I have a confession to make...I REALLY love cartoons. From my earliest childhood I used to watch Looney Tunes and later graduated to He-Man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman: The Animated Series, X-Men and my favorite, Transformers! Animated series seriously shaped my childhood and now I have passed some of these on to my own children.
While curating last week, I saw a post by @steven.defi about a show called Gravity Falls, which can be seen here. Something about it struck me as a show I should watch. It reminded me of my love for animation and also my appreciation of the spooky and mysterious (like the show X-Files!). I have Disney+ and decided that it would be fun to give it a try. Well, I binged watched it in 2 days and I wish there was more! Let me tell you a bit of why I loved it so much with the least amount of spoilers. :)
First off, I have to say that the show is expertly crafted. There is a deep satisfaction when a show can weave a story that is intriguing and the episodes seamlessly tie in so well with each successive one. The flashbacks, small details and tie-ins are off the charts good, especially if you are paying attention very closely. I won't spoil any of the twists and turns but let me say, you won't be disappointed with where the author is taking you! Like I said earlier, the only disappointment may be that there aren't more seasons!
Second, a story is really only as good as its characters. Gravity Falls does a great job of getting into the lives of each of the characters and their personalities genuinely make you root for and ultimately care about them. Dipper is a scientific minded, somewhat socially awkward, pre-teen, who is curious and somewhat negative. His twin sister, Mabel is a sweet, silly, kind-hearted young girl with a positive and cheery outlook on just about everything. As characters, they really balance each other out and give so much depth to the show as you see their different personalities and perspectives play out as they solve mysteries and continually save the town.
The side characters are plentiful and I won't go into each one but I have to say that there really isn't one that I didn't enjoy. They all brought something to the show and made Gravity Falls a fun and interesting place. Did you have a character that you didn't like from the show and why?
Lastly, the show's plot and writing were just so fun and playful. It used old tropes continuously but made them fun and new. We have seen zombies, gnomes, aliens, unicorns, psychics and side shows before in other shows but this one always twisted them to be still a bit frightening for the characters but playful for the audience. As previously mentioned, the way the show built on itself through the episodes really brought into focus the genius of the creator.
All in all this show is superb and entertaining. When speaking with my son about it, he commented that his friends had said it had something to do with the Illuminati. This made me smile, because the author definitely played off of a lot of ideas from the Occult, Free Masons and just generally a lot of mysterious and some might say spooky symbolism. But I say that a show wrapped up in mystery has to allude to exactly these type of things.
If you like mysteries and animations, I think you will really enjoy this show. Give it a shot and you might just binge watch it like me in a few days as there are only 2 seasons. Honestly, I wish I had watched this when it first came out because there is so much lore and love for this show still today!
Thank you for reading my review and have an awesome rest of your day!
