It's a genius reveal that Grunkle Stan's real name being Stanley is exactly how he knew all along that Gideon was a fraud psychic. Gideon called him "Stanford Pines" like everyone else, if Gideon were truly a psychic, he'd know that it wasn't his real name.
I actually didn't notice that but I know that this is because Steam doesn't like being nice that often so asking for something nicely is hard for him and Ford always thinks he doesn't need help because of how smart he is
Ford do not have any problem with saying thanks tho he just do not say it to Stanley because that was the least he can do and he is angry to him not thankfull
To be fair, he had several decades to do so, and only finally completed it when he had the complete original blueprints. It's still a hugely impressive feat though, just credited more to his stubborn resolve and drive rather than natural talent.
@@josephperez2004 yes he had time but his resolve and determination to do it is very impressive Even tho he had the og blueprints let's be honest here you you had blueprints to an interdimensional portal you probably wouldn't understand it
Not to mention, the last thing he said to him was "do something" as he threw the journal at him. Of course he would assume he wanted him to use the portal again.
Actually in the previous episode Stanly actually reads out loud that this is going to cause problems with gravity and it is not in invisible ink. But after barely glancing at it he says "can it poindexter I've come this far I am not going to stop now". This indicates that Stanley is aware that a warning is telling him to stop but he decides it is worth the risk. That said it is not nearly as good a warning as what Dipper read in journal 3 and this point actually felt off for me for some time. It is only recently that I finally put everything together to where this line makes sense. Remember in the season premier Stanely made a copy of journal 3 and he DID find out about the invisible ink AFTER he gave the real journal 3 back to Dipper. Since Stanley clearly reacted to the discovery of the invisible ink it would be a no brainer for him to use a black light on the 2 journals he still had and the invisible ink in those journals must have had info that was needed to get the portal working. So when Ford discovers that Stanly got the portal working he knows that Stan did read the invisible ink in journals 1 and 2. So Ford just assumes that Stanley read the invisible ink in journal 3 as well which as we saw last episode had several major warnings. But by the time Stanley learned of the invisible ink he no longer had the original journal only copies where the invisible ink would not have transfered to. So due to these very specific circumstances Ford knew that Stanely read the normal ink in all 3 journals and he knew that Stanely read the invisible ink in the first 2 journals. But the invisible ink in journal 3 is the only thing he didn't read.
One of my favorite little details in this episode is that you can see a growing pile of Physics and Chemistry books next to Stan during the montage of him standing in front of the mirror over the years after taking over the Mystery Shack. Despite his whole family lambasting him as a good-for-nothing idiot, and despite it taking him 30 years, he put in the time and effort to actually learn enough scientific knowledge to figure out Ford's portal and get it working again. He may not have as much natural talent/intellect as Ford, but damn if his determination isn't amazing.
Also he got that thing working all on his own, without any formal education on the matter, while running a Business and taking care of two kids (unlike Ford who had the Funds to dedicate all his time to his research) and with no one being aware of it until it was almost completed. Impressive as hell
Which is why it’s so goddamn annoying that Stanford doesn’t want to say thank you to him, he put in all that time and effort to bring him back just for his brother to still be petty about it even after 30 whole years.
Fun Fact: people predicted the twist that Stan’s brother was the author while the show was being released, so Alex Hirsch made a fake leak that McGucket was the author and then took it down, it was actually pretty hilarious
McGucket is the most tragic person in this whole show. His entire life was completely destroyed as a result of seeing what he saw, and then he built that memory erasing gun.
One thing that people dont really think about is the family background and how sad Stanley's story actually is. Think about it, in the flashback sherby was still a baby, and the fact that mabel and dipper didn’t know about Ford means that Stanley was completly errassed from the family, like Sherby was never told that stanley even existed. The twins's parents thought they were sending them to Ford, the nerd responsible adult Ford, which means no one from the family has ever visited Gravity Falls since Ford left for collage. The twins being sent to Stanley’s house was probably the first contact he’s had with the family in 30 years. Which makes the scene in the season 1 finale where Grunkle is calling the twins's parents even sadder, he is talking to this part of his family that he has never met and that doesn't even know he exists. No one after Ford know's that he even exists.
I wonder if because of that Mabel and Dipper’s parents were completely shocked that they were having twins. Twins are genetic. They usually run in the family so if the baby in the episode never knew that their older brother is a twin then that means their kid (Mable and Dibber’s parent) doesn’t know that their uncle is a twin either. That is assuming that the other side of the family didn’t have any twins or triplets either.
@@thateye49 I know that, but it's been 40 years since Stan was kicked out. 40 is a weird age to be a grandfather, but a perfectly reasonable age to be a dad of teens, so it has to be Dipper and Mabel's dad
I love the code for this episode: A stubborn tough New Jersey native, Filbrick wasn't too creative. Having twins was not his plan, so he just shrugged and named both Stan.
@@thecookiecrumbsinpercyshai8685 I once read a fan comic where he was beating his sons, and after the beating, the Stans mother was telling them that he wasn't like this before, but the war changed him. He wasn't a holocaust survivor in this comic, but he fought in WW2.
There was a deleted scene showing Stan pushing a car off a cliff to fake his own death. It cuts to a man implied to be a mob boss reading about Stan’s “death” in a newspaper. He seems pretty pleased.
My favorite part is that Stan didn't actually sabotage the project; he accidentally hit the table, and just didn't tell Ford. He still messed up, but it's so much more understandable. Stan didn't realize he didn't actually fix it, and he obviously didn't want to get in trouble.
the fact that stanley would NEVER sabotage his brother, even though it meant that ford must move to other side of the country, makes it sadder. he was angry, but he didn't expect machine to break, he tried to fix it and didn't expect it to not work :( i know that talking about treasure hunting at this moment might seem pretty at a wrong time, but ford didn't even listen, didn't even think that it could be actually an accident. it says pretty much a lot about their dynamic :(
What sell for me that Stanley was telling the true is the fact that he is a bad liar, the episode when woddles is taken prove this, his always tends to go to far with his lies, Therefore, the fact that he told without adding anything ridiculous shows that he was telling the truth when he said that he only punch the table That was probaly a work from Bill, we se that he can manipulate yhe world in a minor scale, and cleary was already eye on Stanford, but, With Stanley, Who has always had a sharper eye and less naive on his side, it would be impossible to deceive him
that would mean it was Ford's fault for the machine breaking though...if it was so fragile that the table being bumped or shook would cause it to completely break, then what would happen if a Janitor bumped the table in the night
Okay so the twins' grandfather, Sherman Pines, is implied to be the baby seen in one scene. What's hilarious about this is that the writers kinda messed up the math; In order for the timeline to make sense you'd need like.. Two teenage pregnancies. Or at least VERY EARLY adult pregnancies. When asked about the baby, a lot of the crew avoid it, the most hilarious example is Alex (I think) shouting: "WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE BABY!" at a conference.
Some say (this is my preferred way to think of it) is that Sherman is actually older than the twins and that is his son, aka Dipper and Mabel’s dad. That way it just makes a bit more sense in the age difference between Shermie and the Stan twins
@@Luna-zi7qqbut there's a detail that might jeopardize that theory, Dipper and Mabel's grandfather would have told them or their parents about his TWO twin younger brothers, they would've asked Stan about his twin, that would have been a hard thing to explain and spoiled the whole twist.
Mabel and Dipper's parents thought they were sending them to the nerdy twin Stanford, the responsible one. Its like that Stanley was completely erased from the family like he never existed.
@@M4x_P0w3r yeah but even a family death is known, dipper and Mabel didn't even know there were two stans Stanley was basically erased from his family
One thing I feel doesn't get talked about enough is Stanley's tattoo/branding. Stanford didn't just kick him into it, he put his foot into his chest and held Stanley long enough to burn through at least 2-3 clothing layers and for his skin to literally start smoking. Don't get me wrong, with how hot it was it wouldn't have taken long but god damn I'm not suprised Stanley shoved it after that
Yeah, that was really brutal. I also feel it doesn't get talked about enough that as soon as he realized Stan was hurt, Ford immediately stopped fighting, said "I'm so sorry!" and was concerned about Stan. Stan coming up fighting, and shoving Ford into the portal room, very much makes sense! It's just a shame, because clearly the fight could have been over right at that moment, at least from Ford's side.
I just realized that maybe that’s why Stan loved his wax statue so much! Because it was like having his twin brother back again because they have the same face! Really puts things into perspective…can’t wait for the rest of your reactions awesome video❤
That was indeed the intent behind that episode. :). Alex has talked about it. (Now go back and look at what Stan called his little boat in "The Legend of the Gobblewonker".)
There is actually a small foreshadowing that Stan's name was Stanley, not Stanford, and that he was for some reason using a different name. In scenes with his car, his license plate is "STNLYMBL," you even get a good look at it in the episode where Stan takes them fishing. Also technically, we've seen Stanford already in the show, during "The Time Traveler's Pig" episode, when they go back in time and we see a younger Stan for a small second look out the Mystery Shak, that's Stanford, not Stanley, the storyboard for the episode even was going to be just a six-fingered hand opening the door, then closing it soon after, before they decided not to do that, wanting to wait a bit before giving any major hints to the author.
The identity of the baby is still subject to some debate, but the most common theory is that it's Dipper & Mabel's grandparent "Shermie" who was mentioned earlier in this episode. Stan & Ford being "Great Uncles" implies that they are the siblings of one of Dipper & Mabel's grandparents, presumably (but not definitively) their paternal grandfather since they all share the "Pines" last name. Almost every remaining episode in the series is fantastic imho, so I'm very excited to see the rest of your reactions!
@@MillyThe_Rat yeah that’s because in English “great-uncle” is supposed to only refer to your great grandparents’ brother while “grand-uncle” is supposed to refer to your grandparents brother, but English speakers tend to incorrectly use “great-uncle” to refer to their “grand-uncle”. Of course this also applies to aunts as well.
So, the baby was *meant* to be Shermie, for sure. I think a writer confirmed that at one point. However, Alex and the crew then realized they''d screwed up the math. If that baby is Shermie, then he would have had to have a kid at age 15, and that kid would have had to have Dipper and Mabel at age 15. (Not impossible! But not what they wanted to imply.). Alex has, ever since, refused to say for sure who that baby is. (And he has been asked directly many times.). So a prevalent theory is that the baby is Dipper and Mabel's father, who Ma Pines is babysitting while Shermie is elsewhere; and that Shermie is a LOT older than the Stans, so that he was already out of the house by the time they were about 9, when we first see them. (Since Stan says they only had each other.) I personally like to think he was off fighting in Vietnam at that time; but there are plenty of ways you could explain it. However, yes, not everyone goes with that; some folks do go with "the baby is Shermie", and come up with ways to explain that.
@@gryphonvert THirty years ago, Stanley said it's been ten years since he'd seen Stanford, but he could have seen Stanford after he was kicked out. I headcanon that it's been longer than the forty years this implies if the sundering was the last time they saw each other. 13-year-old (rounded) twins + 19-year-old parent + 20-year-old SHermie = 62 years ago + ≈17-year-old Stan twins at sundering would make them ≈79 years old, which I can accept. If so, they look great for their age. (If I did my math right, and haven't missed something from the canon...)
@@maxthorn7308 Yes, you're missing a few clues from canon. For the first scenes where they're kids, Stan says it's "1960-something". It's unclear whether they're 9, or 12, but they're somewhere in between those ages (since they look close to the way Mabel and Dipper are drawn, proportion-wise). The biggest clue is the meeting in the principal's office, which is in their senior year. There is a photo of Richard Nixon hung on the wall. So that scene can't take place earlier than 1969, when Nixon became president; and it can't take place later than 1974, when Nixon resigned. And there's a further bit of evidence: in the scene where they argue, Stan is watching TV and says, "That Jackie O., what a fox." Jackie Kennedy (JFK's widow) married Aristotle Onassis in the fall of 1968; it's only afterwards that anyone would refer to her as "Jackie O." Now, you can put their 18th birth year any place in there, but the earliest they could be born, and still turn 18 in June (after, or just as they are graduating from high school) is 1951. A further piece of evidence is later found in the published Journal 3, where Ford writes down a rough timeline that puts his arrival in Gravity Falls in 1975. What Ford says in ATOTS is that he "went from undergrad to ph.D three years ahead of schedule". The normal amount of time that an undergraduate degree takes in the U.S. is 4 years. The *very minimum* amount of time that a ph.D can take is also 4 years. That suggests that he did it in about 5 years, which just about fits in with having gone to college in the fall of 1969, and has him graduating and getting his grant to go study in 1975. Thus, when Stan said "you haven't seen your brother in over 10 years", and "you finally wanna see me after 10 years", he meant it -- they hadn't seen each other since the night that Stan got thrown out. (The "over 10 years" is a bit more accurate, probably.) So Stan and Ford are about 62 years old at the time of the show. Ford does kind of look and act like a 62 year old who has kept active and fit. Stan looks and acts a bit older, but this makes some sense with Stan having lived a bit harder. That also gets into headcanon territory, although it's based on a tweet that Alex Hirsch made a while ago -- he was asked, if Disney had allowed it, if he would have shown Stan drinking alcohol. Alex answered, "yes, AND smoke a cigar". Stan does have a kind of raspy "smoker's voice". So these hints taken together make most people figure that Stan drinks and smokes, but gave it up (along with swearing) while the kids were there. Smoking especially can age people a bit more in comparison to people who don't smoke.
You know, it will never cease to amaze me how the casting department for this show managed to get J.K. Simmons to be the voice of Ford. Like, that will never not blow my mind.
It was a great get, but yeah, he does a LOT of voice acting. And it often involves much longer commitments than he had with Gravity Falls (like, ALL of Legend of Korra). He did a voice on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (the show created by Thurop van Orman, who voices Gideon, and the first show Alex worked on). He often does a lot of smaller roles -- Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, and Megamind, for example. But his longest roles (I think?) are Tenzin from "Korra", Ford from Gravity Falls, and then Omni-Man in "Invicible". Also: all the Cave Johnson bits from Portal 2. So this wasn't like getting a movie star who has never done voice work before; but it WAS a case of getting someone who has a great reputation as both an actor, and a voice actor.
9:10 The identity of that baby is still a mystery. Many people in the fandom speculate that it’s Shermie, A.K.A Dipper and Mabel’s grandfather. But in order for that to be the case, there would have been two generations of teen pregnancies in the Pines family (both Shermie and Dipper and Mabel’s father becoming teen dads) since this flashback with the baby takes place in 1971-1972. And since I highly doubt that was the writer’s intention, we don’t know who that baby is.
@@SirScrewloose Yes, exactly. But because they botched the math, Alex has absolutely refused ever since to confirm who the baby is. And he's been asked directly, many times. So, canonically, the baby isn't Shermie. Or, I guess, canonically we don't know who the baby is, so people can feel free to theorize it any way they want.
@@ShadowPenguin No. Stan says that Dipper and Mabel are Shermie's grandkids. Stan and Ford would not be their great-uncles, unless Shermie was their brother.
Some people think that Shermie is older than Stanley and Stanford, and the baby is the father of Mabel and Dipper so that day they were looking after their grandkid.
I decided to keep the extras until after this episode for obvious reasons. There's a lot to cover. (don't worry, still spoiler free) 1. When Mcgucket fell into the portal, Alex Hirsch said he saw "the kids of places Bill Cipher likes to hang out." There's a hidden code in the journal that says he saw Bill "removing his exoskeleton in order to feed." Eugh. 2. people theorized Stan had a secret twin YEARS before he actually showed up. All because the licence plate on Stan's car said stnlymbl. 3. The boat in Legend of the gobblewonker has "Stan o' war" painted on the side of it. Just in case you needed some emotional damage. 4. This explains why Stan got so emotional over his wax figure's death. All the way back in the 3RD episode! 5. In the time-traveler's pig, when the twins are traveling through time we see the shack during wintertime, and supposedly Stan peeking out. That was technically Ford's first appearance. 6. In Carpet Diem, Stan is reminiscing over a pair of glasses that we now know to be Ford's. 7. in dreamscaperers, in Stan's boxing match memory, you can see Ford in the background reading a book. 8. also note Ford is voiced by J. K Simmons. He can do no wrong :) See ya soon!
"I just got him back! I can't lose him again!" That line made me tear up a bit. I feel bad for Stan. He just wants his twin brother. He tried for years to turn on the machine but couldn't do it without the journals. When people thought he was the mysterious stranger in the woods, he let everyone think that until he could bring Stanford back from the portal. He transformed the house into the Mystery Shack to pay off the bills. Its amazing that Stan was able to learn physics for years to operate the portal despite not being smart as Stanford.
16:28 Y’know how much of a-quite literal-painful reminder that scar on Stan’s back must be? He got it the last day he saw his brother, and the last day he KNEW Ford was alive. It’s a memento of the day he ruined his brother’s life for the 2nd time, and he had that guilt literally on his back.
My personal headcanon on why they're both named Stan is because they weren't expecting a twin so they planned to name one stanford, so they just called the other one Stanley
that is canon- It's the code this episode, some others have mentioned it: "A stubborn tough New Jersey native, Filbrick wasn't too creative. Having twins was not his plan, so he just shrugged and named both Stan."
@@haz6908And keeping with the Pines tradition of the kids’ middle names being their parents’ first names, Stanford’s middle name is Filbrick after his dad. lol And that sort of implies Stanley’s middle name is Carolyn. 😭
While the fight between Stan and Ford got out of hand, Stan wasn’t entirely wrong about Ford being selfish, as Ford chose to use Stan ruining his chances of going to his dream school as an example of Stan being selfish, even though it’s clear it was an accident, an accident that cost Stan much more than Ford.
No, it was clear for us, the audience, that it was an accident because we were litterally SHOWN how he broke it, for Ford there was no evidence that Stan had done it by accident: don't forget he lied to Ford, covered up his tracks, and stayed quiet about it, and when confronted about it, he showed no inch of remorse, didn't apologize about it, shrugged it off as if it was no big deal, and then jumped ahead with a bright smile to offer him to come to sail with him instead. Stan painted himself in a horrible light and looked as if he had done it on purpose so Ford would drop the college and went with him instead, since that's what Ford had told him he would do if he didn't get in. Stan had no right to call him selfish after that, when he hadn't even bothered to apologize or come clean afterwards. And no, his accident didn't cost him much more than Ford, Ford lost his future and chances due to his mistake. Stan didn't deserve to get kicked out, but that wasn't due to the accident, it was due to Filbrick's abuse and overreaction, any other parent wouldn't have taken it that far. Ford losing his schollarship was Stan's fault, Stan being homeless and kicked out was Filbrick's fault.
@@dracoangelrojoEven if Ford thought it was intentional, he was still able to have a successful life and got a ton of grant money for his research. His future wasn't ruined in the slightest. Meanwhile Stan was kicked out of his home as a minor, and was likely homeless for a long time and scrambling to make any money at all. Their situations are just not comparable, Stanley got the short end of the stick. After 30 years, all Ford has to say is "get out of my house"? I'd beat his ass then and there smh
@@deadgame2098 Just because Ford managed to have a successful life and still accomplish things DESPITE Stan's mistake, doesn't entitle Stan for forgiveness, specially when he hadn't even tried to apologize and owned up to his mistake regarding Ford in 10 years. For all we know, Ford could have succeeded without working so hard and maybe even downright avoid all the trauma he went through in Gravity Falls if Stan hadn't done what he did. Again, I never denied that what Stan went through was unfair, he did NOT deserve to get kicked out of the house for that, specially being a minor, but that is NOT Ford's fault, that's Filbrick, an abusive piece of crap of a father. No good parent would have kicked their minor out in the streets over a mistake. Stan being kicked out was NOT Ford's responsibility, just because Stan had it worse than Ford because of Filbrick, doesn't enable Stan from his wrongdoings towards Ford, who he never apologized over it, heck, the first thing he did was blame HIM for ruinning his life. And you are forgetting that Ford is NOT kicking Stan out of his house for the apprenticeship, but for everything else he did aftewards: afterall, Stan did get him trapped in the portal, stole his identity, his house, his research and turned it into a tourist trap for 30 years, and then ignored his warnings and opened the portal which almost destroyed the entire universe, the kids included. And despite all of what he did, he shows no remorse over anything he has done regarding Ford, and demands a thank you. If you say Stan is entitled to kick Ford's ass, Ford is entitled to be pissed at him. Stan loves Ford, but he screwed up a lot and costed Ford over half of his life, his anger is justified.
@@deadgame2098 exactly, I love the brothers but I will FOREVER have beef with Stanford for how immature and shitty he can also be. Stan didn't permanently ruin his future in the slightest, imagine having the credentials and credit and list of acedemic accomplishments he has and thinking your future rests on one single failed experiment. He got another offer within the next few years and was set up and FUNDED while he was content to never even THINK about his brother again until he needed something from him. What Stan did was awful and the worst part is definately the lying and deflection, it's shitty!! But Stanford was fully just like "yeah this is enough for me to just not care where you are, if you're starving on the streets, if you're dead somewhere, if you're in danger, it doesn't matter bc you ruined one of the MANY scholership offers I got."
@@starcaptain9320 It seems like Ford didn't even have to work an actual job at any point in his life, he had enough money to build a house and do nothing but research all day. On a topic that most regard as nonsense. I still wonder what facility would fund this kind of stuff without apparently expecting any documentation or results? Think about it: Usually people get funding because the facility wants something out of the results. When Ford stopped giving them results, wouldn't they either have cut the funding and investigated or just known something was up and sent someone there? You don't get thousands of dollars for nothing. Does some different organisation interested in the paranormal just have the blueprints for a portal lying around?
Stanley and Stanford's back stories were so shocking. There are some dark secrets that were shown. Two of them were separated for 30 years was heartbroken. Dipper's high-pitched scream cracked me up 😱😱😱😢😢😢🤣🤣🤣
Fun fact; people have theorized that stan had a twin brother way before this episode aired. Alex had to mislead the fans by indicating that fiddleford was the author
fun fact: In Gravity Falls 1x02 stan's boat is called the stan o War, like the boat he and his brother found on the beach, and in 1x03, the reason why stan liked the wax figure Mabel made, is because it reminded him of his brother
The school thing always stood out to me as an example of Stanford's arrogance (Yes it is also an example of Stanley not thinking things through but the Ford part bothered me more cus of where I was in my life when I first saw the episode). The fact that Ford ended up going to something like Backupsmore with their mostly bug-free dorms said to me that he didn't bother applying to any other schools and by the time he was rejected, the applications for other good schools had closed for the year. Even if he didn't get into West Coast Tech his good grades and other accomplishments still should have landed him acceptance, maybe even a scholarship, to a pretty decent school. I saw the episode soon after high school graduation so I was very familiar with the university/college application process and I remember how insistent my high school was that everyone applied to backup schools. Some of the smartest kids in my grade were super resistant to the idea and really had to be talked into it. They told us no matter how good your grades are you never know and it's better to get into a good school that wasn't your first choice than none at all so you have options.
Wow you just brought up 2 different sdes of the same argument. I can see where you are coming with the arrogance angle but remember it didn't look like the family had much money for collage without a full scholarship. Back ups more might have been all they could aford. Plus Ford did make a commitment saying he would go treasure hunting with Stanly if the college board wasn't impressed. I think he was going to keep his word if Stanly hadn't (accidently) sabotaged it.
There are two theories about the baby. One: it is Dipper and Mabel's grandpa. This brings up a lot of issues with the timeline since that would mean Dipper and Mabel's parents were born when their grandpa was still a teenager. That's not impossible, but it's an odd detail to have in a Disney show. To be honest, that was probably meant to be their grandpa, and Alex literally just made a mistake with the timeline. Another theory that makes more sense from a timeline but was probably not intended is that the baby is Dipper and Mabel's dad. The time in those flashbacks is during the Vietnam war. Stan and Ford are both too young to be drafted, but if they had an older brother he would've been. The theory goes that this older brother already had a son, he was raising the son alone for some reason, and when he got drafted, his parents helped take care of this son when he was away. That theory makes the most sense with the timeline, but it is a bit too complex for me to believe it was the original intent. Especially since at a fan convention, Alex famously said "We can't talk about the baby." That sounds like someone who realized too late that they fucked up the timeline a bit too much hggfgf
That school principal was such a coward. He called both twins to his office, but only let one in while the other stayed in the waiting room. Then he talked smack about Stanley when he wasn't even in the same room to defend himself. As if Stan didn't have enough insecurities about his school performance before, this moment brought it all to a boiling point. And without his brother as an adventure partner/moral compass, Stanley doubled down on his trouble-making tendencies while desperately trying to prove himself to his father. One can only wonder how the Stans' strained relationship and personality clashes will reflect on the Mystery Twins...
"Sure would be nice if things worked out like they do in cartoons". So many years later and the Tragedy of the Twins Named Stan still hurts my heart. I really love how elaborate this reveal was and how it connected with everything we've seen. Its incredible and im glad you enjoy this. 😊
Alex Hirsch never confirmed it, but the theory among the fans is that the baby in the flashback is really Dipper and Mabel's dad and Shermie is the Stans older brother.
@Blossy_Tr0pical this would be the instance where the writers missed out on the math, because if Shermie was the baby, he'd be one VERY YOUNG GRANDPA at 40 when his grandkids Dipper and Mabel are 12. Hence, why the fandom figured that the baby in the flashback is really Shermie's son and not Shermie himself. Again, Alex hasn't *officially* confirmed or denied the identity of the baby in the flashback. I don't know what else to tell you.
@Blossy_Tr0pical Alex has been known to be dodgy about answering questions. I mean, the name of Stan and Ford's mom wasn't revealed until Lost Legends (and you had to solve a riddle for that).
I love the detail of Stanford checking Stanley's eyes when he showed up after 10 years, because when Bill is possessing someone, their eyes become catlike.
There are a LOT of machines that are very finely calibrated and balanced, and just jostling the table they're on would throw them off. We don't know exactly how the perpetual motion machine was supposed to work (since, by definition, it's impossible in the real world), but it's reasonable to think it requires things to be in balance to keep going.
This is such a good episode, hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Easily my all time favorite episode! :D Edit: sadly, no future dipper and Mabel timeskip. No adult versions :( also, I love both Stans, but Stanley is just so hilarious and iconic… I gotta go with the good ol’ chaotic capitalist we all know and love. Ford has some good interactions with other characters though and I find his backstory quite interesting!
I think their backstory is pretty sad from Stanley not wanting to be left behind and Ford getting him dreams crushed by his brother only for Stanley to accidentally send his brother to another dimension.
you should get the journal 3 book they produced, its a good read after the series and it fills in gaps like what exactly happened while Ford was through the portal
This episode is so sad but heartwarming at the same time, seeing Stanley & Stanford as kids to when it all lead up to when Stanford disappeared and Stanley created the Mystery Shack. I also felt sorry for Stanley being in the shadow of Stanford and getting kicked out of his house by his own father for accidently ruining Stanford's chance of getting into college. JK Simmons voiced Stanford perfectly and captured a very smart character that felt like he was a freak for having 6 fingers on both hands. plus I finally saw how Oldman McGuken became mentally broken and how Bill Cypher fits into all of the events throughout the series.
And here we enter the next arc of Gravity Falls, with plenty of new emotional family drama, a new character introduced, and a lot of lore and backstory. I remember watching this episode and feeling so bad for Stanley and what he ended up going through. Seriously, that poor guy went through so much trauma after he was kicked out. Ford, meanwhile, I don't feel too bad for, since even though he was denied his "dream school" because of some accident, he still got a lot done in his life, so therefore he shouldn't have held that strong of a grudge against his brother. I'll easily take Stanley over Stanford.
(No spoilers)My favorite always been Stanley, because hes the more fun and caring out of the too, he spends more time with Mabel and Dipper and always makes it known when he thinks he did them wrong, while Stanford always seemed more shallow. He really only seemed to care about people that had similar interests to him and didn’t take kindly to those who disagreed with him
12:45 Hirsch has a varied vocal range, but there are a couple of distinctive voices that he has used for more than one character. Bill Cipher and King are very similar, except Bill has a slightly altered voice to give it a little echo and make him sound more mystical. He also reused the McGucket "old man" voice for a character on Inside Job
19:44 fun fact: Stanley has problems saying please, and Stanford has problem saying thank you, they "complete" each others flaws Also, there is a meme that every state that Stan was banned from was ilegal being trans, and every time i see that episode I remember it
One of the many things this reveal made some more sense is the fact that Stanley legitimately does commit tax fraud bcuz he stole Stanford's identity. It wasn't a throwaway line back when he had that truth teeth stuck to him.
The baby was dipper and Mabel's grandparent. It is unknown if it's the grandfather or grandmother but it's probably the former cuz they kept the pines surname
What’s funny to me is that in the haunted mansion episode, I can’t fully remember what she said and the reason why but she said “And Because of that, I’m actually this close to not liking Gravity falls” Then 2 episodes later she starts enjoying it again and her hype on finishing the show is back again
For thirty years, Ford travelled to many different dimensions: one where everything was shaped like the letter M, one where everything was decided by Lady Luck, and even a 2D world (not Bill’s home world, that was Euclydia which doesn’t exist anymore). That thing Ford said about his eyes being stolen, that was a joke Bill played on him the day before Stanley came. He was really driving Ford to his wits end by that point
Right from ep 2, the plate on Stan's car read STNLYMBL, and we also had foreshadowing of Ford with the snowed Shack, the far corner of the boxing memory, and the broken swing in his mind represents the absence. Many thought Stan took his brother's car and Stanley was the author, only for it to be flipped.
12:45 (according to IMDb) Alex Hirsch: Grunkle Stan, Soos, Old Man McGucket, Young McGucket, Bill Cipher, Jeff the Gnome, Mayor Befufftlefumpter, Nate, Sev'ral Timez, Digi-Cod, Dippy Fresh, Gnomes, Jimmy, Laser Tag Announcer, Puppeteer, Quentin Trembley, Shimmery Twinkleheart, Shmebulock Sr., Teen, The Cheapskate. And I think that’s it 🤷♂️😂
looking back on episodes now, some things make a lot more sense all of a sudden. My favorite episode that hints to stan having a brother is the wax museum episode. Stan was so devastated by his statue :someone looking just like him, getting "murdered", and with the knowledge you have now, it makes total sense.
It's a genius reveal that Grunkle Stan's real name being Stanley is exactly how he knew all along that Gideon was a fraud psychic. Gideon called him "Stanford Pines" like everyone else, if Gideon were truly a psychic, he'd know that it wasn't his real name.
Also Stan's mother was a fraud psychic too :v
I never noticed but yeah that's super cool
OOOOO THATS COOL!!! I NEVER REALIZED THAT!
@@vlcharlie4884 oh yeah so he knew how to spot them
How i never found out abt that
Stan has a hard time saying "Please" while Ford has a hard time saying "Thanks".
I actually didn't notice that but I know that this is because Steam doesn't like being nice that often so asking for something nicely is hard for him and Ford always thinks he doesn't need help because of how smart he is
Dude, I never noticed that
😳…..Holy shit, they Are twins….
Ford do not have any problem with saying thanks tho he just do not say it to Stanley because that was the least he can do and he is angry to him not thankfull
Baced flag background
The fact that Stanley taught himself how to operate a portal to another dimension with no higher education and from almost scratch is just crazy.
And shows that school isn't everything
To be fair, he had several decades to do so, and only finally completed it when he had the complete original blueprints. It's still a hugely impressive feat though, just credited more to his stubborn resolve and drive rather than natural talent.
@@josephperez2004 yes he had time but his resolve and determination to do it is very impressive
Even tho he had the og blueprints let's be honest here you you had blueprints to an interdimensional portal you probably wouldn't understand it
He thinks he's the "dumb" twin but!
I mean it took him 30 years
Stanford: why would you ignore my warnings and activate the portal?!! It’s dangerous!!!!
Also Stanford: *writes every warning in invisible ink*
Not to mention, the last thing he said to him was "do something" as he threw the journal at him. Of course he would assume he wanted him to use the portal again.
Actually in the previous episode Stanly actually reads out loud that this is going to cause problems with gravity and it is not in invisible ink. But after barely glancing at it he says "can it poindexter I've come this far I am not going to stop now". This indicates that Stanley is aware that a warning is telling him to stop but he decides it is worth the risk.
That said it is not nearly as good a warning as what Dipper read in journal 3 and this point actually felt off for me for some time. It is only recently that I finally put everything together to where this line makes sense. Remember in the season premier Stanely made a copy of journal 3 and he DID find out about the invisible ink AFTER he gave the real journal 3 back to Dipper. Since Stanley clearly reacted to the discovery of the invisible ink it would be a no brainer for him to use a black light on the 2 journals he still had and the invisible ink in those journals must have had info that was needed to get the portal working. So when Ford discovers that Stanly got the portal working he knows that Stan did read the invisible ink in journals 1 and 2. So Ford just assumes that Stanley read the invisible ink in journal 3 as well which as we saw last episode had several major warnings. But by the time Stanley learned of the invisible ink he no longer had the original journal only copies where the invisible ink would not have transfered to. So due to these very specific circumstances Ford knew that Stanely read the normal ink in all 3 journals and he knew that Stanely read the invisible ink in the first 2 journals. But the invisible ink in journal 3 is the only thing he didn't read.
like most engineers, he is both very smart, and very stupid at the same time.
@@M4x_P0w3r He was waiting for him to do something in that moment.
One of my favorite little details in this episode is that you can see a growing pile of Physics and Chemistry books next to Stan during the montage of him standing in front of the mirror over the years after taking over the Mystery Shack. Despite his whole family lambasting him as a good-for-nothing idiot, and despite it taking him 30 years, he put in the time and effort to actually learn enough scientific knowledge to figure out Ford's portal and get it working again. He may not have as much natural talent/intellect as Ford, but damn if his determination isn't amazing.
Very much agreed
He really did care.
Also he got that thing working all on his own, without any formal education on the matter, while running a Business and taking care of two kids (unlike Ford who had the Funds to dedicate all his time to his research) and with no one being aware of it until it was almost completed. Impressive as hell
Which is why it’s so goddamn annoying that Stanford doesn’t want to say thank you to him, he put in all that time and effort to bring him back just for his brother to still be petty about it even after 30 whole years.
Wow. All this time, I never noticed. Thanks for pointing it out.
Fun Fact: people predicted the twist that Stan’s brother was the author while the show was being released, so Alex Hirsch made a fake leak that McGucket was the author and then took it down, it was actually pretty hilarious
The mcgucket hoax, a true classic
I Remember That.
McGucket is the most tragic person in this whole show. His entire life was completely destroyed as a result of seeing what he saw, and then he built that memory erasing gun.
@@drewce390 It's even worse when you realize that because he stopped working on PCs to help Ford, he lost out on the chance to be a billionaire.
And that's why Alex Hirsch is a goddamn legend.
One thing that people dont really think about is the family background and how sad Stanley's story actually is. Think about it, in the flashback sherby was still a baby, and the fact that mabel and dipper didn’t know about Ford means that Stanley was completly errassed from the family, like Sherby was never told that stanley even existed. The twins's parents thought they were sending them to Ford, the nerd responsible adult Ford, which means no one from the family has ever visited Gravity Falls since Ford left for collage. The twins being sent to Stanley’s house was probably the first contact he’s had with the family in 30 years. Which makes the scene in the season 1 finale where Grunkle is calling the twins's parents even sadder, he is talking to this part of his family that he has never met and that doesn't even know he exists. No one after Ford know's that he even exists.
I think the baby was Shermie’s kid (Dipper and Mabel’s dad)
@@kristinelee8588 Or mom, we don't actually get a gender for the baby.
@@kristinelee8588The Stans are greatuncles, that means they are the brothers of a grandparent (that baby)
I wonder if because of that Mabel and Dipper’s parents were completely shocked that they were having twins. Twins are genetic. They usually run in the family so if the baby in the episode never knew that their older brother is a twin then that means their kid (Mable and Dibber’s parent) doesn’t know that their uncle is a twin either. That is assuming that the other side of the family didn’t have any twins or triplets either.
@@thateye49 I know that, but it's been 40 years since Stan was kicked out. 40 is a weird age to be a grandfather, but a perfectly reasonable age to be a dad of teens, so it has to be Dipper and Mabel's dad
I love the code for this episode:
A stubborn tough New Jersey native, Filbrick wasn't too creative. Having twins was not his plan, so he just shrugged and named both Stan.
PFFFT😂
Filbrick Pines: Father of the century.
Also he may or may not have been a holocaust survivor- being an European Jewish man who moved to America after WWII
@@thecookiecrumbsinpercyshai8685 I once read a fan comic where he was beating his sons, and after the beating, the Stans mother was telling them that he wasn't like this before, but the war changed him. He wasn't a holocaust survivor in this comic, but he fought in WW2.
@@valentinkambushev4968 yeaaa I think the show heavily implied that he suffered some sort of tragedy in WWII
There was a deleted scene showing Stan pushing a car off a cliff to fake his own death. It cuts to a man implied to be a mob boss reading about Stan’s “death” in a newspaper. He seems pretty pleased.
I guess that was Rico then
Why would they be pleased lol? If it was Rico, didn't they want money from him?
@@heck6757 he had some kind of line saying, essentially, Stan was a pain in the ass and he got what he deserved.
Now you know why Bill looked at an image of one of the Stans and then showed the brand mark. Bill was like "Oh, THAT Stan".
bill was like tf you have with ford? hes in space--oh right the other one😂
@@bluefrostryy he was travelling the multiverse, not space
@lorenapacora1526 He was like "Oh shit... Gideon doesn't know."
My favorite part is that Stan didn't actually sabotage the project; he accidentally hit the table, and just didn't tell Ford.
He still messed up, but it's so much more understandable. Stan didn't realize he didn't actually fix it, and he obviously didn't want to get in trouble.
the fact that stanley would NEVER sabotage his brother, even though it meant that ford must move to other side of the country, makes it sadder. he was angry, but he didn't expect machine to break, he tried to fix it and didn't expect it to not work :(
i know that talking about treasure hunting at this moment might seem pretty at a wrong time, but ford didn't even listen, didn't even think that it could be actually an accident. it says pretty much a lot about their dynamic :(
What sell for me that Stanley was telling the true is the fact that he is a bad liar, the episode when woddles is taken prove this, his always tends to go to far with his lies, Therefore, the fact that he told without adding anything ridiculous shows that he was telling the truth when he said that he only punch the table
That was probaly a work from Bill, we se that he can manipulate yhe world in a minor scale, and cleary was already eye on Stanford, but, With Stanley, Who has always had a sharper eye and less naive on his side, it would be impossible to deceive him
that would mean it was Ford's fault for the machine breaking though...if it was so fragile that the table being bumped or shook would cause it to completely break, then what would happen if a Janitor bumped the table in the night
Okay so the twins' grandfather, Sherman Pines, is implied to be the baby seen in one scene. What's hilarious about this is that the writers kinda messed up the math; In order for the timeline to make sense you'd need like.. Two teenage pregnancies. Or at least VERY EARLY adult pregnancies.
When asked about the baby, a lot of the crew avoid it, the most hilarious example is Alex (I think) shouting: "WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE BABY!" at a conference.
they rlly fucked up there😂 theres a theory shermies a timetraveller
You are correct. Alex has been asked directly many times, and he refuses to answer the question.
Some say (this is my preferred way to think of it) is that Sherman is actually older than the twins and that is his son, aka Dipper and Mabel’s dad. That way it just makes a bit more sense in the age difference between Shermie and the Stan twins
@@Luna-zi7qqbut there's a detail that might jeopardize that theory, Dipper and Mabel's grandfather would have told them or their parents about his TWO twin younger brothers, they would've asked Stan about his twin, that would have been a hard thing to explain and spoiled the whole twist.
Honestly based on what we know about Filbrick and Caryn, teenage pregnancy makes perfect sense for them.
It’s still amazing how they got JK Simmons for Ford. Something about him and Alex in the same room just feels awesome!
I always forget that Alex didn’t voice both brothers. He voices half the show so it’s just something that slips my mind
yeah, I thought Alex voiced Ford to
I heard someone ran home to watch the episode, saw the yellow m&m on a bus, which gave 'em a confidence boost (MSLB)
They got freaking J Jonah Jameson
"Having twins was not his plan, so he just shrugged and named both Stan."
For those who weren't aware, Stanford Pines is a reference to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who's unofficial mascot is a Pine Tree.
I’ll bet any Stanford student would catch on with that.
@twist58 I did in fact go to Stanford University. Not like as a student, I've just visited the campus on a tour.
Am I the only one that didn't know this?
I feel like Soos’s phone call was actual audio of Alex explaining the plot to the writers.
Mabel and Dipper's parents thought they were sending them to the nerdy twin Stanford, the responsible one. Its like that Stanley was completely erased from the family like he never existed.
But they thought Stanley died decades ago, he faked his death
@@M4x_P0w3r yeah but even a family death is known, dipper and Mabel didn't even know there were two stans
Stanley was basically erased from his family
One thing I feel doesn't get talked about enough is Stanley's tattoo/branding. Stanford didn't just kick him into it, he put his foot into his chest and held Stanley long enough to burn through at least 2-3 clothing layers and for his skin to literally start smoking. Don't get me wrong, with how hot it was it wouldn't have taken long but god damn I'm not suprised Stanley shoved it after that
Yeah, that was really brutal. I also feel it doesn't get talked about enough that as soon as he realized Stan was hurt, Ford immediately stopped fighting, said "I'm so sorry!" and was concerned about Stan. Stan coming up fighting, and shoving Ford into the portal room, very much makes sense! It's just a shame, because clearly the fight could have been over right at that moment, at least from Ford's side.
I just realized that maybe that’s why Stan loved his wax statue so much! Because it was like having his twin brother back again because they have the same face! Really puts things into perspective…can’t wait for the rest of your reactions awesome video❤
That was indeed the intent behind that episode. :). Alex has talked about it. (Now go back and look at what Stan called his little boat in "The Legend of the Gobblewonker".)
There is actually a small foreshadowing that Stan's name was Stanley, not Stanford, and that he was for some reason using a different name. In scenes with his car, his license plate is "STNLYMBL," you even get a good look at it in the episode where Stan takes them fishing. Also technically, we've seen Stanford already in the show, during "The Time Traveler's Pig" episode, when they go back in time and we see a younger Stan for a small second look out the Mystery Shak, that's Stanford, not Stanley, the storyboard for the episode even was going to be just a six-fingered hand opening the door, then closing it soon after, before they decided not to do that, wanting to wait a bit before giving any major hints to the author.
Also the fact that the boat he took the kids for fishing is the "Stan O'War II", which is very sad.
The identity of the baby is still subject to some debate, but the most common theory is that it's Dipper & Mabel's grandparent "Shermie" who was mentioned earlier in this episode. Stan & Ford being "Great Uncles" implies that they are the siblings of one of Dipper & Mabel's grandparents, presumably (but not definitively) their paternal grandfather since they all share the "Pines" last name.
Almost every remaining episode in the series is fantastic imho, so I'm very excited to see the rest of your reactions!
Yup, in the brazillian dub is most of "grand-uncle" from grandpa, instead of "great-uncle"
@@MillyThe_Rat yeah that’s because in English “great-uncle” is supposed to only refer to your great grandparents’ brother while “grand-uncle” is supposed to refer to your grandparents brother, but English speakers tend to incorrectly use “great-uncle” to refer to their “grand-uncle”. Of course this also applies to aunts as well.
So, the baby was *meant* to be Shermie, for sure. I think a writer confirmed that at one point. However, Alex and the crew then realized they''d screwed up the math. If that baby is Shermie, then he would have had to have a kid at age 15, and that kid would have had to have Dipper and Mabel at age 15. (Not impossible! But not what they wanted to imply.). Alex has, ever since, refused to say for sure who that baby is. (And he has been asked directly many times.). So a prevalent theory is that the baby is Dipper and Mabel's father, who Ma Pines is babysitting while Shermie is elsewhere; and that Shermie is a LOT older than the Stans, so that he was already out of the house by the time they were about 9, when we first see them. (Since Stan says they only had each other.) I personally like to think he was off fighting in Vietnam at that time; but there are plenty of ways you could explain it. However, yes, not everyone goes with that; some folks do go with "the baby is Shermie", and come up with ways to explain that.
@@gryphonvert THirty years ago, Stanley said it's been ten years since he'd seen Stanford, but he could have seen Stanford after he was kicked out. I headcanon that it's been longer than the forty years this implies if the sundering was the last time they saw each other.
13-year-old (rounded) twins + 19-year-old parent + 20-year-old SHermie = 62 years ago + ≈17-year-old Stan twins at sundering would make them ≈79 years old, which I can accept. If so, they look great for their age. (If I did my math right, and haven't missed something from the canon...)
@@maxthorn7308 Yes, you're missing a few clues from canon. For the first scenes where they're kids, Stan says it's "1960-something". It's unclear whether they're 9, or 12, but they're somewhere in between those ages (since they look close to the way Mabel and Dipper are drawn, proportion-wise). The biggest clue is the meeting in the principal's office, which is in their senior year. There is a photo of Richard Nixon hung on the wall. So that scene can't take place earlier than 1969, when Nixon became president; and it can't take place later than 1974, when Nixon resigned. And there's a further bit of evidence: in the scene where they argue, Stan is watching TV and says, "That Jackie O., what a fox." Jackie Kennedy (JFK's widow) married Aristotle Onassis in the fall of 1968; it's only afterwards that anyone would refer to her as "Jackie O."
Now, you can put their 18th birth year any place in there, but the earliest they could be born, and still turn 18 in June (after, or just as they are graduating from high school) is 1951. A further piece of evidence is later found in the published Journal 3, where Ford writes down a rough timeline that puts his arrival in Gravity Falls in 1975. What Ford says in ATOTS is that he "went from undergrad to ph.D three years ahead of schedule". The normal amount of time that an undergraduate degree takes in the U.S. is 4 years. The *very minimum* amount of time that a ph.D can take is also 4 years. That suggests that he did it in about 5 years, which just about fits in with having gone to college in the fall of 1969, and has him graduating and getting his grant to go study in 1975.
Thus, when Stan said "you haven't seen your brother in over 10 years", and "you finally wanna see me after 10 years", he meant it -- they hadn't seen each other since the night that Stan got thrown out. (The "over 10 years" is a bit more accurate, probably.)
So Stan and Ford are about 62 years old at the time of the show. Ford does kind of look and act like a 62 year old who has kept active and fit. Stan looks and acts a bit older, but this makes some sense with Stan having lived a bit harder. That also gets into headcanon territory, although it's based on a tweet that Alex Hirsch made a while ago -- he was asked, if Disney had allowed it, if he would have shown Stan drinking alcohol. Alex answered, "yes, AND smoke a cigar". Stan does have a kind of raspy "smoker's voice". So these hints taken together make most people figure that Stan drinks and smokes, but gave it up (along with swearing) while the kids were there. Smoking especially can age people a bit more in comparison to people who don't smoke.
You know, it will never cease to amaze me how the casting department for this show managed to get J.K. Simmons to be the voice of Ford. Like, that will never not blow my mind.
JK Simmons is pretty prolific as a voice actor. He's brilliant as Tenzin in Avatar: Legend of Korra
@@davem2369 iirc he also does the Yellow M&M in the commercials
It was a great get, but yeah, he does a LOT of voice acting. And it often involves much longer commitments than he had with Gravity Falls (like, ALL of Legend of Korra). He did a voice on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (the show created by Thurop van Orman, who voices Gideon, and the first show Alex worked on). He often does a lot of smaller roles -- Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, and Megamind, for example. But his longest roles (I think?) are Tenzin from "Korra", Ford from Gravity Falls, and then Omni-Man in "Invicible". Also: all the Cave Johnson bits from Portal 2. So this wasn't like getting a movie star who has never done voice work before; but it WAS a case of getting someone who has a great reputation as both an actor, and a voice actor.
I mean, they got Neil Degrasse Tyson on the show, so I wouldn’t be too surprised.
9:10 The identity of that baby is still a mystery. Many people in the fandom speculate that it’s Shermie, A.K.A Dipper and Mabel’s grandfather. But in order for that to be the case, there would have been two generations of teen pregnancies in the Pines family (both Shermie and Dipper and Mabel’s father becoming teen dads) since this flashback with the baby takes place in 1971-1972. And since I highly doubt that was the writer’s intention, we don’t know who that baby is.
It is meant to be Dipper and Mabel's grandparent, they just botched the math.
@@SirScrewloose Yes, exactly. But because they botched the math, Alex has absolutely refused ever since to confirm who the baby is. And he's been asked directly, many times. So, canonically, the baby isn't Shermie. Or, I guess, canonically we don't know who the baby is, so people can feel free to theorize it any way they want.
Shermie could be a cousin or distant relative.
@@ShadowPenguin No. Stan says that Dipper and Mabel are Shermie's grandkids. Stan and Ford would not be their great-uncles, unless Shermie was their brother.
Some people think that Shermie is older than Stanley and Stanford, and the baby is the father of Mabel and Dipper so that day they were looking after their grandkid.
I decided to keep the extras until after this episode for obvious reasons. There's a lot to cover. (don't worry, still spoiler free)
1. When Mcgucket fell into the portal, Alex Hirsch said he saw "the kids of places Bill Cipher likes to hang out." There's a hidden code in the journal that says he saw Bill "removing his exoskeleton in order to feed." Eugh.
2. people theorized Stan had a secret twin YEARS before he actually showed up. All because the licence plate on Stan's car said stnlymbl.
3. The boat in Legend of the gobblewonker has "Stan o' war" painted on the side of it. Just in case you needed some emotional damage.
4. This explains why Stan got so emotional over his wax figure's death. All the way back in the 3RD episode!
5. In the time-traveler's pig, when the twins are traveling through time we see the shack during wintertime, and supposedly Stan peeking out. That was technically Ford's first appearance.
6. In Carpet Diem, Stan is reminiscing over a pair of glasses that we now know to be Ford's.
7. in dreamscaperers, in Stan's boxing match memory, you can see Ford in the background reading a book.
8. also note Ford is voiced by J. K Simmons. He can do no wrong :)
See ya soon!
Elijah, if you didn't know already, Ford is voiced by the same guy who voiced Tenzin from The Legend Of Korra.
Aka JK fucking Simmons
@@rizeclanfn Mmm hmm!
And he voices omni man
@@GreenTeam-re3jy and played J Jonah Jameson
@@GreenTeam-re3jy THINK, STANLEY!
"I just got him back! I can't lose him again!"
That line made me tear up a bit. I feel bad for Stan. He just wants his twin brother. He tried for years to turn on the machine but couldn't do it without the journals. When people thought he was the mysterious stranger in the woods, he let everyone think that until he could bring Stanford back from the portal. He transformed the house into the Mystery Shack to pay off the bills. Its amazing that Stan was able to learn physics for years to operate the portal despite not being smart as Stanford.
16:28 Y’know how much of a-quite literal-painful reminder that scar on Stan’s back must be? He got it the last day he saw his brother, and the last day he KNEW Ford was alive. It’s a memento of the day he ruined his brother’s life for the 2nd time, and he had that guilt literally on his back.
The line "I've got a mullet, Stanford!" made me laugh so hard!! Stan is the funniest character in this show!!!
My personal headcanon on why they're both named Stan is because they weren't expecting a twin so they planned to name one stanford, so they just called the other one Stanley
that is canon- It's the code this episode, some others have mentioned it: "A stubborn tough New Jersey native, Filbrick wasn't too creative. Having twins was not his plan, so he just shrugged and named both Stan."
@@haz6908 That shows they know the questions fans will ask, i remember asking why they would name the twins something so similar.
@@haz6908And keeping with the Pines tradition of the kids’ middle names being their parents’ first names, Stanford’s middle name is Filbrick after his dad. lol
And that sort of implies Stanley’s middle name is Carolyn. 😭
Having THE J.K. Simmons have a recurring role in Gravity Falls as Ford Pines brings out the awesome in the show!
While the fight between Stan and Ford got out of hand, Stan wasn’t entirely wrong about Ford being selfish, as Ford chose to use Stan ruining his chances of going to his dream school as an example of Stan being selfish, even though it’s clear it was an accident, an accident that cost Stan much more than Ford.
No, it was clear for us, the audience, that it was an accident because we were litterally SHOWN how he broke it, for Ford there was no evidence that Stan had done it by accident: don't forget he lied to Ford, covered up his tracks, and stayed quiet about it, and when confronted about it, he showed no inch of remorse, didn't apologize about it, shrugged it off as if it was no big deal, and then jumped ahead with a bright smile to offer him to come to sail with him instead. Stan painted himself in a horrible light and looked as if he had done it on purpose so Ford would drop the college and went with him instead, since that's what Ford had told him he would do if he didn't get in. Stan had no right to call him selfish after that, when he hadn't even bothered to apologize or come clean afterwards. And no, his accident didn't cost him much more than Ford, Ford lost his future and chances due to his mistake. Stan didn't deserve to get kicked out, but that wasn't due to the accident, it was due to Filbrick's abuse and overreaction, any other parent wouldn't have taken it that far. Ford losing his schollarship was Stan's fault, Stan being homeless and kicked out was Filbrick's fault.
@@dracoangelrojoEven if Ford thought it was intentional, he was still able to have a successful life and got a ton of grant money for his research. His future wasn't ruined in the slightest. Meanwhile Stan was kicked out of his home as a minor, and was likely homeless for a long time and scrambling to make any money at all. Their situations are just not comparable, Stanley got the short end of the stick. After 30 years, all Ford has to say is "get out of my house"? I'd beat his ass then and there smh
@@deadgame2098 Just because Ford managed to have a successful life and still accomplish things DESPITE Stan's mistake, doesn't entitle Stan for forgiveness, specially when he hadn't even tried to apologize and owned up to his mistake regarding Ford in 10 years. For all we know, Ford could have succeeded without working so hard and maybe even downright avoid all the trauma he went through in Gravity Falls if Stan hadn't done what he did. Again, I never denied that what Stan went through was unfair, he did NOT deserve to get kicked out of the house for that, specially being a minor, but that is NOT Ford's fault, that's Filbrick, an abusive piece of crap of a father. No good parent would have kicked their minor out in the streets over a mistake. Stan being kicked out was NOT Ford's responsibility, just because Stan had it worse than Ford because of Filbrick, doesn't enable Stan from his wrongdoings towards Ford, who he never apologized over it, heck, the first thing he did was blame HIM for ruinning his life. And you are forgetting that Ford is NOT kicking Stan out of his house for the apprenticeship, but for everything else he did aftewards: afterall, Stan did get him trapped in the portal, stole his identity, his house, his research and turned it into a tourist trap for 30 years, and then ignored his warnings and opened the portal which almost destroyed the entire universe, the kids included. And despite all of what he did, he shows no remorse over anything he has done regarding Ford, and demands a thank you. If you say Stan is entitled to kick Ford's ass, Ford is entitled to be pissed at him. Stan loves Ford, but he screwed up a lot and costed Ford over half of his life, his anger is justified.
@@deadgame2098 exactly, I love the brothers but I will FOREVER have beef with Stanford for how immature and shitty he can also be. Stan didn't permanently ruin his future in the slightest, imagine having the credentials and credit and list of acedemic accomplishments he has and thinking your future rests on one single failed experiment. He got another offer within the next few years and was set up and FUNDED while he was content to never even THINK about his brother again until he needed something from him. What Stan did was awful and the worst part is definately the lying and deflection, it's shitty!! But Stanford was fully just like "yeah this is enough for me to just not care where you are, if you're starving on the streets, if you're dead somewhere, if you're in danger, it doesn't matter bc you ruined one of the MANY scholership offers I got."
@@starcaptain9320 It seems like Ford didn't even have to work an actual job at any point in his life, he had enough money to build a house and do nothing but research all day. On a topic that most regard as nonsense. I still wonder what facility would fund this kind of stuff without apparently expecting any documentation or results? Think about it: Usually people get funding because the facility wants something out of the results. When Ford stopped giving them results, wouldn't they either have cut the funding and investigated or just known something was up and sent someone there? You don't get thousands of dollars for nothing. Does some different organisation interested in the paranormal just have the blueprints for a portal lying around?
This entire episode I wanted to give poor Stan(ley) a hug. To say he’s had a rough life would be a massive understatement.
Stanley and Stanford's back stories were so shocking. There are some dark secrets that were shown. Two of them were separated for 30 years was heartbroken. Dipper's high-pitched scream cracked me up
😱😱😱😢😢😢🤣🤣🤣
When I was a kid watching this I squealed at the same time as him without meaning too!!!!
Fun fact; people have theorized that stan had a twin brother way before this episode aired. Alex had to mislead the fans by indicating that fiddleford was the author
I like the detail that Dipper and Mabel's parents sent them to Stanley because they thought it was Ford, lol!
Honestly this is my favorite episode in the show.
The backstory and foreshadowing was insane
I also like how Stan can’t say “please” and Ford can’t say “thank you.”
fun fact: In Gravity Falls 1x02 stan's boat is called the stan o War, like the boat he and his brother found on the beach, and in 1x03, the reason why stan liked the wax figure Mabel made, is because it reminded him of his brother
Stanford is my favourite character in the show and I'm really excited to see what she thinks of him.
The school thing always stood out to me as an example of Stanford's arrogance (Yes it is also an example of Stanley not thinking things through but the Ford part bothered me more cus of where I was in my life when I first saw the episode). The fact that Ford ended up going to something like Backupsmore with their mostly bug-free dorms said to me that he didn't bother applying to any other schools and by the time he was rejected, the applications for other good schools had closed for the year. Even if he didn't get into West Coast Tech his good grades and other accomplishments still should have landed him acceptance, maybe even a scholarship, to a pretty decent school.
I saw the episode soon after high school graduation so I was very familiar with the university/college application process and I remember how insistent my high school was that everyone applied to backup schools. Some of the smartest kids in my grade were super resistant to the idea and really had to be talked into it. They told us no matter how good your grades are you never know and it's better to get into a good school that wasn't your first choice than none at all so you have options.
Wow you just brought up 2 different sdes of the same argument. I can see where you are coming with the arrogance angle but remember it didn't look like the family had much money for collage without a full scholarship. Back ups more might have been all they could aford. Plus Ford did make a commitment saying he would go treasure hunting with Stanly if the college board wasn't impressed. I think he was going to keep his word if Stanly hadn't (accidently) sabotaged it.
@@dbv8600 I like your “afford” pun. 😂
This and Northwest Mansion Mystery are tied as my favorite episodes.
There are two theories about the baby. One: it is Dipper and Mabel's grandpa. This brings up a lot of issues with the timeline since that would mean Dipper and Mabel's parents were born when their grandpa was still a teenager. That's not impossible, but it's an odd detail to have in a Disney show. To be honest, that was probably meant to be their grandpa, and Alex literally just made a mistake with the timeline.
Another theory that makes more sense from a timeline but was probably not intended is that the baby is Dipper and Mabel's dad. The time in those flashbacks is during the Vietnam war. Stan and Ford are both too young to be drafted, but if they had an older brother he would've been. The theory goes that this older brother already had a son, he was raising the son alone for some reason, and when he got drafted, his parents helped take care of this son when he was away. That theory makes the most sense with the timeline, but it is a bit too complex for me to believe it was the original intent. Especially since at a fan convention, Alex famously said "We can't talk about the baby." That sounds like someone who realized too late that they fucked up the timeline a bit too much hggfgf
The end credit with Wendy is basically Gravity Falls fans explaining the plot to non fans.
When this episode first came out and I saw the author in the beginning I was like "SPEAK!"
Haha, I didn't see the series premiere, but I can imagine how you felt: I felt the same when I saw it the first time😂
Same ugh!! So much nostalgia watching someone see all these plot twists for the first time after seeing it on release
21:06 The First Time A Tale Of 2 Stans Came Out, The Commercials Had To Be Canned For That One NIGHT.
“That’s some good ass fuckin’ lore right there!” is a perfect statement to describe this entire show.
That school principal was such a coward. He called both twins to his office, but only let one in while the other stayed in the waiting room. Then he talked smack about Stanley when he wasn't even in the same room to defend himself. As if Stan didn't have enough insecurities about his school performance before, this moment brought it all to a boiling point. And without his brother as an adventure partner/moral compass, Stanley doubled down on his trouble-making tendencies while desperately trying to prove himself to his father. One can only wonder how the Stans' strained relationship and personality clashes will reflect on the Mystery Twins...
Its so funny to see Dipper losing his mind after meeting the author face-to-face!!! I love Dipper so much!! He's literally me right now!! LOL!!! :D
"Sure would be nice if things worked out like they do in cartoons".
So many years later and the Tragedy of the Twins Named Stan still hurts my heart. I really love how elaborate this reveal was and how it connected with everything we've seen. Its incredible and im glad you enjoy this. 😊
Ford is definitely my favorite Stan, without spoilers, he's really nerdy and I relate a ton to that.
I can't wait to see your reaction when you see the origin of the "tattoo"
Me neither, I think she'll shout
@@StargiwRight you were
Alex Hirsch never confirmed it, but the theory among the fans is that the baby in the flashback is really Dipper and Mabel's dad and Shermie is the Stans older brother.
@Blossy_Tr0pical as far as the fandom knows, he did not. Not even in the Journal 3. Maybe the Book of Bill, but that's not yet released.
@Blossy_Tr0pical this would be the instance where the writers missed out on the math, because if Shermie was the baby, he'd be one VERY YOUNG GRANDPA at 40 when his grandkids Dipper and Mabel are 12. Hence, why the fandom figured that the baby in the flashback is really Shermie's son and not Shermie himself. Again, Alex hasn't *officially* confirmed or denied the identity of the baby in the flashback. I don't know what else to tell you.
@Blossy_Tr0pical Alex has been known to be dodgy about answering questions. I mean, the name of Stan and Ford's mom wasn't revealed until Lost Legends (and you had to solve a riddle for that).
@Blossy_Tr0pical It wouldn't be the first time.
I love the detail of Stanford checking Stanley's eyes when he showed up after 10 years, because when Bill is possessing someone, their eyes become catlike.
Do we even need to mention that all this drama happened because Stanley hit the Desk and it was Somehow strong enough to break the machine!?
To be fair, a perpetual motion device would be pretty easy to throw off of stability. Frankly, it's amazing that the existence of air didn't break it.
There are a LOT of machines that are very finely calibrated and balanced, and just jostling the table they're on would throw them off. We don't know exactly how the perpetual motion machine was supposed to work (since, by definition, it's impossible in the real world), but it's reasonable to think it requires things to be in balance to keep going.
Now you know why the fandom collectively lost their minds with both of the past two episodes
This is such a good episode, hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Easily my all time favorite episode! :D
Edit: sadly, no future dipper and Mabel timeskip. No adult versions :( also, I love both Stans, but Stanley is just so hilarious and iconic… I gotta go with the good ol’ chaotic capitalist we all know and love. Ford has some good interactions with other characters though and I find his backstory quite interesting!
The baby brother of the 2 Stans is Shermy. Dipper and Mabel’s grandfather.
Also Alex Hirsch voiced almost every character in the show
I think their backstory is pretty sad from Stanley not wanting to be left behind and Ford getting him dreams crushed by his brother only for Stanley to accidentally send his brother to another dimension.
16:19 actually its worse, hot metal in a specific shape hitting the flesh of a living being, well my dear that's called being branded
If she liked THIS lore episode, she's gonna love the next one.
you should get the journal 3 book they produced, its a good read after the series and it fills in gaps like what exactly happened while Ford was through the portal
yesss
This episode is so sad but heartwarming at the same time, seeing Stanley & Stanford as kids to when it all lead up to when Stanford disappeared and Stanley created the Mystery Shack. I also felt sorry for Stanley being in the shadow of Stanford and getting kicked out of his house by his own father for accidently ruining Stanford's chance of getting into college. JK Simmons voiced Stanford perfectly and captured a very smart character that felt like he was a freak for having 6 fingers on both hands. plus I finally saw how Oldman McGuken became mentally broken and how Bill Cypher fits into all of the events throughout the series.
And here we enter the next arc of Gravity Falls, with plenty of new emotional family drama, a new character introduced, and a lot of lore and backstory. I remember watching this episode and feeling so bad for Stanley and what he ended up going through. Seriously, that poor guy went through so much trauma after he was kicked out. Ford, meanwhile, I don't feel too bad for, since even though he was denied his "dream school" because of some accident, he still got a lot done in his life, so therefore he shouldn't have held that strong of a grudge against his brother. I'll easily take Stanley over Stanford.
My favorite thing is the realization that dipper and Mabel's parents thought they were sending their kids to stay with Ford not stan.
OMG I CANT WAIT!!!! god i love ford hes my favorite character from the show, i NEED to know what opinions elijah will have abt him lmao
12:06 😂 Dipper Is Every Fangirl At A Boyband Concert! 😂
(No spoilers)My favorite always been Stanley, because hes the more fun and caring out of the too, he spends more time with Mabel and Dipper and always makes it known when he thinks he did them wrong, while Stanford always seemed more shallow. He really only seemed to care about people that had similar interests to him and didn’t take kindly to those who disagreed with him
True, but he didnt really have the grow as a character
Honestly we shouldve had much more of ford in the show :/
AHHHH! YES! Get ready for a sad and tragic backstory!
12:45 Hirsch has a varied vocal range, but there are a couple of distinctive voices that he has used for more than one character. Bill Cipher and King are very similar, except Bill has a slightly altered voice to give it a little echo and make him sound more mystical. He also reused the McGucket "old man" voice for a character on Inside Job
Being a twin, the scene where Stanley and Stanford are being compared hits hard
0:22 OMG that’s so adorable!
"How many voices did Alex do in the show? Jesus!"
"Him too...but it's pronounced 'Hey-soos' or just Soos."
19:44 fun fact: Stanley has problems saying please, and Stanford has problem saying thank you, they "complete" each others flaws
Also, there is a meme that every state that Stan was banned from was ilegal being trans, and every time i see that episode I remember it
3:15 they are both names Stan because their father didn't want to think of another name. Apparently Alex Hirsch said that, which makes sense, honestly
"How many voices did Alex do in this show?"
Yes
Lol I said the same thing too.
Alex Hirsch and J.K. Simmons, frankly, give some award worthy performances in this episode.
stanley not only is my fav twin but my fav character in the whole show, he is so deep and troubled and i love him sm
cant wait for you to see all the parallels between mabel and stan versus dipper and ford, lots of character development on its way too!!
Soos trying to explain everything to Wendy is so funny!!! I can't stop laughing at this!!!!
I've probably rewatched gravity falls 5 times, but I still love watching people watch it for the first time :)
Notice that the Pines brothers' boat was named the "Stan-o-War"; the little motorboat that Stan used in episode 2 had the same name
The reason that he checked he's eye with a flashlight is because of the monster that can shape shift
9:18 the baby shown in the clip is Shermin Pines the paternal grandfather of Dipper and Mabel.
This episode makes Stan being so distraught about wax Stan being “murdered” so much sadder
One of the many things this reveal made some more sense is the fact that Stanley legitimately does commit tax fraud bcuz he stole Stanford's identity. It wasn't a throwaway line back when he had that truth teeth stuck to him.
One of my favorites episodes
“Was that your fangirl moment Dipper”
That was everyone’s fangirl moment
e v e r y o n e
The baby was dipper and Mabel's grandparent. It is unknown if it's the grandfather or grandmother but it's probably the former cuz they kept the pines surname
What’s funny to me is that in the haunted mansion episode, I can’t fully remember what she said and the reason why but she said “And Because of that, I’m actually this close to not liking Gravity falls”
Then 2 episodes later she starts enjoying it again and her hype on finishing the show is back again
@mail_Notsoaveragefangirlytgmai Nice Try
The baby you saw was Shermie, who was mentioned as the New Twins' grandmother at the start of the episode
This is one of the best episodes of the series. I can't wait to see your reaction!!!!
For thirty years, Ford travelled to many different dimensions: one where everything was shaped like the letter M, one where everything was decided by Lady Luck, and even a 2D world (not Bill’s home world, that was Euclydia which doesn’t exist anymore). That thing Ford said about his eyes being stolen, that was a joke Bill played on him the day before Stanley came. He was really driving Ford to his wits end by that point
OH MY GOD I HATE PREMIERES it always make me think the video out T^T I'm really excited for this one to
wendy: "soos its three in the morning ‼️"
And my fav stan is stanley!
Right from ep 2, the plate on Stan's car read STNLYMBL, and we also had foreshadowing of Ford with the snowed Shack, the far corner of the boxing memory, and the broken swing in his mind represents the absence.
Many thought Stan took his brother's car and Stanley was the author, only for it to be flipped.
12:45 (according to IMDb)
Alex Hirsch: Grunkle Stan, Soos, Old Man McGucket, Young McGucket, Bill Cipher, Jeff the Gnome, Mayor Befufftlefumpter, Nate, Sev'ral Timez, Digi-Cod, Dippy Fresh, Gnomes, Jimmy, Laser Tag Announcer, Puppeteer, Quentin Trembley, Shimmery Twinkleheart, Shmebulock Sr., Teen, The Cheapskate.
And I think that’s it 🤷♂️😂
Stanley is definitely my favorite stan. Me and my sister were the classic "smart older sibling" and "dumb younger sibling," so I relate.
“Who names their twins the same name?” Way more people than you think
The last set of twins I met are named something like Anne Marie and Marianne.
looking back on episodes now, some things make a lot more sense all of a sudden. My favorite episode that hints to stan having a brother is the wax museum episode. Stan was so devastated by his statue :someone looking just like him, getting "murdered", and with the knowledge you have now, it makes total sense.
9:16 the coin dropping but then coming right back up is killing me 😭😭