Souvenirs de Gravity Falls

Gravity Falls is a new show on Disney Channel, and the only reason I heard about it was because of a friend I have on tumblr. While I haven't been a fan of Disney's recent...ventures, I have to say that Gravity Falls is absolutely fantastic.

Gravity Falls is about two kids, Mabel and Dipper Pines, who are currently living in one of those "middle of nowhere" towns called Gravity Falls with their uncle Stan, who appears to have a very mysterious past. Plenty of other mysteries lurk in Gravity Falls, and you, as the viewer, look to figure them out along with Dipper and Mabel. Along with dealing with their eccentric uncle, the kids also encounter the extremely snarky Wendy as well as a host of other quirky residents.

The tone of Gravity Falls's humour is very similar to Adventure Time - very strange and mostly situational, but I feel that a lot of the time the dialogue is much more clever and mature than that of Adventure Time's. The voice acting, animation and art style are also great, and the theme song of the show especially is fantastic.

What I enjoy most about this show, however, is its tone. This show is a total mystery - there's clues hidden everywhere. I'm completely enthralled with finding everything out before it's addressed in the show - mainly Stan's past.

This show is great, check it out!

Really, really, really funny. Great, real, relatable, hilarious, heartwarming characters. Bill is a great villain, and I love almost every character.

Give Gravity Falls a shot. You won't regret it.

The first dream was about a communal camaraderie. The context was faded from memory when I woke up, but the pleasantry and feeling of cohesion persisted as I rose from bed when my 90 minute alarm went off.

The second dream was about an omniscient overview of a happy couple, which might have been myself and a past or future partner. I watched them meet and with their initial locking of eyes formed an empathy so deep, clean and evergreen that they never knew conflict in the love that lasted them the rest of their lives.

The third dream was.. that which my 90 minute alarm interrupted, so most of it evaporated with the shock of the sudden journey out of that oneiric utopia, but the calming pleasantness persisted.

The show itself, so far, isn't about any of those subjects. But it is, at least in the Mabel character, about giving strangers as much chance to be good human beings as you permit yourself, and to withhold judgment as long as can be.

I shan't attempt to intellectualize it any more than that.

Now I'm not a particularly, or let's be honest, a measurably at all, passive person. My social style mostly consists of telling people what to do, because they trust that I do know. It's worked for me since I was a little prodigy, and I'm not about to change it up now.

Consequently, 100% of my dreams are about control; the happy 90% where I have it in totality. The uncomfortable 8% where I share it. And the rest; nightmares.

This sort of happy-go-lucky, passive dream was an unprecedented experience, and the most any work has ever communicated its message, I should hope, with purity and indelible truth to me.

In technical terms, I shall say Gravity Falls uses its "camera" as a storytelling tool more precisely than most, if not all other comedy and animated shows; short decisive pans/tilts define the punchline. Telephoto compression underlines the humor beneath the frenetic action of a chase sequence, and such like.

It's a very frame-by-frame kind of show, meaning each cut brings new meaning and each shot is consciously designed from the mise-en-scene (in this case, shapes, sizes, color and positioning choices) to the light to lensing choice, to precisely elicit a calibrated emotional response.

It's a most perfectly-made work of art.

But what matters even more is the beauty beneath and between the frames.

As I haven't seen the whole thing yet, and parsed its overall meaning, I rate it 9/10.

Regardless of if you have kids or not, this show is absolutely perfect. I watched this with my son and my daughter, and still even now years later, we still watch it when it comes on. You wouldn't think there's a story there when you start it, just random things happening in a small town...however, it quickly draws you into the Pine's family and the secrets of "The Mystery Shack" until it's final episode and series conclusion.

My only complaint is that they're not making anymore new episodes. Highly recommend.

There are few things I hate more on television than the Disney Channel. This factory of mediocrity has churned out "gems" like The Suite Life with Zach and Cody and the unfortunately popular Hanna Montana. The Disney Channel is a place for Uncle Walt's successors to push talentless teens out in front of the world. Said teens get a few moments of fame and the Mouse gets another few million.

Why do I make this cynical and cliché critique of the Disney Channel? Because I want to make sure every person who reads this understands how shocked and delighted I am by Gravity Falls.

Gravity Falls takes place in a remote Oregon town of the same name. It features Dipper and Mabel Pines (voiced by Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal respectively), a pair of twins, staying with their Great Uncle (or Grunkle, a term I believe needs to be used more often) Stan (voiced by show creator Alex Hirsch), a sleazy con-artist that runs a tourist trap called the Mystery Shack. Stan rips off gullible vacationers and townies with "supernatural" attractions and a less than stellar gift shop, overseen by man-child Soos (also voiced by Hirsch) and a down-to-earth slacker teenager Wendy (voiced by Linda Cardellini). It looks like a dull summer for the twins, but they soon find out that there is quite a lot of strange goings on in the little town.

This show has that right mix of humor and adventure every family program ought to have. It's written in a way that can engage people of all ages without pandering to anyone.

The voice actors were chosen masterfully, especially in Mabel Pines. I can't imagine anyone else but Schaal (who also voiced Trixie in Toy Story 3 and plays Mel in Flight of the Conchords)playing the bubbly, effervescent Mabel.

This show also features DIY voice acting from Hirsch, a seemingly common occurrence in animated shows today (Regular Show creator JG Quintel voicing Mordecai and High Five Ghost and Adventure Time creator Pen Ward voicing Lumpy Space Princess as well as a myriad of side characters). Hirsch shows quite a bit of range voicing miserly Stan and obvious Soos.

Gravity Falls is also able juxtapose the supernatural and the normal growing pains of adolescence. On a nearly weekly basis, the observant and intelligent Dipper finds a way to crack a mystery involving gnomes and crystals that change an object's size, yet he can't muster the courage to ask his crush, Wendy, on a date.

There are a lot of TV shows and movies that try so hard to reach that sweet spot where they can appeal to kids, parents and young adults, but fall painfully short. Gravity Falls, though, hits that spot brilliantly.

Like his fellow CalArts alumni Quintel and Ward, Hirsch's product is one made out of love and care and it's made clear in every episode. Most impressively, though, is that it gives me a reason to watch the Disney Channel.