Are you ready to go back to the Shack?
Jason Ritter certainly is. The Emmy Award-nominated actor
who voices Dipper Pines on “Gravity Falls” has been itching to go
back to the Mystery Shack ever since the Season One finale of this acclaimed
animated series aired a year ago this week on the Disney Channel.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
“You gotta understand that — growing up — I always
loved secret codes and secret messages, things that you had to decode,”
Ritter explained during a recent phone interview. “So to now be part of a
show like ‘Gravity Falls’ where secret codes & mysteries are such a huge
part of what makes this series successful … Well, that just hits my sweet
spot.”
“Which is why — the first time every new episode of this show airs — I hit
the ‘Pause’ button on my remote control when the credits roll,” Jason
continued. “And then — just like all the kids at home do — I write down
that cryptogram and then spend the next 5 minutes or so decoding it. As I try
& figure out what that week’s secret message is.”
Now given that Ritter actually works on “Gravity Fall,”
it may sound weird that he’s not privvy to more of this show’s secrets. But
there’s actually a good reason for that.
(L to R) “Gravity Falls” creator Alex Hirsch, Kristen Schaal (the voice of
Mabel Pines) and Jason Ritter (the voice of Dipper Pines) at the LA
Film Festival. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
“Alex Hirsch — the creator of this show — has learned that I’m a bit of
a blabbermouth,” Jason laughed. “So in order to keep a lid on things,
Alex deliberately keeps me out of the
loop on a lot of stuff. Like — for example — how I’m not allowed in the
writers room.”
But Ritter’s insatiable curiosity about what’s really going on in Gravity Falls,
what the deal is with that mysterious machine in Grunkle Stan’s basement et al just
couldn’t be satisfied with what little he’d been able to glean from reading his
character’s lines in recording sessions for this Disney Channel show. Which is
why Jason then turned to a kind-of-unlikely source.
“You see, there are all those websites out there where
people have posted their own theories about what’s really going on in Gravity
Falls. So I’d read those. And the
next time I went in for a recording session, I’d then go up to Alex and say ‘I
saw this theory online. Is this true?’ And he’d then have to confirm or deny
it,” Jason said.
Jason Ritter
And now that Season Two of “Gravity Falls” is finally
about to officially get underway with tonight’s airing of “Scary-oke”
on the Disney Channel (9 p.m. ET / PT), Ritter just can’t wait to get on that
websites and see what the fans have to say about this next set of shows.
“Alex has really been working overtime on Season Two.
And trust me, this isn’t going to be one of those situations where you have to
watch 10 episodes before the story actually starts moving forward,” Jason
stated. “We really hit the ground running in Season Two.”
As is evidenced by this exclusive clip that the Disney Channel provided the
Huffington Post with which demonstrates what became of the secret journal that
Dipper handed over to Grunkle Stan in “Gideon Rises.”
Then on Monday, August 4th when the
second episode of this season — “Into the Bunker” — airs on Disney
XD (9:30 p.m. ET / PT), Dipper
actually gets to enter the secret hideout of the author who wrote the journals.
“And as those episodes air, I’m going to be sitting in
front of the television with my phone in my hand, watching as Twitter explodes,”
Ritter smiled. “Because once people see where these episodes take ‘Gravity
Falls,’ they’re going to have to
rethink or adjust their theories about this show. Because behind all of those
mysteries that are about to get solved are a whole ‘nother set of mysteries which
Alex won’t allow me to talk about. Not yet, anyway.”
So if you’d like to get in on the fun of a show that many television fans have
called “The X-Files meets The Simpsons,” be sure and catch the Season
Two premiere of “Gravity Falls.”
Which airs on the Disney Channel tonight at 9
p.m. ET / PT and on Disney XD on Monday night 9 p.m. ET / PT.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
This story originally appeared on the Huffington Post’s Entertainment on August 1, 2014