Old Man McGucket

Fiddleford Hadron "Old Man" McGucket is an old, deranged hillbilly who lives at the Gravity Falls Junkyard and is an occasional ally of Dipper and Mabel Pines. Once a brilliant inventor who worked alongside Ford Pines and founded the Blind Eye Society, excessive memory wipes have left him in his current state of hopeless psychosis, although he has become more sane and normal since the event of "Society of the Blind Eye."

Early life
In the mid 1970s, McGucket attended Backupsmore University, where he befriended the gifted Ford Pines, who perceived Fiddleford to be a "young but brilliant mechanic". Following his graduation, McGucket took up residency in Palo Alto, California, where he established "Fiddleford Computermajigs", a self-employed personal computers business. In the midst of his work, he received contact from Ford, who sought his mechanical genius in constructing a transuniversal polydimensional metavortex beneath his home in Gravity Falls, Oregon. Albeit hesitation as to whether the device would be feasible to construct, Fiddleford agreed, setting out for the sleepy hamlet of Road Kill County.

Throughout the construction of Ford's greatest scientific achievement, McGucket was given access to his laboratory hidden beneath the forest, where he utilized one of his functioning prototype laptops to aid in the ongoing research and development of the portal. As the months carried on and the project reached fruition, Ford and Fiddleford prepared their first trial with the active machine, which quickly went awry as the dummy placed into the portal dragged McGucket along with it. Though his experience within the device was brief as Ford had rescued him shortly thereafter, Fiddleford returned horrified with the visions he had endured while inside, predicting that an apocalyptic catastrophe would occur should the portal reach its full potential. This was due in part to getting a glimpse of the true nature of Ford's secret "research assistant," Bill Cipher, and realizing that Ford had been getting answers from the demon.

After quitting the project when Ford refused to give up the pinnacle of his life's work, McGucket found himself haunted by his encounters with the supernatural as paranoia and insomnia consumed him. Determined to return his sanity and eradicate the scarring experience from his mind, he utilized his genius ability to invent a memory erasing gun, permanently relieving him of his nightmares. The device became an inspiration for Fiddleford to found an organization within Gravity Falls known as the Blind Eye Society, hoping to give others a similar chance at alleviating their deepest regrets and awful memories. Unfortunately, continuous encounters with paranormal entities within the town and a heavy reliance on his creation deteriorated McGucket's mind, draining him of his sanity and increasingly devolving him into a crazed and lunatic old man. By 1982, Fiddleford was a ghost of his former genius self, now known as the garbage-dwelling Old Man McGucket, Gravity Falls' local kook.

Season 1
Old Man McGucket is first seen in "The Legend of the Gobblewonker," where he is running up to everyone and telling them that he saw the Gobblewonker, and that it destroyed his boat. However, he is made fun of by the crowd and the police. Later, it is revealed that he built a mechanical version of The Gobblewonker to gain attention because his son, who is embarrassed by him, never wants to spend time with him anymore. He tells the twins that he also made a homicidal Pterodactyl robot when his wife left him, and an 80 ton 'shame bot' when his friend Ernie didn't come to his retirement party. He then went back inside his robot to continue work on a death ray.

McGucket appears next in "Headhunters." He was present at the re-opening of the Wax Museum of Mystery, and he asks if the wax statues are alive and if he can survive the wax man uprising, to which Mabel answers yes. Dipper and Mabel later find him at the junkyard. They wave at him to see if he uses his right or left hand most frequently, and he responds to them by waving his right hand, which has a young alligator biting down on it.

In "The Hand That Rocks the Mabel," he rows the gondola that Mabel and Gideon Gleeful use on their date.

In "Dipper vs. Manliness," McGucket is seen drinking coffee at Greasy's Diner.

He also attends Grunkle Stan's party in "Double Dipper." Pacifica Northwest bribes him with money to applaud for her, causing her to win the Party crown.

He appears in "Irrational Treasure," celebrating Pioneer Day by gold panning and telling children at the library to eat books.

In "The Time Traveler's Pig," he appears when Mabel, Dipper, and Blendin Blandin time-travel to events from previous episodes.

He appears in "Fight Fighters" at the arcade playing the defective arcade game, "Ho-Down Hero" and says he has been "jigging for seven days straight!"

In "Little Dipper," he is seen at Gleeful's Auto Sale, wanting to buy a damaged used car. McGucket later wins ten million dollars by being the runner-up winner in a contest (the first place winner was Stan, who turned down the offer). He then eats the check.

In "Summerween," he is about to blow out the final Summerween Jack-o'-Melon, but Dipper, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda stop him from doing so.

In "Bottomless Pit!," he appears in Dipper's story, "Voice Over," as he gives Dipper a voice-altering formula when he is embarrassed by his voice cracking. After Dipper comes back, unsatisfied with the voice induced by the formula, McGucket gives him another, though Dipper does not drink this one.

In "The Deep End," McGucket can be seen hanging out in the Gravity Falls Pool. He later puts lotion all over his body in front of the public, much to their disgust.

In "Carpet Diem," he is seen chasing Soos (in Waddles' body) in order to eat him. He ends up changing bodies with Candy Chiu and other characters when he follows Soos into the room with the Electron Carpet at the Mystery Shack. After everyone changed back to their normal bodies, McGucket still threatened to eat Soos.

In "Boyz Crazy," McGucket appears at the Gravity Falls Civic Center and Buffet when Mabel, Candy, and Grenda practice their "obsessed boy band scream." McGucket is apparently a fan of Sev'ral Timez, as he is later seen cheering at their concert. He is also spotted riding through the crowd in the background at the end of the concert.

In "Land Before Swine," Old Man McGucket first appears at the abandoned church where he tags along with the gang to find Waddles in the abandoned mines and to get back his musical spoons that were stolen by the enraged Pterodactyl. After Soos breaks Dipper's lantern, everyone begins to fight but Old Man McGucket holds up a new lantern, saying that he fixed it, unaware of the adult pterodactyl behind him. Later, in the baby pterodactyl's nest, Dipper asks him if he has any inventions that could save them. He rumages through his hat for a while and then says "nope." Old Man McGucket then ends up getting eaten by a baby pterodactyl, and pops out for a few seconds, but then gets gobbled up once again. Later, he is shown popping up from the hole in the church and saying "I just ate my way through a dinosaur!" while playing the spoons and laughing insanely.

McGucket was then enlisted in building the Gideon-bot for Gideon in "Gideon Rises," apparently having optimistic thoughts about the child psychic.

Shorts
In "Mabel's Guide to Fashion," Mabel, Candy, and Grenda give him a "flash makeover," which amounts to them drawing a smiley face on the back of his head, covering his actual face with his beard, and having him walk backwards. He doesn't mind walking backwards, claiming it's the way his body naturally wants to move.

Season 2
In "Scary-oke," he attended the after party of the Mystery Shack's grand reopening as one of the guests, and is seen dancing.

In "The Golf War," McGucket is asleep on the course, appearing confused about his location after being awoken by Mabel's golf ball. He is later referenced in a cryptogram appearing after the credits.

In "Sock Opera," he appears in sock puppet form in a dream Mabel has during the credits.

In the "Little Gift Shop of Horrors" segment, Hands Off, he is seen at the Gravity Falls Swap Meet, running a stall that sells "Whosits and Whatsits."

In "Society of the Blind Eye," the twins, Wendy and Soos go to question him about being the author of the journals, though he exclaims he doesn't recall anything before "1982". But after seeing a page in the journal with a strange symbol, he freaks out, expressing a memory of a group which the symbol belongs too who did something to his mind. He tells them the last thing he remembered involved the Gravity Falls Museum of History to which he accompanies the gang to afterwards. After saving the gang from captivity, he regains his memory, revealing that he founded the Blind Eye Society, and created a device that will erase all memory of a certain thing. It also explained how he went crazy, as he used the device too much, and ended up erasing his memory wholesale.

In "Northwest Mansion Mystery," after the common-folk are allowed into the Northwests' party, Old Man McGucket is seen dancing on a table, but later pulls Dipper aside to inform him that he has fixed the laptop, and warns him of the incoming disaster that it predicts in about 21 hours.

In "Not What He Seems," McGucket is seen packing his things (including a raccoon wife), preparing to leave town before the disaster happens.

In "A Tale of Two Stans", young Fiddleford is seen in flashbacks working for the author and almost getting sucked into the portal.

In "The Stanchurian Candidate," McGucket is seen in the audience during the final debate of the mayoral election, indicating that he has not left Gravity Falls.

In "The Last Mabelcorn", McGucket is seen briefly during Dipper's glimpse into Ford's mind and during Ford's flashbacks, where he is noted as having glimpsed Bill's involvement with Ford and later become terrified by it.

In "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future," Ford tells Dipper that him along with McGucket used to frequently raid the UFOs technology and study their language.

In "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality," McGucket is revealed to have avoided capture or madness and has joined Stan's Resistance Group; who reside in the Mystery Shack.

Appearance
Old Man McGucket is the "local kook" of Gravity Falls. He sports a long white beard with a band-aid, and has shown the ability to use it as a limb. He has a large, pink nose with a few warts on it, blue eyes and a cast on his right arm. He wears an old brown hat that he got from a scarecrow, and brown overalls which are covered by his long beard. Around his feet he wears white bandages. He is missing many teeth and has one gold tooth. He is also bald.

In his younger years, McGucket had similar features, however his head was covered in long brown hair, and he did not have a beard. His hair color, along with his eyebrows, was brown. His nose was the same color as his face and was void of warts. He appears to stand more erect than his older self and wears glasses but not a hat.

Personality
McGucket is the local kook, and is, as the title implies, mildly senile. However, it is shown that he is quite intelligent, and has the ability to create giant mechanical contraptions. This plays into his insanity, as he uses them for things like getting attention from his son, revenge against an old colleague for not coming to his retirement party, etc. He can seem to be a bit depressed at times, but this is only for brief moments. Instead, he's usually optimistic and occasionally even helpful. He usually enjoys dancing ridiculously and making up odd words and phrases. (e.g. scrapdoodle, smitheroons, donkey spittle, shim-sham, etc.). Sometime after he regained his memories, McGucket's sane side has become a bigger part in his personality; his kookiness is more of a trait, which he sometimes uses to cover up his returning sanity.

Dipper and Mabel Pines
Like the rest of the town, Dipper and Mabel think Old Man McGucket is crazy and are puzzled by his strange behavior; these major turn-offs contribute to the twins' lack of desire to interact with the old man. McGucket typically maintains a friendly attitude toward the kids, despite the fact that they do not return the action. McGucket occasionally gets involved in the kids' adventures, even playing a significant role at times.

Tate McGucket
Despite Old Man McGucket's love for his son and aspirations to spend time with him, Tate McGucket tends to avoid his father, for fear of embarrassment. Thus, the father becomes even more starved of attention and will go to ever greater lengths to catch his son's attention, but always unsuccessfully.

Unnamed wife
McGucket was previously married to an unnamed woman. But for reasons unknown she left him. In response he built a homocidal pterodactyltron. The incident was reported in the Gravity Falls Gossiper.

Raccoon wife
In "Not What He Seems" McGucket is seen filling a bag with items so he can "get out of town." One of those items is a raccoon, while forcing her into the bag he says "Get in there raccoon wife! Git!" She is his favorite raccoon.

Gideon Gleeful
Old Man McGucket has been shown to, on occasion, work for Gideon Gleeful; for example: manning the boat for Gideon and Mabel's "date" as well as building his Gideon-bot for him. Why he does these things and the full extent of their relationship is currently unknown. However, he does state that "I have a good feeling about that kid," suggesting that he is helping Gideon purely based on an inference.

Ford Pines
During Ford's time in Gravity Falls, a younger McGucket helped with building the Universe Portal. After something went wrong with the project, McGucket quit, but his memories of the things he did and saw horrified him to the extent that he built a memory-wiping gun in order to forget. He also founded the Blind Eye Society as a means to help other townsfolk forget bad memories. Ford discovered the Society and correctly suspected that McGucket was behind it, as seen in one of Journal 3's pages. Unfortunately, after continuous use of the gun on himself, McGucket started to lose his mind, forgetting words and eventually becoming the local town kook.

Quotes
"Come quick before it scrap-doodles away!"

- Old Man McGucket to the Unnamed fisherman with glasses

"Old Man McGucket, local kook. Are the wax figures alive? And follow up question: can I survive the wax man uprising?"

- Old Man McGucket

"You can run, but I'll still be in your niiightmares!"

- Old Man McGucket yelling to a kid

"Hit me with your best shot, Baldy. But my mind's been gone for thirty-odd years. You can't break what's already broken!"

- Old Man McGucket

"It's happening! The end times!"

- Old Man McGucket

Trivia

 * Old Man McGucket can play the banjo.
 * Old Man McGucket was originally named "Crazy Larry."
 * In an interview, Alex Hirsch joked about killing off Old Man McGucket in season 2.
 * Old Man McGucket seems to have a recurring theme of eating strange things. By the end of Season 1, he appears to have eaten a baby pterodactyl, a book, and a novelty check. He also tried to eat Soos while he was in Waddles' body. When Soos explained that he was actually a human, McGucket replied "That's what they all say!"
 * He has been referenced in multiple cryptograms.
 * In the game PinesQuest, there is a cryptogram which when decoded reads "OLDMANMCGKNOWS."
 * At the end of "The Golf War," there is one that deciphers to: "Old man sleeping on the green. Can't help but wonder what he's seen."
 * In Society of the Blind Eye, a substitution cipher from the author read: "IF MY SUSPICIONS ARE CORRECT, THIS IS THE WORK OF FIDDLEFORD. DOES HE REALLY HAVE TO GO TO SUCH GREAT LENGTHS TO FORGET?"
 * McGucket has seen terrible sights, and created a memory-wiping gun in an effort to forget them.
 * His middle name is a reference to a class of subatomic particles.
 * McGucket was long suspected to be the author of the journals, and there was even a supposed leaked image of him authoring 3. However, this turned out to be a prank created by Alex Hirsch.
 * When the gang was watching the video of McGucket's memories of him descending into madness he references seeing the same creatures seen by Dipper in season one first being "a colony of little men" which are the gnomes, the second creature "I saw something in the lake, something big!" which is similar the Gobblewonker and as a possible extension, he mentions stealing a hat from a scarecrow, which is the Summerween Trickster, and finally, he makes a triangle over his eye, which is Bill Cipher.
 * During his time in the interdimensional portal, Fiddleford glimpsed at "the kind of places where Bill Cipher likes to hang out," which permanently damaged his mind.

Старик Макгакет Alterchen McGucket