Alex Hirsch
Driving a fast/luxurious car has always been something I aspired to. For some reason, it makes me super happy being behind the wheel of these cars.Collection: Car
I think the key as a creator is to just trust your own intuition, and follow your passion and trust that if you make something you love, an audience who loves it will find it.Collection: Trust
One day I'd love to release a coffee table book of all the crazy notes I got from Disney Channel's S&P and legal department.Collection: Legal
Ninety-nine percent of people who drive cars are not car experts.Collection: Car
I think there are a lot of shows out there that value being hip or cool over being funny and heartfelt.Collection: Cool
You don't have to sugar coat things for kids. If you make something for them with intelligence they will show that intelligence in ways that will sometimes shock you.Collection: Intelligence
My mum likes to remind me of the birthday treat I asked for when I was just 13... and that was for them to hire a stretch limo for my birthday when we travelled to L.A.Collection: Birthday
Endings are scary and foreign. They split you up emotionally and put you in a place where you don't know what's going to happen next. But with every end of the world, there is a new world that follows.
One thing that's a lot harder to put into stories than you'd think is the idea of a traditional monster, because monsters with a capital 'M' don't inherently lend themselves to a story about your character. Unless one of your characters is themselves the monster, simply having a monster leads to a chase or a hunt.
I watched the classics as a kid, and I could tell that Bugs Bunny in drag was a cartoon and a joke. It didn't make me start dressing in drag.
The more a character wants and the less a character has the ability to get what they want, the more you have an endless fuel for storytelling in comedy.
I think the car world can be quite intimidating sometimes. If people don't know too much about cars they often don't feel welcome - and that's a shame and I don't think that should be the case.
The fact that childhood ends is exactly what makes it so precious - and why you should cherish it while it lasts.
Cute animals have a pretty good track record in animation for inspiring passionate fandom.
The best thing about driving supercars is the way it makes me feel. It's so much fun that I often find myself laughing behind the wheel.
I went to art school for four years to learn a very expensive lesson - that there are many other artists who are way better than me.
Gravity Falls' didn't just appear overnight - every spooky cave and moss covered tree was created by a team of brilliant artists.
While everyone was out playing dodgeball, I was lying on the blacktop waiting for a UFO to take me out of elementary school.
The puberty train came late to the station for me. I was the shortest kid in my sixth-grade class - they made me pose for the yearbook with the tallest kid for comedic contrast.
The best way to make a show that's going to resonate is to make a show that you'd love.
When me and my sister were growing up, we just had very different personalities. I was sort of analytical and took myself too seriously, and she was sort of goofy and nuts and full of love - too much love, she had a crush on a different guy every week.
I loved 'The Simpsons' because it didn't talk down to its audience.
Gravity Falls' has so much inspiration that comes from 'Twin Peaks,' the idea of Agent Cooper being the one to drive Dipper and Mabel home made me feel like, yeah, they're going to be all right.
As long as I can recall I've always wanted to make cartoons.
When I went to California Institute of the Arts, I was classmates with a lot of like-minded weirdoes, some of who have gone on to create other cartoon shows-J.G. Quintel, 'Regular Show;' Pen Ward, 'Adventure Time.' We were all friends in school and pushed each other and made each other laugh.
I can speak to my experience and say that CalArts worked out very well for me. After CalArts, I went to Cartoon Network, and then came to Disney.
I always thought, if I was gonna make a kids show, I would want to make something that my own 12-year-old self would love. So, I put all that in a blender and stewed it together to create 'Gravity Falls.'
If you ask anyone in animation, how long they've been into animation, they'll pretty much always tell you that it's since they can remember, and I'm no exception. I've always just loved drawing and loved cartoons.
Gravity Falls' was a labor of love, but like all labor it could be painful at times.
A weird show attracts weird fans!
With Twitter and Tumblr, it's easy to get lost in the tidal wave of feedback from fans.
The Internet never ceases to impress me.
I spent 90 percent of my childhood playing SNES and N64, and my favorite games were the ones packed with secrets.
I remember spending one summer being utterly obsessed with trying to get the legendary unreachable 'Ice Key' from 'Banjo-Kazooie.'
Gravity Falls' normally follows very particular rules: we start out in reality close to the world as we know it, usually one magical element presents itself, and then it's essentially vanished or hidden back to where it came from by the end of the 20 minutes.
One of the interesting things about making a kids TV show is that you are in living rooms all across the world and you never know who's watching.
I remember when I was a kid, whenever you'd see cartoons cross over with each other, it always ranged from a delightful, magical surprise to a cynical, annoying cash grab.
With shows like 'The X-Files' or 'Eerie, Indiana' - even though they would have comedic moments, even though they would have character moments - there was a sincerity about magic.
Yeah, my first love was 'The Simpsons,' but in terms of movies and stuff, I loved 'Back To The Future,' I loved 'Jurassic Park,' I loved 'The Truman Show.'
I think the No. 1 lesson I learned from 'The Simpsons' was just that animation could be as funny as live-action. That animation could be funnier than live-action. That animation didn't have to just be for kids.
I love the idea that if you watch something twice, three times, four times, you'll continuously notice new things.
My sister, when we were in Elementary school, had one particular lime green fuzzy troll doll sweater with a gem sticking out of the belly and actual hair that stuck to it, and I just remember, even though I was very young, being like 'This is unusual. It is weird that she is wearing this in public.'
I was raised in the '90s. I love 'Seinfeld.'
Sometimes a sincere moment is the most surprising thing you can write.
It's always fun to write the little bit of TV that the characters watch in 'Gravity Falls,' because it's a perfect place to poke fun at the media.
A lot of the fun of 'Gravity Falls' comes from the secrecy surrounding the plot. We want fans to be able to guess and speculate, to be surprised by twists and be engaged when they get things right.
Gravity Falls' is a very hard show to produce.
It's weird because we live in this age of reboots. Everything is getting rebooted: 'The X-Files,' 'Twin Peaks.' We have shows like 'Gravity Falls' that were inspired by these shows, that are now ending and being followed up by reboots of the shows that inspired them.
I've never pitched a joke that I wouldn't be comfortable seeing in a Pixar film.
I never doubted that if I applied myself and tried to learn that I would good at it. I've had a lot of lucky turns, no doubt. But it's actually been a fairly direct line from control-freak, cartoon-obsessed kindergartner to control-freak, cartoon-obsessed executive producer.