Alexander "Alex" Robert Hirsch (born June 18, 1985) is the creator and was the executive producer of the American animated television series, Gravity Falls.
He voiced two of the main characters in the popular Disney show, Grunkle Stan and Soos. He also voiced supporting and recurring characters such as Old Man McGucket, Bill Cipher, the gnomes, and many others. He has four siblings: his twin sister, Ariel Hirsch (the inspiration for Mabel Pines, with him being the inspiration for Dipper) his half-sisters, Lauren Hirsch[2], Katrina Hirsch, and Jessica Hirsch.
He placed many of his real-life experiences in the show, such as living in Piedmont, California, and trick-or-treating with his sister Ariel as cats. He also based the series off the summers he and Ariel spent with their great aunt (or graunty) Lois, at her cabin in the woods, between the ages of 9 and 13.[3] Both he and his sister wished they would go on the daring adventures that Mabel and Dipper go on in the show. He based Mabel on his twin sister, Ariel Hirsch, and Grunkle Stan off of his Grandpa Stan, and based the entire series loosely on his own childhood summers. He gave Mabel a pet pig named Waddles because his sister had always wanted one when she was young.
Contents
Writing credits
Unnamed episode (pilot)
Season 1
- 101. "Tourist Trapped"
- 102. "The Legend of the Gobblewonker"
- 103. "Headhunters"
- 104. "The Hand That Rocks the Mabel"
- 105. "The Inconveniencing"
- 107. "Double Dipper"
- 108. "Irrational Treasure"
- 109. "The Time Traveler's Pig"
- 110. "Fight Fighters"
- 111. "Little Dipper"
- 112. "Summerween"
- 113. "Boss Mabel"
- 114. "Bottomless Pit!"
- 116. "Carpet Diem"
- 117. "Boyz Crazy"
- 118. "Land Before Swine"
- 119. "Dreamscaperers"
- 120. "Gideon Rises"
Season 2
- 201. "Scary-oke"
- 202. "Into the Bunker"
- 203. "The Golf War"
- 204. "Sock Opera"
- 205. "Soos and the Real Girl"
- 206. "Little Gift Shop of Horrors"
- 207. "Society of the Blind Eye"
- 208. "Blendin's Game"
- 209. "The Love God"
- 210. "Northwest Mansion Mystery"
- 211. "Not What He Seems"
- 212. "A Tale of Two Stans"
- 213. "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons"
- 214. "The Stanchurian Candidate"
- 215. "The Last Mabelcorn"
- 216. "Roadside Attraction"
- 217. "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future"
- 218. "Weirdmageddon Part 1"
- 219. "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality"
- 220. "Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back The Falls"
Outline credits
Season 2
Roles in Gravity Falls
Hirsch voicing Stan Pines.
Alex Hirsch at SDCC 2014 holding a puppet of Grunkle Stan.
- Stan Pines
- Soos Ramirez
- Gnomes including Norman
- Mabel Pines (Impersonating a pelican)
- Old Man McGucket
- Tate McGucket
- Duck-tective
- Macaw[4]
- Saunterblugget Hampterfuppinshire[5]
- Paper Jam Dipper[6]
- Quentin Trembley[7]
- Cackling skulls[8]
- Sev'ral Timez members
- Bill Cipher
- Yumberjacks drive-thru cashier[9]
- Dippy Fresh
- Mayor Befufftlefumpter
- Ford Pines (Impersonating Stan)
- Shimmery Twinkleheart
- Nate (Season 2)
- Various others
Other work
Alex Hirsch was the creative consultant for Fish Hooks, which he developed for television alongside Maxwell Atoms, where he portrayed Clamantha, her father, Fumble, one of the fish police and a Ferret. He was also a writer and a storyboard artist for The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. Alongside JG Quintel, and Pendleton Ward. He also provided the voice of Officer Concord the Juice Time Juice Box Flavor Cop in the "Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror" episode of Phineas and Ferb, which is also on Disney Channel.[10][11] He also provided additional voices to the video game Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes in late 2014. He also voiced Toby Mathews in the Rick and Morty episode, "Big Trouble In Little Sanchez." He voiced Ben Fotino in the Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Booth Buddies." On January 6, 2015, Hirsch announced he was developing a new animated series with Fox. [12] He was also a screenwriter of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and a Pokemon live action film, Detective Pikachu. Since 2020 he is a creative consultant for the Disney Channel show The Owl House where he voices the main characters King and Hooty. In 2020, he also voiced the characters Mr. Ponds and Frog Soos in a Gravity Falls hommage episode called "Wax Museum" of the Disney Channel series Amphibia, created by former Gravity Falls director and storyboard artist Matt Braly.
He currently works as a developer of series and features for the American production company and media provider Netflix.[13]
Early life
Alex Hirsch was born and raised in Piedmont, California, and he graduated from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Los Angeles County, California, in 2007. He also enjoyed going to Oregon, and went there often. He was very fond of The Simpsons as a child, and cited this as one of his main influences. After watching the episode Bart's Comet he attended child therapy. Shortly after graduating, he worked at the digital entertainment studio JibJab and was a writer/storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. He also served as a creative consultant and helped develop the hit Disney Channel animated series, Fish Hooks, and voices the character Clamantha in the series. Hirsch chose Oregon as the setting for Gravity Falls after spending a summer there during college working for the animation studio Laika.[14]
Trivia
Alex in Mystery Tour 2013.
Alex's cameo in the Main Title Theme (behind the hand and the jackalope photos).
- In Spring 2007, he created a short film called Off the Wall, which was one of his student films at CalArts. Mike Moon, an animation executive at Disney eventually saw it. Impressed, he asked Alex to pitch the network a television series, which eventually led to Gravity Falls.
- He based Dipper off of himself.
- Mabel is based off of his twin sister Ariel Hirsch.
Alex the circus performer in an episode "Bottomless Pit!" of Gravity Falls.
- Hirsch has appeared a few times in the show as himself.
- The bottom half of his face is visible among the photos in the opening theme song.
- A caricature of Hirsch is seen in "Bottomless Pit!" riding a unicycle, juggling some balls, at the circus, surrounded by crocodiles.
- One of the guys that threw Stan and Goldie out of a casino in "Soos and the Real Girl."[15]
- A photo of him is posted among "Suspicious Townsfolk" on Dipper's Author board in "Society of the Blind Eye" with the word: Who?
- On the cover of a magazine on Stan and Ford's bunk-bed in "A Tale of Two Stans."
- Inside one of the sky trams in "Roadside Attraction," alonside Rob Renzetti.
- As one of the bodies in Bill's "throne of frozen agony," near the middle in "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality."
- The reason for Alex Hirsch's many appearances is because the crew enjoys making fun of Hirsch by putting him in the show. This was revealed in "Between the Pines."
- He is currently dating Dana Terrace, creator of The Owl House.
- Alex's college roommate was the show's art director, Ian Worrel.[16]
- Alex guest voiced Officer Concord for the Phineas and Ferb Halloween episode called Terrifying Tri-State Trilogy of Terror.[17]
- He has joked about the rumors that he is hiding occult symbols in the show on multiple occasions, because they are hidden in plain sight.
- Alex has a habit of tweeting misleading "Facts" to trick some fans for fun.
- Alex prefers Nintendo over Sega and his favorite Nintendo game is Kirby's Pinball Land.[18][19]
- Alex named one of the Manotaurs after his full size adult taxidermy buffalo "Beardy"[citation needed] which he keeps in his office at Disney and insists people sit on when they take tours.[20]
- The number 618 that appears throughout Gravity Falls is a reference to his birthday, June 18th (otherwise 6/18).
- He created the "McGucket Hoax" by leaking a fake photo of Old Man McGucket writing the Journals, which fooled a lot of people into thinking that Old Man McGucket was the Author of the Journals.
- Hirsch is skilled at bird calling and even went on the Late Show with David Letterman at the age of fifteen to share his talent.[21]
- Hirsch has a set of rules regarding Dipper and Mabel's relationship which were created at the start of the series due to the writers frequently and incorrectly assuming that the two didn't get along. So far only two rules were revealed which were:
- The first rule is that "the kids like each other. no matter how much they get on each others nerves, this never changes."
- His Grandfather's ashes were illegally spread in a Vegas casino women's room so he could "see the ladies undress forever."[22]
- He said in 2013 Comic Con panel that his favorite creatures from the series (season 1) are the Dipper clones.[23]
- When Alex Hirsch was asked about what it's like working for Disney, he answered that working for a gigantic company is like having 20 siblings sitting at one table and fighting for food. He explained that the main problem of working with Disney is that they have a lot of projects that are much bigger than Gravity Falls and they're often too busy making merchandise for those projects to pay attention to a small part of it like Gravity Falls.[24]
- Alex Hirsch really loves to sleep. He didn’t sleep much for 4 years while he was making Gravity Falls, but now he can enjoy sleep at its fullest.[24]
- Alex has three to four flannel shirts. He started wearing them because he had a crush on a girl, but she didn't notice him until he went to a party dressed as the lumberjack mascot of "Brawny" paper towels. The costume was really ugly, but the girl of his dreams noticed him, and they started dating. Alex concluded that it must have been thanks to be the flannel jacket and started wearing it for luck. His family really hated the jacket and wanted him to burn it, so he promised to burn it if he ever made a TV show. After Gravity Falls came out, he, as promised, went to a desert and burned the jacket. But then he was cold, so he bought another one.[24]
- Alex Hirsch always helped or credited in creating merchandise for Gravity Falls. However, the upcoming book Tales of the Strange and Unexpected - The Grunkle Stan edition, is the first time he hasn't been a part of in creating, writing or helping with the creation. When the book was first announced in March 2020, he stated on Twitter that he didn't know Disney Press was writing the book and shared his disappointment on how Disney hadn't reached out to him in helping, creating, or even informed him that they were working on a new Gravity Falls related book. [25]
Articles and interviews
External links
- Alex Hirsch on Blogger
- Alex Hirsch at deviantART (deactivated)
- Alex Hirsch on Facebook
- Alex Hirsch at the Internet Movie Database
References
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