"Gravity Falls" is no stranger to conspiracies and censorship. For this list, we’ll be looking at the most ridiculous blue-penciling the cartoon faced.
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00:00 "Nerland!"
00:02 "Hoblobs!"
00:05 "Don't you ever scare me like that again!"
00:08 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10 times Gravity Falls
00:15 was censored.
00:16 "Hey, those are lewd hand gestures!"
00:18 For this list, we'll be looking at the most ridiculous blue penciling the cartoon faced.
00:23 These are instances when creator Alex Hirsch tried to include something in a script that
00:27 Disney's standards and practices insisted he revise, or times the finished show was
00:32 censored in other countries.
00:34 What do you think should have made it into the show that didn't?
00:37 Let us know in the comments.
00:38 Number 10.
00:41 Referring to Old Nick.
00:43 After Alex Hirsch released a video on his Twitter reading out email correspondences
00:47 between him and Disney's standards and practices, fans had a lot to unpack.
00:52 Gravity Falls got away with showing a lot for a kids cartoon.
00:56 And we do mean a lot.
00:58 "How about instead I shuffle the functions of every hole in your face?"
01:01 So it was kind of crazy to see the discrepancy between the stuff that had to be omitted.
01:08 For instance, references to Lucifer, the Devil, Satan, and just about every other name you can
01:14 think for the fallen angel were prohibited.
01:16 Even in a spooky Halloween-y context, Hirsch did retaliate, claiming that, in the context,
01:22 it obviously was not intended to offend any religions.
01:25 He also shot back with a mention of Disneyland's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
01:30 Alas, it seems S&P won that round.
01:33 Number 9.
01:34 Robbie's Vandalism and Hand Gestures.
01:37 If there's one thing teenagers love to draw… well, we won't finish that sentence.
01:42 "Maybe a little."
01:43 But Alex Hirsch and his creative team had a hilarious workaround to make Robbie's
01:48 vandalism kid-friendly while still getting the message across to older viewers.
01:53 The scene doesn't stop there, as Robbie is caught by the Mattress King in his golf cart.
01:58 Robbie is then said to be making, quote, "lewd hand gestures," which of course happen off-screen.
02:04 "Hey, those are lewd hand gestures!"
02:06 Disney is weirdly cool for letting this one slide with its American audience,
02:11 but in some countries, the scene apparently had to be cut
02:14 all together for the two adult references made back-to-back.
02:17 Number 8.
02:20 There Once Was a Dude from Kentucky.
02:22 If you're not familiar with the "There Once Was a Man from Nantucket" limerick,
02:26 you might want to look it up for yourself before coming back to this video.
02:30 "Man of wax, you'll rise again!"
02:32 While there are many family-friendly versions of it,
02:35 the notoriously vulgar rhyming scheme is what most remember.
02:39 In the Headhunters episode of Gravity Falls,
02:42 Wax Shakespeare starts off the beginning of the limerick,
02:45 though Hirsch purposely changed "Nantucket" to "Kentucky" to avoid any sort of
02:49 misinterpretations about the rhymes to follow.
02:52 "There once was a dude from Kentucky."
02:55 "Nope!"
02:55 The joke we ended up with in the episode is funny in itself,
02:59 especially if you recognize the source of its inspiration,
03:02 but what might just be even funnier is Hirsch's wearing patience with Disney's S&P.
03:08 "S&P is worried that unsavory rhymes could be gleaned from it."
03:12 "Why? 'Man from Nantucket' is the famous dirty rhyme,
03:16 which is why I decided to avoid it altogether.
03:18 To make your lives easier, I made up a totally new one,
03:21 'Man from Kentucky,' which has the same lovely syllable structure,
03:24 but no pre-invented ending."
03:25 Number 7. Playing Dress-Up
03:28 We're not sure what episode this would have been in,
03:30 as it seems like Alex Hirsch lost to S&P here,
03:34 but one of Soos' lines was apparently supposed to have him make mention
03:37 to dressing up as a giant teddy bear.
03:39 "You can save your own panties."
03:41 "I guess I have no choice!"
03:43 This feels like one of those things you don't know how anyone could find a problem with,
03:47 but if there's an S&P will, there's an S&P way.
03:50 Hirsch was asked to revise the line as Disney felt it could allude to the furry community
03:55 and the rhetoric of fetishization so often associated with the practice.
03:59 "I'm gonna teach this bear to drive!
04:02 And the yellow light means speed up!"
04:07 We'll just let you listen to Hirsch's response for yourself.
04:11 "Furry fetish."
04:13 "Do I even have to respond to this?"
04:15 Number 6. The Bra Scene
04:17 The episode where Dipper's feelings for Wendy finally come to a head
04:20 starts out with the two of them in Wendy's room watching a bad horror movie.
04:24 Or a bad romance horror movie.
04:27 "How much you wanna bet that guy dies first?"
04:29 "Ah, my face is being eaten a lot!"
04:32 We're not entirely sure.
04:35 Either way, there's a quick throwaway joke when Dipper falls back on Wendy's comforter,
04:39 and she tells him,
04:41 "Dude, you're laying on my bra."
04:42 Dipper, in all his pre-teenagehood,
04:45 naturally reacts with a scream before a quick cut to the show's intro.
04:49 It's a funny moment we're happy to see Disney approved,
04:52 but Southeast Asian audiences weren't so lucky.
04:55 "Dipper, you should just tell her already!"
04:57 "One way or another, you'll feel better afterwards."
04:59 The moment was reportedly cut altogether overseas,
05:02 with the intro beginning right before Dipper laid down.
05:05 Number 5. Zombie Head Explosions
05:08 Gravity Falls expertly walked the fine line between showing graphic horror
05:13 while still making it kid-friendly.
05:15 With that said, we're not surprised to hear the depiction of zombie heads
05:19 exploding was cut in other countries.
05:21 "Alright, you undead jerks, you ready to die twice?"
05:24 In 'Scare-O-Key', when Dipper, Mabel, and Stan harmonize in order to defeat the horde of dead
05:30 Dipper accidentally raised, zombie heads are seen exploding.
05:34 It's definitely animated to be more suitable to younger audiences,
05:38 but some places in the world still took issue with airing it.
05:42 The moment with the zombies clutching their heads was instead
05:44 purportedly looped to fill up the time frame.
05:47 Number 4. Stan's Shriner Symbol
05:51 Stan's fez has always pretty much been a nod to the Shriner's society.
05:55 "Eeny, meeny, miny, you!"
05:57 "Oh, what?"
05:58 Whether it has a symbol at all, this color and type of hat is probably enough for many adults
06:03 to make the connection. In North America, this illusion wasn't a problem, but elsewhere in the
06:08 world, it was seen as offensive, either as cultural appropriation or as an intention to promote a
06:14 specific religious group. In Southeast Asia, the symbol from Stan's fez was removed completely,
06:20 and it's also presumably why the symbol changed around halfway through season 1.
06:25 "Which as you can see here is bottomless!"
06:27 According to an interview with CBR, there were also concerns that Shriners might pursue
06:32 legal action against Disney for the original symbol.
06:34 Number 3. Words and Their Connotations
06:38 In the video Alex Hirsch released to Twitter, it was revealed that many of Disney's complaints
06:43 had to do with specific words in the scripts. For instance, the term "poop face" is quite
06:48 obviously the PG version of a more vulgar insult, which Disney's standards and practices preferred
06:54 to avoid. "I've never met a human on earth of any age who would be offended by a cartoon saying
06:59 the word 'poop face,' not changing it." The words "hoo-ha" and "chub" were also said to
07:05 have sexual connotations, which although objectively true, was wildly offbeat from
07:10 the context Hirsch provided in his responses. "Chub," for example, was used in reference to
07:15 a chubby puppy. "You have 24 hours to get these pugs across the U.S. border!"
07:20 "This is silly. It's an image of a fat dog."
07:22 "Geez" as an abbreviation for Jesus, and the word "crud" were also considered to be inappropriate.
07:29 "How is this my life?"
07:30 Number 2. Spin the Bottle
07:32 If you're a bit more than a casual fan of Gravity Falls,
07:35 you've probably heard Alex Hirsch tell this story before.
07:38 "Halloween party. Um, bottles will be spun. No photos better wind up online."
07:43 In the episode "Summerween," Wendy and Robbie are headed to their friend
07:47 Tambry's party. Wendy hands Dipper a flyer for the party, which reads, "Not S&P approved,"
07:53 and "No photos better end up online." That first line is the result of a back-and-forth
07:58 between Hirsch and Disney. "This implies they are playing spin the bottle.
08:03 We don't want to send the wrong message to our audience."
08:07 "The message is, 'Teenagers like kissing.' How on earth is that the wrong message? And it's
08:10 on a flyer. We don't even show it. You gotta be kidding me."
08:13 It was originally supposed to read, "Bottles will be spun," but S&P claimed they didn't want to,
08:19 quote, "send the wrong message." Alex Hirsch, in a brilliant move of spite,
08:24 came up with possibly the cleverest replacement line.
08:27 "Not S&P approved has been approved by S&P."
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08:45 1. Sheriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland's Relationship
08:51 Gravity Falls is included in the LGBTQ+ category on Disney+,
08:55 which is beyond hypocritical given how hard executives fought Alex Hirsch for
09:00 the merest hint of queer content.
09:02 "With you, every day is a dream."
09:05 In the episode "The Love God," the original storyboard had two older ladies falling in love,
09:10 but it clearly didn't get the okay from higher-ups because one of the characters
09:14 was changed to be an older gentleman.
09:16 "Oh no! What do I do?"
09:18 "Kitty girl, you know what you love. Pow! Match made!"
09:24 More than that is the relationship between Sheriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland.
09:29 The email exchange Hirsch publicized makes it clear that S&P thought the officers should
09:34 be strictly work partners.
09:35 "Their affectionate relationship should remain comical versus flirtatious."
09:39 "Nope. They're...buddies. Chill out."
09:44 Luckily, Hirsch obviously had other plans.
09:47 "The time we spend together is treasure enough."
09:50 Even though their reunion in the series finale is adorable,
09:54 "Durland!"
09:55 "My Blubbs!"
09:59 "Don't you ever scare me like that again!"
10:02 we can't help but feel like there should have been more there,
10:07 and there probably would have been without Disney's censorship.
10:11 Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from Ms. Mojo,
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10:19 [Music]