Bottomless Pit!

"Bottomless Pit!" is the 14th episode in Season 1 of Gravity Falls. It premiered on March 1, 2013.

Overview
While Stan, Dipper, Mabel and Soos are falling in a bottomless pit, they tell stories to pass the time.

Synopsis
The episode begins with Grunkle Stan driving the Mystery Cart with Dipper, Mabel, and Soos inside, to the bottomless pit to dispose of unwanted items. While Soos fails to comprehend the pit's allegedly bottomless nature, Dipper doubts the existence of a bottomless pit. His skepticism, however, does not stop Stan from throwing down suggestions for improving the Mystery Shack, or Mabel from disposing love letters from 'Lil Gideon and a box of "personal, mysterious secrets," or Soos from throwing away his shoes and a barbecue. A wind storm suddenly rolls in, and Dipper instructs the others to go back inside, but Stan ignores him and continues to try to throw out the suggestion cards. Worried, the others hold onto him, but end up falling down the pit along with him. Gompers then passes by before the theme song begins.

In the pit, the group screams for a time, ending with Soos asking if anyone wants to scream some more. Dipper then asks where they are. Mabel lights up a green glow-stick to look around, and replies that it looks like they are nowhere. Stan reasons that they will be stuck in the pit for some time and attempts a card trick to entertain the others, and Mabel cheers even after he fails. Soos suggests that they tell stories to pass the time, and Dipper, angry with his uncle, opts to tell one about his irritation with Stan, but settles for a story called "Voice Over" when Mabel encourages him to do better.

"Voice Over" begins with Mabel, Soos, and Wendy playing a variant of spin the bottle called "spin the pig," in which they spin Waddles and whomever his face points at must kiss him. When the pig points to Stan, who is sitting on the porch nearby, Mabel asks him if he has ever kissed a pig, and Stan answers he's not going to answer that. Dipper abruptly enters in a panic, believing that a snake bit him and that he must be taken to a hospital stat. Unfortunately his voice cracks at the end of his exclamation, consequently not being taken seriously by Stan and the others, who explain that it is hard to focus on the seriousness of the situation with Dipper's voice frequently cracking. They then play a techno remix of Dipper's voice cracking, which irritates and embarrasses him into taking the tape and storming off.

As Dipper walks through town, he is met by Old Man McGucket, who says that he may be able to help Dipper. At the dump, McGucket explains that he has been experimenting with a voice-altering formula, due to his frightening voice that he exhibits by scaring a young child, and gives Dipper a sample of the formula. Dipper drinks it and heads back to the Shack, McGucket saying that Dipper will sound like a new man if he survives as he does so. The next morning, Dipper awakes and discovers his new, deeper voice which he tries out and shows to Mabel. His sister does not react as he expected, however, and, thinking Dipper's body is being inhabited by a body swapping warlock, hits her brother with a golf club. Dipper explains that he is indeed her brother, albeit with a different tone, and goes on to describe the potential benefits he sees. His sister believes it to be a change for the worse, and Soos reacts in manner similar to Mabel upon hearing Dipper's new tone, telling the tourists present in the gift shop to flee and hitting Dipper on the head with a broom, screaming that Dipper must be killed with fire.

Upset by Mabel's and Soos' responses, Dipper sets out to find his uncle, whom he believes will appreciate his new voice, and goes into town to find him. As he passes Skull Fracture, he is met by the bouncer, who recognizes Dipper's voice as the one who prank-called him, and assembles a group of bikers to chase after him. Dipper ducks into the dump to scold Old Man McGucket about what a disaster his invention is, and McGucket explains that Dipper sounds so odd because he gave Dipper the wrong formula (professional commercial voice over). McGucket goes on to say that Dipper would have reverted back to his old voice come sundown, and Dipper, after listening to the appreciation his friends express for the uniqueness of his voice at the end of the remix, resolves that he likes his voice, even if it is ridiculous. Back at the Shack, Dipper shows Mabel and Soos that he is back to normal, which relieves them, and he reveals that he dumped the alternative, permanent voice formula into his uncle's coffee. Grunkle Stan then walks in with an obnoxious, female voice and is laughed at by the others, which he cannot understand.

"Soos' Really Great Pinball story (Is That A Good Title? Do They Have To Be Puns Or Whatever?)" begins with Soos, excited that he may get the high score after four years of trying, playing a creepy old game of pinball with the twins cheering him on. After some consideration and annoyance, Soos takes up Dipper's suggestion to turn tilt the game, which results in the Soos achieving his goal. The pinball machine, however, recognizes that he cheated and zaps Soos and the twins into the game in a flash of green lightning. After they play around in the machine for a while, the three are confronted by the talking cowboy skull in the machine, who attempts to punish them for breaking the rules by killing them.

They plan to escape by manually turning off the game from inside, with Mabel and Dipper distracting the cowboy skull by jumping up and down and making annoying noises, but are hindered as Soos is distracted by a picture of a wench he finds attractive. Dipper reminds Soos to focus, and the twins carry out their role in the plan while Soos rinds a mine cart into and through the inner mechanisms of the machine. When the twins check on Soos, they find that he is reluctant to turn off the game, as it will permanently erase his high score, which he views as his greatest accomplishment. The twins try to reason with Soos, and are stopped when the cowboy skull discovers their whereabouts and attempts to finish them off. But Soos has a change of heart and shuts off the game before he can do so. Soos, Dipper, and Mabel wake up outside of the machine where Dipper feels sorry for Soos having to lose his high score. Soos then tells him it's okay because he now has a new life accomplishment: saving the twins' lives. He then asks if they think that the pinball wench will call him.

"Grunkle Stan Wins The Football Bowl" shows Stan going to the end of a football field and scoring the winning touchdown. He is thanked by a group of football players for teaching them that old people are incredibly useful. Stan then receives a trophy from a woman he finds to be beautiful, and says that he could not have done it with his robotic sidekick and invention, Footbot. Everyone cheers for Stan, and the story ends.

Then Soos, Dipper and Mabel boo. Stan says that his story was good. Then Mabel claims she will tell a non-terrible story. Her story is called "Trooth Ache." In Trooth Ache, the Pines are hanging around the Stanley Mobile as they oversee Manly Dan unload a bear, which he plans to teach to drive, for an attraction at the Mystery Shack. On the road, the bear drives very poorly as Stan coaches it with false driving tips, and the police pull him over. When Sheriff Blubs demands an explanation as to why a bear is driving Stan's car, he dishonestly replies that his physician, "Dr. Medicine," assigned him a seeing-eye bear to drive him to the hospital in case of an emergency, and the Sheriff pardons him. Stan then tells the bear "To the hospital, Honeypants!" and the bear drives them away. Later at the Shack, Stan spray-paints rocks gold to sell to unsuspecting customers as authentic gold nuggets, and Mabel asks him why he lied to the policemen. Stan makes the excuse that by his age, one learns to "bend the truth a bit for the greater good," which he shows by lying to Dipper about Soos possibly knowing where Dipper's plate of spaghetti (which Stan was eating) is, much to Mabel's disgust.

Up in the attic, Mabel talks to Waddles about Stan's lying problem and decides to consult 3 about a possible solution for her uncle's dishonesty. She comes across information about a set of truth-telling teeth that render it impossible for the wearer to lie, and sets out to find them. In the middle of the night, she creeps into Grunkle Stan's bedroom and implants the truth teeth, which shine golden in Stan's mouth. She then wakes him up to test out the teeth. To her satisfaction the teeth work, and Stan, not totally getting that something is wrong, goes back to sleep. Mabel tells Dipper what she did at the breakfast table the next morning, and, though he initially thinks it to be a horrible idea, though he experiments to see if Stan will tell the truth, and both twins are disturbed with a set of truths their uncle reveals, such as that he does not wash his hands after using the bathroom.

Stan's truth telling soon grows out of hand and without a filter, going to the extent of insulting a customer's appearance, writing that he commits massive tax fraud on a tax form, scaring the twins with a talk about death, and so forth. Stan's boundless honesty quickly grows to annoy the twins, and nearly gets him arrested as he admits to several crimes when Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland arrive to interrogate him about his seeing-eye bear and the nonexistence of Dr. Medicine. Mabel reluctantly lies to cover for her uncle, saying that he is secretly a crime fiction author and was telling them about a character in his upcoming book, and sends the officers away. Mabel is shocked at herself for lying, but Dipper says it was for the greater good, and Stan, still unable to fib, calls the police station to admit to tax fraud before the twins tackle him to stop him. Mabel then removes the teeth from Stan's mouth and disposes of them, along with a box full of other magical items, into the pit, saying she never saw the box again.But then spots it in the pit. Additionally, Soos finds the shoes he got rid of earlier in the episode.

Dipper then tells Mabel that they already know that story, as it just happened to them and they are currently living through it, which causes Soos to ask how the story ends. Dipper then spots a bright light at the end of the tunnel, and he and the others fall through it; the group comes out at the top of the pit, right where they fell in, and learn that no time has passed. Dipper concludes the bottomless pit is a wormhole of some sort, to which the others agree, but they decide to keep the story to themselves, as they doubt anyone will believe them. Stan proceeds to lean on the sign for the pit and falls back in when it breaks, but this does not worry the others, as he will eventually come right back. In the credits, a bored Stan is seen falling down the pit.

Credits

 * Written by:
 * Alex Hirsch
 * Michael Rianda
 * Directed by:
 * Aaron Springer
 * Joe Pitt
 * Storyboards by:
 * Matt Braly
 * David Gemmill
 * Alonso Ramierz Ramos
 * With the Voice Talents of:
 * Kristen Schaal - Mabel Pines
 * Jason Ritter - Dipper Pines
 * A. Smith Harrison - Dipper Pines (deep voice)
 * Alex Hirsch - Stan Pines and Soos
 * Linda Cardellini - Wendy Corduroy
 * Dee Bradley Baker - Waddles
 * Kevin Michael Richardson - Sheriff Blubs and Unnamed Bouncer
 * Keith Ferguson - Deputy Durland
 * Alex Hirsch - Old Man McGucket
 * John DiMaggio - Manly Dan & Cowboy Skeleton Guy

Production notes

 * See also: List of allusions and List of goofs.

Character revelations

 * This is the first time a member of the Corduroy family is mentioned by their last name.
 * Deputy Durland cannot read.
 * Stan wears dentures.

Songs featured

 * "Dipper's Voice Remix"

Series continuity

 * Dipper mentions Old Man McGucket's gobblewonker robot nearly killing him in "The Legend of the Gobblewonker."
 * Deputy Durland cannot read, confirming Mabel's thoughts in "Irrational Treasure."
 * Thanks to Stan's tax forms, it is confirmed the series takes place in 2012, though it should say 2011, but given that it's the summer Stan would be very late in his fillings for that, so he could just be getting a head start on that year's taxes.
 * Mabel's pajamas from "Tourist Trapped" and "Headhunters" return.
 * When Stan confesses to the police, he mentions that he has been parking in handicapped spaces, which he is seen doing in "Summerween."
 * Mr. Poolcheck from "The Deep End" appears inside the Skull Fracture.
 * Dipper mentions that there is a bottomless pit in "The Time Traveler's Pig" to Robbie but it was never before seen in the series, but Dipper might of have not known about the Bottomless Pit due to his reaction at the beginning of this episode, in which he says a bottomless pit is impossible.
 * The shredder from Boss Mabel appears again.

Trivia

 * Viewership: This episode was watched by 3.095 million viewers on its premier night.
 * The synopsis of this episode was originally used in a promotion for the show.
 * In the picture, Stan's fez is the same as his old fez, but with a star.
 * As of this episode, the design of Stan's fez has been retconned. The new design has a dot put in the "fish's" mouth and the "fish" body changed from an arc to a circle missing a wedge (similar to Pac-Man). The opening sequence has also been changed to include this new design.
 * The story titles are as follows: "Voice Over", "Soos' Really Great Pinball Story (Is That a Good Title? Do They Have to Be Puns Or Whatever?)", "Grunkle Stan Wins the Football Bowl", and "Trooth Ache."
 * In Soos's story, the number 618 appears on the pinball machine. This is the date of Alex Hirsch's birthday and The Mystery Shack's address.
 * It is revealed that Gideon has been sending Mabel love letters.
 * A caricature of Alex Hirsch riding a unicycle and juggling, while surrounded by alligators is watched by the Pines family on the television.

Cryptogram

 * The cryptogram in the end credits reads "14-5-24-20 21-16: "6-15-15-20-2-15-20 20-23-15: 7-18-21-14-11-12-5'19 7-18-5-22-5-14-7-5." Once decoded it reads: "NEXT UP: "FOOTBOT TWO: GRUNKLE'S GREVENGE."
 * Note that this is the first use of the A1Z26 cipher.