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This summer, kids around the world will travel to unfamiliar places in search of adventure—whether it’s an unexplored corner of the backyard or the woods of a state or a country hundreds of miles away. This is an experience animator Alex Hirsch is familiar with; he spent many childhood summers with his twin sister visiting relatives in the Northwestern woods. Hirsch’s adventures, both real and imagined, are the inspiration behind his new Disney Channel series, Gravity Falls, which premiers June 29 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time with two episodes.
The animated comedy series centers on twins Dipper and Mabel Pines (voiced by Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal). They’re city kids who are forced to stay with their great uncle for the summer in the mysterious, remote town of Gravity Falls. It’s a place “just west of weird,” where nothing is what it seems. Recently, TFK chatted with Hirsch about how his childhood inspired the series—and why viewers should watch the show with a magnifying glass.
TFK:
Your childhood was a big inspiration for the series. Can you talk about that?
HIRSCH:
At the core of the show is a kid [Dipper] who is sort of obsessed with monsters and urban legends and his goofy sister who goes along, but causes him constant headaches anyway. That’s a pretty fair assessment of what my childhood was like. I have a twin sister, Ariel, who would tag along and generally annoy me to her heart’s content during our childhood adventures. Growing up with a twin was definitely the biggest inspiration for the core relationship of the series.
TFK:
And are you and your sister similar to the personalities of Mabel and Dipper?
HIRSCH:
Absolutely. Mabel wears a different ridiculous sweater in every episode, such as one with a heart wearing shades. My sister, when we were kids, had a—what some would say—frumpy, unique fashion sense. And that is definitely captured in the series. And I, of course, was the kind of kid [like Dipper] who would carry 15 disposable cameras everywhere I went on the off chance I might see something worth putting in the Weekly World News.
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