big Bad.
Who was the original Big Bad?
>Mabel would summon the Goblins to take Dipper away so she could watch the film.
why can mabel summon goblins
Ford still wants Reagan to get a rerun probably
This shit's just dumb. I hate it when they come up with this dumbass multiverse theory to justify references.
because she is one
>Making political alignments for children
Cum goblin
>Ditched the one chance to flesh out a non-character to write more Mabel-wank.
The problem was Wendy has so little screen time/personality that it wouldn't make sense to focus on her this late in the show. The opportunity was missed in season 1.
>I'm seeing a lot of "one-off character becomes popular so he listens to fan wankery and includes them in his deepest lore" in here.
Because he hadn't figured out the lore, so he used it as an excuse to bring back popular characters.
>The episode was very close to being produced before Hirsch scrapped it to write the episode that ultimately became "The Last Mabelcorn" in just two days (which explains why he's the sole writer of that episode).
What a shitty episode