In a bizarre turn of events, apropos of 2020, a voter fraud hotline worker became the first person to hear Alex Hirsch (Gravity Falls, Fish Hooks) in the role of Gravity Fall’s crotchety Grunkle Stan in the four years since the animated series ended its run at Disney Channel. When the Trump campaign began to call for crowd-sourced evidence regarding voter fraud, in an attempt to invalidate the results of the 2020 election, Hirsch saw an opportunity to revive Mystery Shack proprietor Stan Pines.
In a video posted to the creator’s Twitter, fans can hear Hirsch as Dipper and Mabel Pines’ great Uncle Stan, turning himself in for voter fraud to a frustrated hotline worker. In a subsequent prank call, Hirsch donned the voice of Soos, another beloved Gravity Falls character, to report a Hamburglar-type figure stuffing ballots in a sack.
“Hirsch decided that reporting a Hamburglar-like individual stealing ballots in a sack would be hilarious,” Deadline reported on Hirsch’s Gravity Falls pranks “and tacitly encouraged others to do so on his Twitter feed.”
As reputable news sources began to report on the prank calls, Hirsch’s hijinks quickly became a badge of honor. On November 9, the thirty-five-year-old Gravity Falls creator printed and framed a screenshot that contained an excerpt of a Washington Post article that covered his prank calls to the voter fraud hotline.
Hirsch has been an outspoken political voice on social media for many years and often times combines his love for animated television into his approach on political discourse. In 2016’s primary election, he drew Pokémon personas for each candidate, turning Trump into poison-type Pokémon named “Schmuck”, via Twitter.
Aside from tie-in novels and comics, it’s likely that these impromptu prank calls from Hirsch mark the first- and last-time fans will hear the voices of Grunkle Stan and Soos for quite some time. Though Hirsch has not entirely ruled out revisiting the world of Gravity Falls on screen one day, he chose to give the series a definitive ending that told the story of one summer, via Screen Rant. “Once the summer ends, so does the story,” the creator spoke adamantly to Screen Rant about his intentions to give the series a clean ending.
With his brief visit to Gravity Falls and the 2020 presidential election behind him, Hirsch can now focus on his upcoming projects. After the slew of prank calls he placed from the office phone at the Mystery Shack, Hirsch teased that he had begun staffing a writer’s room for a new project at Netflix, via Twitter. In addition to his writing, Hirsch’s voice talents can be heard in Disney’s animated series The Owl House.