The History Of Gravity Falls | A Brief History

hello and welcome to another episode of a brief history today's episode gravity falls ready set go june 5th 2008 children's tv channel cartoon network premieres the first episode of honestly one of the weirdest shows in its history thurapan ormonds the marvelous misadventures of flapjack and while not one of the network's most celebrated shows flapjack turned out to be pretty much the starting point of the massive cartoon renaissance of the 2010s flapjack's crew included the likes of jg quintel and pendleton ward who would go on to create regular show and adventure time respectively but these two weren't the only people on the flapjack team who had bright futures ahead of them case in point flapjack writer and storyboard artist alex hirsch after graduating from calarts in 2007 alex hirsch worked on flapjack between 2008 and 2009 before getting a call from disney executive mike moon having been impressed by one of hirsch's student films moon offered hers the opportunity to develop a show for disney channel and when the mouse makes an offer like that you take it which is exactly what alex hirsch did jumping ship over to disney channel to co-develop their 2010 original series fish hooks and while he was given a good amount of creative freedom while working on flapjack hirsch's time on fish hooks allowed him to spread his wings a bit more alongside his role of co-developer hirsch also acted as a writer storyboard artist creative consultant and even voice actor but there was far more to hersh's move to disney than just fish hooks for he was also given the opportunity to pitch an animated series of his very own however having grown up on more adult-oriented shows like the simpsons hirsch hadn't really thought much about creating a show for kids but he had been kicking around this concept that he described as twin peaks meets the simpsons which eventually came to be known as gravity falls taking heavy inspiration from hirsch's own childhood gravity falls was all about a pair of twins named dipper and mabel pines who spend their summer vacation with their great uncle stan in the mysterious town of gravity falls oregon where they come face to face with all sorts of spooky supernatural happenings bit of a tangent but i can't help but notice that a lot of my favorite things take place in oregon no seriously gravity falls gone home life is strange freaking coraline all oregon should i move to oregon nah probably not the best idea and place got gnome armies time traveling teenagers and evil demon spider moms anyway disney liked alex hirsch's pitch and just like that gravity falls was greenlit for full production eventually premiering on june 15 2012 exclusively on disney channel i'm jake paul and you're watching disney channel now typically most tv shows premiere one new episode a week throughout a season and while gravity falls tried to do this it didn't really last long the first 12 episodes of its 20 episode long first season were aired on a semi-weekly basis between june and october of 2012. but the remaining eight episodes were released pretty sporadically between february and august of 2013 and while an inconsistent broadcast schedule like this could have spelled doom for some other show luckily gravity falls wasn't just some other show from just its first episode gravity falls already managed to stand out from the crowd with its incredible art and animation clever comedy and a story that wasted absolutely no time getting into the mystery and building the intrigue which i'm not gonna spoil so don't panic dudes all of this on top of stellar music and voice acting made gravity falls an instant hit with each episode of season 1 bringing in anywhere from two and a half to four million views per episode viewers immediately latched on to the series and the fan base quickly began to grow so naturally a second season was pretty much inevitable but much like in the show itself this is where things get a little more complicated you see in early 2014 it was announced that gravity falls would actually be moving from disney channel over to disney xd but the show was not going to be exclusively on disney xd new episodes would be set to premiere on xd while disney channel would air reruns even though the season premiere and a later episode in the season both premiered on disney channel first and uh why is everything about this show so confusing anyway the second season of gravity falls premiered in august of 2014 and right away things seem to be hitting the ground running this season seemed far more plot driven this time around as the show finally began to offer up answers to its mysteries while also offering up new mysteries to take their place each episode truly felt like an event and part of this was due once again to the show's unusual broadcast schedule you see each episode of the show took about six months to produce and rather than mass producing the whole season and then releasing each episode in regular intervals the gravity falls team instead decided to release each episode as they were completed leading to again a pretty sporadic broadcast schedule with gaps in between episodes that could last anywhere from a week to three months still not as bad as the steven universe hiatus or the freaking odyssey that is waiting for a new season of sherlock but despite all of this by this point fans were more hooked on gravity falls than ever the shift to disney xd did lead to the ratings taking a bit of a hit but to fans that didn't matter a bit the show was only getting better and more intense and we were ready for more but then came the fateful day november 20th 2015 when alex hirsch took to his tumblr and other social medias to officially announce that gravity falls would be coming to an end with season two being the final season which was definitely sad news but the important thing to note here was that the show was not getting cancelled nor was it ending prematurely it was reaching a natural conclusion the series came to an end on february 15 2016 with an epic double length finale that tied up pretty much every loose end in the show giving fans something that is pretty rare in the world of cartoons a satisfying ending most cartoons are typically cancelled way too soon or are stretched out so thin and for so long that they just lose that edge that made them popular in the first place but as if gravity falls didn't stand out enough already it chose to experiment even further by aiming to have a set beginning middle and end while not outstaying its welcome alex hirsch has said himself that he wanted the show to encapsulate the events of one childhood summer vacation and summer ends childhood ends gravity falls ends so what's the point of doing anything in the grand scheme of the universe do i even matter but i'm getting sad so let's move on despite ending in early 2016 the popularity of gravity falls will no doubt well outlive its initial run and i mean how could it not it was a successful disney property those things pretty much never die the show continued to see successful merchandise lines and extended universe works even after the finale premiered and the show's fandom really hasn't slowed down a bit even with most of the series mysteries solved the fanbase still continues to find new details in the show and in other shows like rick and morty that lead to interesting theories that still take the internet by storm and considering alex hirsch is moving on to several new top secret projects all the while disney is currently putting out cartoons like ducktales 2017 which let's be honest with ourselves is basically just gravity falls with ducks i think it's pretty safe to say that gravity falls was not only a game changer for disney but one of the most innovative and important cartoons of the last decade thanks for watching guys dftba hey guys thank you so much for watching my gravity falls brief history i hope you liked it fun fact i've actually worked with one of the writers and voice actors for gravity falls yeah back in 2014 i teamed up with youtuber hank green to do an episode of a brief history all about the old school web cartoon homestar runner and for this episode hank and i actually had the opportunity to sit down and interview the creators of this website mike and matt chapman and guess what matt chapman just so happened to be working on at that time that's right gravity falls i don't know i just think that's crazy but anyway tangent aside if you'd like to see some more brief history then you might dig this previous episode i made all about steven universe it's a collaboration with michaela dietz the voice of amethyst on the show so it's a pretty fun time and if you want to keep up with future episodes of a brief history then you can subscribe to my channel or follow me on twitter at footballfarrett and i think that's about it so i'll say it again guys thanks for watching and dftba

Channel: FootofaFerret

Views: 1,367,610

Keywords: Gravity Falls, Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, Gruncle Stan, Soos, Bill Cipher, Alex Hirsch, Disney Channel, Disney XD, Cartoon Network, Adventure Time, Regular Show, The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack, Fish Hooks, Thurop Van Orman, Homestar Runner, Matt Chapman, Strong Bad, Cartoon, mystery, comedy, animation, TV, YouTube, online video, history, origin, behind the scenes, bts, Game Theory, Game Theorists, MatPat, Matthew Patrick, A Brief History, ABH, FootofaFerret, Ryder Burgin

Id: 1JctCxmjzPE

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2017