Gravity Falls follows Dipper and Mabel Pines, twins sent to spend the summer with their great-uncle Stan in a small Oregon town. Stan runs the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap full of fake monsters. The real problem is that Gravity Falls is full of real ones. Dipper finds a hand-written journal in the woods cataloguing the town's secrets, and the summer turns into a mystery about who wrote it, what they were afraid of, and why Stan seems to know more than he says.
Alex Hirsch created the series for Disney Channel, and it ran for two seasons and 40 episodes between 2012 and 2016. It started as a monster-of-the-week comedy and grew into a tightly plotted story with ciphers hidden in the credits. The characters are what fans keep coming back for: a warm, funny cast where nearly everyone turns out to be more than their first appearance suggests.
- Creator
- Alex Hirsch
- Network
- Disney Channel, later Disney XD
- Run
- 2012–2016
- Episodes
- 40 across two seasons
- Setting
- Gravity Falls, Oregon
The Pines family
Gravity Falls is, at heart, a story about two sets of twins. Dipper and Mabel are learning how to grow up without growing apart. Stan and Ford are what happens when twins don't manage it.
Dipper Pines
Protagonist · Mystery hunter
Mason "Dipper" Pines is a nervous, curious twelve-year-old who gets his nickname from a birthmark shaped like the Big Dipper. Finding Journal 3 gives him a purpose: if he can solve the town's mysteries, maybe he'll be taken seriously. He's brave in the way anxious kids are brave, by doing the scary thing anyway. His arc is about learning that growing up doesn't mean leaving his sister behind.
- Voice
- Jason Ritter
Mabel Pines
Protagonist · Dipper's twin
Mabel is loud, artistic and relentlessly upbeat, with a different hand-knitted sweater in nearly every episode and a pet pig called Waddles. She's often the comic engine of an episode, but the show takes her feelings seriously. Her fear of the summer ending, and of Dipper outgrowing her, is what sets off the series finale. She's five minutes older than Dipper and will remind you.
- Voice
- Kristen Schaal
Grunkle Stan
Owner of the Mystery Shack
Stan Pines is the twins' great-uncle: a gruff con artist who sells fake curiosities to tourists and avoids the IRS. For most of season one he's comic relief with a secret basement. Season two reveals the secret is decades of quiet sacrifice to bring his brother home, and that he took his brother's name to do it. His final act in the series is one of the most moving endings in modern animation.
- Voice
- Alex Hirsch
Ford Pines
The Author of the journals
Stanford "Ford" Pines is Stan's twin, a six-fingered scientist who came to Gravity Falls to study its anomalies and wrote the three journals. Bill Cipher flattered him into building a portal, and Ford spent about thirty years trapped on the other side before Stan got him back. He's brilliant, guarded and a little arrogant, and his relationship with Dipper, who idolises him, is one of season two's key threads.
- Voice
- J.K. Simmons
Waddles
Mabel's pet pig
Mabel wins Waddles at the town fair in season one and adopts him on the spot. He's a normal pig in a town full of abnormal things, and the show gets a lot of mileage out of that. He's Mabel's constant companion, gets carried everywhere, and is fiercely defended by her whenever anyone suggests he's just livestock.
- Voice
- Dee Bradley Baker
The Mystery Shack crew and friends
The Shack's two employees, plus Mabel's best friends and the town's most complicated rich kid, make up the twins' everyday circle.
Soos Ramirez
Mystery Shack handyman
Soos is the Shack's big-hearted, easily delighted handyman, who acts like a goofy older brother to the twins. He loves Stan like a father, which matters more once the show reveals his own dad walked out on him. He takes over running the Shack at the end of the series, which feels exactly right.
- Voice
- Alex Hirsch
Wendy Corduroy
Mystery Shack cashier
Wendy is a laid-back fifteen-year-old from a family of lumberjacks, and Dipper's first big crush. She's capable in a crisis and refreshingly honest with him. When she gently turns him down, the show handles it with real care, and the two end up as genuine friends.
- Voice
- Linda Cardellini
Pacifica Northwest
Rich girl · Rival turned friend
Pacifica is the daughter of the town's wealthiest family and starts as Mabel's snooty rival. Season two's "Northwest Mansion Mystery" shows the controlling parents behind the attitude and the family lie at the root of their fortune. Her choice to break from them is one of the show's best small arcs.
- Voice
- Jackie Buscarino
Candy Chiu
Mabel's best friend
Candy is one of Mabel's two best friends: quiet, a little odd and fiercely clever. She and Grenda join Mabel for sleepovers, boy-band obsessions and, eventually, the fight against Bill.
- Voice
- Niki Yang
Grenda
Mabel's best friend
Grenda is the loud, deep-voiced and very strong third member of Mabel's trio. She's sweet underneath, and her unlikely long-distance romance with a European baron is a running gag the show plays straight.
- Voice
- Carl Faruolo
Robbie Valentino
Teen rival
Robbie is a moody teenage musician and Dipper's rival for Wendy's attention. He uses a hypnotic song to win her over in one episode, which goes about as well as you'd expect. Later he softens into an ordinary awkward teenager.
- Voice
- T.J. Miller
Villains
Gravity Falls has a small-scale villain, a big-scale villain and plenty of monsters in between. The clever part is that the small one is working for the big one.
Bill Cipher
Dream demon · Main antagonist
Bill is a floating yellow triangle with one eye, a top hat and a bow tie. He's cheerful, chatty and completely without mercy. He works through deals, offering knowledge or help in exchange for access to your mind, and he's been playing a long game with the Pines family for decades. In the finale he finally breaks into the real world and starts remaking it in his image. He's funny, unsettling and one of the most memorable cartoon villains of his era.
- Voice
- Alex Hirsch
Gideon Gleeful
Child psychic · Rival
"Li'l" Gideon is a small, white-haired child performer who runs a rival tent of mystery. On stage he's adorable. Off stage, he's a manipulative little tyrant who wants the Mystery Shack, Mabel's affection and the journals, in that order. He holds Journal 2, and his deal with Bill early in the show sets up much of what follows.
- Voice
- Thurop Van Orman
Blendin Blandin
Time traveller
Blendin is a hapless agent of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron whose job keeps going wrong because of the twins. He starts as an antagonist and ends up more of a sad-sack recurring guest.
- Voice
- Justin Roiland
The Gnomes and Jeff
First-episode monsters
A colony of forest gnomes, led by the smooth-talking Jeff, try to make Mabel their queen in the very first episode. They combine into a giant gnome monster when refused, and they set the show's tone: funny first, creepy second.
Townsfolk and recurring characters
The town itself is a character, and Hirsch fills it with oddballs who return again and again, often with bigger roles than you'd expect.
Old Man McGucket
Local kook · Inventor
McGucket is a rambling hillbilly who builds giant robots out of junk. It turns out he was Ford's research partner, and he's been erasing his own memories with a device he invented so he can forget what he saw. His recovery in season two is gentle and very moving.
- Voice
- Alex Hirsch
Sheriff Blubs
Town sheriff
Blubs is the town's lazy, oblivious sheriff, permanently paired with his deputy Durland. The pair would rather eat doughnuts than investigate anything, but they step up during Weirdmageddon.
- Voice
- Kevin Michael Richardson
Deputy Durland
Deputy sheriff
Durland is Blubs' sweetly dim deputy and best friend. Almost all his lines are excited agreement with whatever Blubs just said.
- Voice
- Keith Mahar
Lazy Susan
Diner owner
Lazy Susan runs Greasy's Diner and has one permanently lazy eye. She has a crush on Stan, and he's not quite sure how he feels about it.
- Voice
- Jennifer Coolidge
Manly Dan
Lumberjack · Wendy's father
Manly Dan is Wendy's enormous lumberjack father, who solves most problems by punching them. He has a surprisingly soft spot for his kids.
- Voice
- John DiMaggio
Toby Determined
Local reporter
Toby is the town's strange, desperate newspaper reporter, who runs the Gravity Falls Gossiper and once falls in love with a cardboard cutout.
Tad Strange
Very normal man
Tad Strange is the most aggressively ordinary person in town, which in Gravity Falls makes him the strangest of all.
Multi-Bear
Creature of the woods
A many-headed bear Dipper fights to prove he's a man in "Dipper vs. Manliness". The fight ends in a way that tells you a lot about Dipper's kindness.
Shmebulock
Gnome
A gnome who can only say his own name. He's a tiny background joke that the show keeps coming back to.
Gravity Falls voice cast
Alex Hirsch voices an unusually large share of the main cast himself, which is why Stan, Soos and Bill can sound like three very different people with one thing in common.
| Character | Voice actor | Also known for |
|---|---|---|
| Dipper Pines | Jason Ritter | Parenthood, Kevin (Probably) Saves the World |
| Mabel Pines | Kristen Schaal | Flight of the Conchords, Bob's Burgers |
| Grunkle Stan, Soos, Bill Cipher, McGucket | Alex Hirsch | Creator; King in The Owl House |
| Ford Pines | J.K. Simmons | Whiplash, Spider-Man |
| Wendy Corduroy | Linda Cardellini | Freaks and Geeks, Scooby-Doo |
| Gideon Gleeful | Thurop Van Orman | Creator of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack |
| Pacifica Northwest | Jackie Buscarino | Voice work |
| Candy Chiu | Niki Yang | BMO in Adventure Time |
| Robbie Valentino | T.J. Miller | Silicon Valley |
| Sheriff Blubs | Kevin Michael Richardson | Prolific voice actor |
| Lazy Susan | Jennifer Coolidge | Legally Blonde, The White Lotus |
| Manly Dan | John DiMaggio | Jake in Adventure Time, Bender in Futurama |
All Gravity Falls character names A–Z
B
- Bill Cipher — dream demon
- Blendin Blandin — time agent
C–D
- Candy Chiu — Mabel's friend
- Deputy Durland — deputy
- Dipper Pines — protagonist
F–G
- Ford Pines — the Author
- Gideon Gleeful — child psychic
- Grenda — Mabel's friend
- Grunkle Stan — Mystery Shack owner
J–M
- Jeff — gnome leader
- Lazy Susan — diner owner
- Mabel Pines — protagonist
- Manly Dan — lumberjack
- Multi-Bear — creature
O–R
- Old Man McGucket — inventor
- Pacifica Northwest — rich kid
- Robbie Valentino — teen rival
S–W
- Sheriff Blubs — sheriff
- Shmebulock — gnome
- Soos Ramirez — handyman
- Tad Strange — normal man
- Toby Determined — reporter
- Waddles — pig
- Wendy Corduroy — cashier
What the characters are really about
The show's monsters are fun, but its real subject is the end of childhood. Each main character faces a version of that:
- Dipper wants to grow up fast and be taken seriously, and learns he doesn't have to choose between being smart and being a kid.
- Mabel wants the summer, and childhood, to last forever. Bill exploits that wish in the finale.
- Stan and Ford show what happens when siblings let pride win. The kids are, in a sense, getting a second chance on their behalf.
- Pacifica and Soos both deal with the damage parents can do, and both choose to be better.
That mix of comedy, mystery and grief influenced a wave of later shows. The Owl House came from a Gravity Falls storyboard artist and shares Hirsch as King's voice, and Steven Universe and Adventure Time work in a similar register. If you want more about Bill's style of antagonist, our guide to villain types covers the trickster. For more twins-and-siblings drama, see iconic rivalries.
Where to start
Watch in airing order. Season one is more episodic and works as a slow build. Season two turns serial fast, and the last few episodes are one continuous story.
- Season 1 (20 episodes) — the monster-of-the-week year, ending with the reveal in "Gideon Rises".
- Season 2 (20 episodes) — the Author mystery, the Pines brothers' history and Weirdmageddon.
- The books — Journal 3 (2016) and The Book of Bill (2024) add lore for fans who've finished the show.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the main Gravity Falls characters?
Twelve-year-old twins Dipper and Mabel Pines, who spend the summer with their great-uncle Stan at his tourist trap, the Mystery Shack. Handyman Soos and cashier Wendy round out the core cast, while Stan's twin brother Ford and the dream demon Bill Cipher drive the larger mystery.
Who is Bill Cipher?
Bill Cipher is a one-eyed, triangle-shaped dream demon and the main villain of the series. He makes deals, enters minds and possesses bodies, and his long-term goal is to break into the physical world. He's voiced by the show's creator, Alex Hirsch.
Who wrote the journals in Gravity Falls?
Stanford "Ford" Pines, Stan's twin brother. He wrote all three journals while studying the town's anomalies, then hid them after realising Bill Cipher had tricked him. The identity of the Author is the show's biggest running mystery until mid-season two.
Are Dipper and Mabel twins?
Yes. They're twelve-year-old twins from Piedmont, California, and Mabel is older by five minutes, a fact she brings up often. Their relationship deliberately mirrors Stan and Ford's, the older set of Pines twins.
Who voices Grunkle Stan, Soos and Bill Cipher?
All three are voiced by creator Alex Hirsch, who also voices Old Man McGucket and several smaller roles. Ford Pines is voiced by J.K. Simmons.
How many episodes of Gravity Falls are there?
Forty episodes across two seasons, airing from 2012 to 2016. The story is complete. Hirsch chose to end it with the finale rather than stretch it out, and later expanded the world through tie-in books such as Journal 3 and The Book of Bill.