Welcome back to Gravity Talks, our review series for Gravity Falls with a release schedule that’s just as sporadic as the show. Apparently this premiered on Friday instead of on a Monday like they said this season would. The real mystery of Gravity Falls is when does this show even air.
This week, “Little Gift Shop of Horrors” gives us some short stories, claymation, and the second best guest star in animation history. Probably. I didn’t research that last part too much, if we’re going to be honest. As always, we’re going to have plenty of mild spoilers, even though this episode is allegedly non-canon.
In the vein of The Simpsons‘s “Treehouse of Horror” and last season’s “Bottomless Pit!”, “Little Gift Shop of Horrors” is an anthology episode as told by Grunkle Stan pitching products to a faceless customer whose point of view gives a slightly disturbing perspective on the Pines family we’d rather not see again.
We’re once again taking a detour from the main mystery of the show and at this point I should just accept that season two of Gravity Falls isn’t going to be as consistenly ruthless as I had anticipated with “Into the Bunker” and “Sock Opera”. Still, “Little Gift Shop of Horrors” proves to be as entertaining an episode as any other one, if only because it simply goes all out.
The first short, ‘Hands Off’ follows the time-tested formula of following Stan around and letting him be his terrible amoral self. After stealing a wrist watch from a Hand Witch, Stan loses his hands and is pretty annoyed, eventually caring enough about the situation to go find the Hand Witch and get his digits back. Again, just letting Grunkle Stan wander around and be his morally bankrupt self is enough for any episode so scenes like Stan asking for his hand back so he can flip off the witch or getting Mabel to build him new hands so he doesn’t have to talk to the witch are just delightful.
Also of note is the Hand Witch herself who earns her place as the breakout character of the episode. Note: I love how the Gravity Falls team is so skilled at crafting compelling characters that you can actually have a “Breakout Character of the Week” award and actually award one for each episode. In the Witch’s case, she’s an instantly likable old crone by Stan who’s following rules of magic that she basically makes up on the spot, like how the only way to break the curse is to make out with her, please make out with her.
Even though this episode and its stories are allegedly noncanon, we’ve reached the point in Gravity Falls where these might as well have happened. Isn’t the Hand Witch as credible as Soos’s yandere waifu? We like to think so, and as such we’re kind of dying to see Hand Witch in future episodes, hopefully with her hunky mountain climber she acquired at her story’s end.
Speaking of characters who are unfortunately relegated to never showing up in another episode again, “Abaconings” featured Waddles the pig having his intelligence boosted to the point where he’s voiced by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
This was a thing that happened and it went precisely as spectacular as you’d expect. Tyson’s not the best voice actor (not to diss him, he has a thousand other achievements more important than being good at making cartoon pig voices) but his natural charm and personality are so unnaturally perfect for Waddles and his lazily adorable persona. The story itself feels a little rushed, with a nice emotional ending that concludes everything just a bit too soon and without much discussion, but at the very least the best supporting character on Gravity Falls got his time in the spotlight and, I cannot reiterate this enough, was voiced by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The final short of the episode is no less impressive, as “Clay Day” gives tribute to the claymation of Ray Harryhausen by delving into Mabel’s fear of claymation monsters like those seen in Jason and the Argonauts. The relatively simple premise swiftly takes off as the Pines family and Soos find Harry Claymore, the creator of the claymation films, who reveals that he actually use black magic to bring his monsters to life.
Continued belowClaymore’s monsters then predictably attack the Pines which results in a remarkably impressive show of animation. Gravity Falls has always had some excellent animation but the integration of the claymation, done by Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, is flawless. The monsters feel like they belong in Gravity Falls, like they’re not just green screened onto the show. And it’s made all the more impressive when Mabel climbs on top of the Cyclops and mushes his face up. Though it’s writing wise the most simple of the stories, technically it’s an artistic milestone for Gravity Falls in terms of animation.
“Little Shop of Horrors” proves just how flexible Gravity Falls can be as a series. Though it stumbles at moments, it’s an excellent demonstration of the imagination that fuels the adventures of the Pines family, even if they’re just showing off their expensive claymation segments.
Final Verdict: 8.4 – Neil deGrasse Tyson voiced Waddles. What more do you want?
