With the finale episode of ‘Gravity Falls' our job as storytellers is to finish all the things we've started.
— Alex Hirsch
I tended toward animated material that wasn't just for kids. I could tell as a kid watching those shows that I loved the jokes that I got but I also loved the jokes I didn't get because I felt that I was hanging out with a smarter, cooler audience.
Gravity Falls' didn't just appear overnight - every spooky cave and moss covered tree was created by a team of brilliant artists.
I always designed 'Gravity Falls' to be a finite series about one epic summer-a series with a beginning, middle, and end.
I think there are a lot of shows out there that value being hip or cool over being funny and heartfelt.
Animation's a small industry, and no matter where you go you're going to meet your friends from CalArts.
We passed a sign for Boring, Oregon. We never went there, but I was positively enchanted with the idea that there was a town called Boring. 'Gravity Falls' is partially from what I imagine Boring might be like. Or maybe the opposite of Boring, Oregon, would be 'Gravity Falls.'
I remember as a kid being scared of the things that go bump in the night, but I was way more scared of adults.
Everyone has days where they don't get their way, where you have to go to bed early or you have too much homework to do or you can't eat the candy that you want or you miss your favorite TV show and, in those moments, you just want to tear the whole world down.
I think twins can sometimes be shoved into the same mold and they can start to feel like they're not being given a chance to develop their own identities.
A lot of kid characters you see on TV are sassy, and snarky, and think they're just the coolest kids in the world, and are mean spirited.
While everyone was out playing dodgeball, I was lying on the blacktop waiting for a UFO to take me out of elementary school.
Gravity Falls' is a riddle wrapped in an enigma tucked in a mystery deep-fried in a conundrum slathered in hickory-smoked puzzle sauce.
I never doubted that if I applied myself and tried to learn that I would good at it. I've had a lot of lucky turns, no doubt. But it's actually been a fairly direct line from control-freak, cartoon-obsessed kindergartner to control-freak, cartoon-obsessed executive producer.
The more a character wants and the less a character has the ability to get what they want, the more you have an endless fuel for storytelling in comedy.
One thing that's a lot harder to put into stories than you'd think is the idea of a traditional monster, because monsters with a capital 'M' don't inherently lend themselves to a story about your character. Unless one of your characters is themselves the monster, simply having a monster leads to a chase or a hunt.
Gravity Falls' is a very hard show to produce.
Not a lot of people get to say, ‘I'm a cartoon character.'
When you're drawing from observation and experience, whether you intend to or not, you'll create a more relatable cartoon.
The fact that childhood ends is exactly what makes it so precious - and why you should cherish it while it lasts.
I feel like the best kids shows aren't just for kids.
I spent many years of my childhood pondering the great mysteries like, 'Are aliens real?' and 'Why won't girls talk to me?'
You don't have to sugar coat things for kids. If you make something for them with intelligence they will show that intelligence in ways that will sometimes shock you.
When you write scripts, it begins to feel like you're living in them.
Cliffhangers are a lot of fun, but I think they can be easily abused if you're not careful.
A sibling is a friend for life, but they are a friend for life that you are forced to have. And like anything that you are forced to do, occasionally people will drive you crazy.
I will say this: 'Gravity Falls' is a show about mystery, that itch you get when you're curious. That itself is a really cool, inspiring thing.
When I was a kid, back in the days before cell phone cameras, I had disposable cameras I took a lot of pictures with and I just remember something always went wrong.
To see where I've stolen all my ideas from, look no further than the comics at your local comic shop!
I went to art school for four years to learn a very expensive lesson - that there are many other artists who are way better than me.
I watched the classics as a kid, and I could tell that Bugs Bunny in drag was a cartoon and a joke. It didn't make me start dressing in drag.
The puberty train came late to the station for me. I was the shortest kid in my sixth-grade class - they made me pose for the yearbook with the tallest kid for comedic contrast.
It's weird because we live in this age of reboots. Everything is getting rebooted: 'The X-Files,' 'Twin Peaks.' We have shows like 'Gravity Falls' that were inspired by these shows, that are now ending and being followed up by reboots of the shows that inspired them.
A lot of the fun of 'Gravity Falls' comes from the secrecy surrounding the plot. We want fans to be able to guess and speculate, to be surprised by twists and be engaged when they get things right.
I think good kids TV has got to have layers. It has to have compelling characters that everyone loves, but you can't dumb it down.
Endings are scary and foreign. They split you up emotionally and put you in a place where you don't know what's going to happen next. But with every end of the world, there is a new world that follows.
There are so many shows that go on endlessly until they lose their original spark, or mysteries that are cancelled before they ever get a chance to payoff.
When I was 15 I did birdcalls on the David Letterman show, but I have since burned all video evidence of this.
My mom is always right.
I personally went canvassing door to door in a local race when I was in high school and thought it was kind of hilarious how worked up people got over such small stakes elections.
When I was 12 years old, I was obsessed with codes, conspiracies, and secret messages.
Gravity Falls' is a show about mysteries and magic but first and foremost it's a show about characters.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with UFOs in particular, and the paranormal.
One of the nice things about not working on a TV show anymore is that I'm not on any particular kind of clock.
I was obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster, I would look through these books in the library and dream about visiting Loch Ness one day… That stuff was really kind of what I loved as a kid.
As a kid, I was obsessed with 'Calvin and Hobbes' and 'Bone,' and I'm certain that I've unconsciously ripped off ideas from both, wholesale.
When I was about 7 years old, I built a leprechaun trap out of a cardboard box, a biscuit tin and some toilet paper tubes.
I've never pitched a joke that I wouldn't be comfortable seeing in a Pixar film.
Cute animals have a pretty good track record in animation for inspiring passionate fandom.
Gravity Falls' has so much inspiration that comes from 'Twin Peaks,' the idea of Agent Cooper being the one to drive Dipper and Mabel home made me feel like, yeah, they're going to be all right.
