Blendin Blenjamin Blandin[1] is a supporting character in Gravity Falls, being originally an antagonist. He is a time traveler from the year 207̃012, who was sent to present-day Gravity Falls, Oregon to remove a series of time anomalies left behind by Dipper and Mabel Pines during the summer of 2012.
After the twins' actions inadvertently cost him his job and incarceration, he swore vengeance on them, but has since made up with them and regained his post.[1] However, he was still picked on by other members of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron, especially by Time Baby, which led him to make a deal with Bill Cipher and allowed him to possess him and caused Weirdmageddon.
Now blamed for his role in killing Time Baby, Blendin escaped to multiple points in the past before becoming stranded in the 1880s when his time tape was destroyed by a train. He blended into the populace and since became a clocksmith in the past.
History[]
Season 1[]
Blendin is first seen in the theme song, where a small picture of him is under the photo of Stan, Soos, Mabel, Dipper, and Wendy.
Blendin's first cameo is in "Tourist Trapped," picking up Mabel's flower hair clip in the bushes when she and Dipper are being attacked by the gnomes.[5]
Later, in "The Legend of the Gobblewonker," he is seen picking up Dipper's grey calculator when Old Man McGucket is screaming and claiming that he saw The Gobblewonker.[6]
He appears again in "Headhunters," standing behind the crowd when Stan Pines unveils his wax figure. While Old Man McGucket questions Stan, Blendin picks up Dipper's black shoe and quickly runs away. Later in that episode, a picture of him may be seen pinned to a board along with other suspects of the murder of Wax Stan.
His identity is revealed in "The Time Traveler's Pig," where he is assigned to prevent several time anomalies from occurring during the Mystery Fair. The twins discover him, and, upon learning he is a time traveler, talk him into going on one of the fair's rides. While he enjoys the ride, the twins steal his time machine and produce the anomalies he was sent after. Following their return to present time, Blendin is arrested by the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron for violating the "Time Traveler's Code of Conduct." Infuriated, he swears vengeance on Dipper and Mabel for stealing his time machine, promising to go back in time and prevent their parents from ever meeting. However, his plot must have failed as the twins were still there. Later, the Time Baby, the presumed leader of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron, forces him to clean up the time paradoxes the twins created, thus resulting in his cameos earlier in the season.
Blendin appears very briefly in "Gideon Rises," moments before Stan arrives to reveal to the townsfolk that Gideon is a fraud.
Season 2[]
Blendin returns in "Blendin's Game." He is revealed to have been incarcerated. After an unsuccessful escape, he invokes Globnar to challenge Mabel and Dipper in a revenge attempt to use a time wish to wish the twins out of existence (by wishing their parents never met, which he intended to do at the end of "The Time Traveler's Pig"). However, he is defeated at the beginning of the last game due to his cocky remarks. The twins decide to release Blendin from prison, return him to his job of eradicating time anomalies and even give him pretty hair as an apology for causing his imprisonment.
During the cold open flashback at the beginning of "A Tale of Two Stans," the words "BLENDIN WAS HERE" are carved in wood at the Glass Shard Beach.
In "The Last Mabelcorn," a picture of him from "Blendin's Game" is shown as Bill Cipher mentions picking his next pawn.
In "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future," he confronts Mabel, telling her that he can make her summer last forever to repay her for what she and Dipper did for him, as long as she gives him the interdimensional rift. Once Mabel hands it to him, he takes off his goggles, revealing that he is the pawn that Bill had been planning to possess. Blendin drops the rift, breaking it open, and Bill exits his body.
In "Weirdmageddon 1: Xpcveaoqfoxso," Blendin regains consciousness after being freed from his possession. Confused by the chaos, he reports Bill to the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron for his assault against him. He appears alongside the squadron to stop Bill, but flees the scene when Bill becomes violent and kills Time Baby along with the officers who joined him. He and Dundgren, who were not there when the massacre happened, are possibly the squadron's only surviving members.
In "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality," he is one of the people in Bill's throne.
Journal 3 and other mentions[]
In the real life Journal 3, the Author finds an old box with the word "PINES" and an etching of a key on it. Inside the box was a note encoded using the Vigenère cipher. When decoded, the message reveals that shortly after the events of "Blendin's Game," the members of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron began picking on Blendin for losing Globnar to Dipper and Mabel due to them being children. Even the Time Baby is reported to have called him "No-Friendin Blandin." Fed up with the insults, Blendin wishes it would stop. Bill Cipher appeared moments later offering to stop the Time Baby from bothering him again. Blendin accepted this deal, allowing for Bill to possess him.
In Dipper's entries for Journal 3, he writes about noticing a "ghost" in the background several times. The accompany drawings show that he noticed Blendin. The entries took place during the events of the aforementioned Season 1 episodes in which Blendin makes cameos.
After Bill seemingly killed the Time Baby and Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron in "Weirdmageddon 1: Xpcveaoqfoxso", Blendin traveled back to the year 207̃012 and learned that the squadron only sent holo-projections to the Fearamid, meaning they were never killed in the first place. Upon his arrival, Lolph and Dundgren put out a dimension-wide manhunt on Blendin.
Blendin escaped to multiple points in the past, eventually becoming stranded in the 1880s when his time machine was destroyed by a train. Blendin was able to blend in with the populace and procured a job as a pocket watch repairman, as well as contracting a gold-rush era disease, which he loves for the nostalgia. At some point during his time in the 19th century, Blendin wrote and hid the note Ford found in the Gravity Falls Library.
In The Book of Bill, an advert from a 1901 newspaper mentioned Blendin as a "famed clocksmith of the western plains." In the advert, he was calling for readers for help.
Typing "JUST BLENDIN" on This is Not a Website Dot Com shows an old real-life photograph of cowboys in Oklahoma. Blendin Blandin is seen sitting looking at his time tape in the bottom right corner. The picture shows that Blendin had apparently lost his hair again and managed to fix his time tape, presumably returning to his time.
Personality[]
Blendin is cautious and timid. He tries to hide his identity as a time traveler; however, he gives away his position when Dipper and Mabel approach him. When he becomes nervous, he sweats and he feels like he needs to confess something and begins to act in a suspicious manner. Around the end of "The Time Traveler's Pig," he turns from frightened and clumsy to angry and malevolent after the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron arrests him, and Blendin swore revenge on the twins, threatening to make sure their parents never meet. He becomes even more malevolent when he returns in "Blendin's Game." However, after the twins win Globnar and decide to give him his job back and a head of hair, he forgives them, showing that he is not the type of person to hold grudges.
Appearance[]
Blendin Blandin is a heavyset, light-skinned, bald man. He wears gray and cream goggles and a light gray suit, with simple white boots. The suit seems to have a form of camouflage that is controlled by a watch-like device worn on his wrist. The wrist-worn device seems to be extra glitchy as it malfunctions most of the time, prompting him to borrow Stan Pines' screwdriver. On his tool belt, he has a time machine, a device similar in design to a tape measure. It is operated by pulling the tab out to a certain length that corresponds to a certain period of time. There are also two buttons to choose to go in the "past" or "future." After the events of "Blendin's Game," he has short brown hair, parted down the middle.
Sightings[]
- Intro: "Gravity Falls Main Title Theme"
Season 1
- 101. "Tourist Trapped" (no lines)
- 102. "The Legend of the Gobblewonker" (no lines)
- 103. "Headhunters" (no lines)
- 109. "The Time Traveler's Pig"
- 120. "Gideon Rises" (no lines)
Season 2
- 208. "Blendin's Game"
- 212. "A Tale of Two Stans" (mentioned)
- 215. "The Last Mabelcorn" (pictured)
- 217. "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future"
- 218. "Weirdmageddon 1: Xpcveaoqfoxso"
- 219. "Weirdmageddon 2: Escape From Reality" (no lines)
Games
- Rumble's Revenge
- PinesQuest
- Li'l Gideon Shrinks Back (pictured)
Quotes[]
"AH! My position has been compromised! Assuming stealth mode! Color match. Initiating color match. Come on, dang it!" |
"Uh, NO! Who told you that?! Memory wipe!" |
"Do you have any idea how many rules you just broke? I'm asking, I wasn't there with you. It was probably a lot, right?" |
"Through me! Oh, ugh! Sorry, come on... through me! And that's what it would have been like if I had just gotten it right the very first chance, but it still was effective." |
"I'm gonna keep stammering until you find them! I–I–I–I–I–" |
"My body is a temple, how dare you!" |
""Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nya, with the kids!? Don't you know that a time wish can literally do ANYTHING!? ANY IMPOSSIBLE PROBLEM, SOLVED!"" |
Trivia[]
- Both his name and surname are a pun of "blend in", referring to his camouflage suit.
- He is voiced by Justin Roiland, co-creator of the famous series Rick and Morty, which coincidentally also features time traveler characteristics.
- In "The Time Traveler's Pig" (his debut), when his chronoflage-suit is glitching, it shows the dinosaur cave from "Land Before Swine" and the arcade seen in "Fight Fighters."
- Before Blendin's formal debut, his appearances in the background of the first three episodes were the subject of fan discussion. One Reddit user, named BlendinBlandin before the character's name was even revealed, commented on one such discussion post claiming the appearances were probably nothing. Even earlier, the same user commented on a gif of Dipper asking if anyone had seen a calculator, one of the items Blendin searches for in "The Time Traveler's Pig."[7][8] Since the character's formal debut, this account has become the subject of much speculation because of the use of the character's name before "The Time Traveler's Pig." Alex Hirsch claims to not be responsible but guessed someone involved in the show, whether that be a crewmember or an employee of the wider Disney operation, had made the account.[7][8]
- Dipper stated that he thought Blendin was a ghost in the real life Journal 3.
Gallery
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References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Blendin's Game." Jeff Rowe, Alex Hirsch (writers) & Matt Braly (director). Gravity Falls. Disney XD. November 10, 2014. No. 8, season 2.
- ↑ "PinesQuest" by DisneyGames. Published August 16, 2013. Official webpage.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Old Man" McGucket's Conspiracy Corner Marathon
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "The Time Traveler's Pig." Aury Wallington, Alex Hirsch (writers) & Joe Pitt, Aaron Springer (directors). Gravity Falls. Disney Channel. August 24, 2012. No. 9, season 1.
- ↑ "Tourist Trapped." Alex Hirsch (writer) & John Aoshima (director). Gravity Falls. Disney Channel. June 15, 2012. No. 1, season 1.
- ↑ "The Legend of the Gobblewonker." Michael Rianda, Alex Hirsch (writers) & John Aoshima (director). Gravity Falls. Disney Channel. June 29, 2012. No. 2, season 1.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "U/BlendinBlandin - An Unsolved Gravity Falls Mystery" on YouTube
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 U/BlendinBlandin - An Unsolved Gravity Falls Mystery backup link (Archived Youtube Video). Internet Archive. Retrieved on January 4, 2023.