What better way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Gravity Falls‘ premiere this week than some behind-the-scenes secrets from creator Alex Hirsch?
“One last treat. Ever curious about the fights I had with the censors on Gravity Falls? I probably shouldn’t share this buttttt here are some REAL NOTES from DISNEY S&P and my REAL REPLIES. You are not prepared,” he wrote on Twitter on June 16. Alongside that message was a video of those notes from Disney Standards and Practices for the Disney animated comedy (which aired 40 episodes from 2012 to 2016). Check it and more of his posts out below.
One last treat. Ever curious about the fights I had with the censors on Gravity Falls? I probably shouldn’t share this buttttt here are some REAL NOTES from DISNEY S&P and my REAL REPLIES. You are not prepared #10YearsOfGravityFalls pic.twitter.com/EioKU8gIJJ
— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) June 16, 2022
I have literally *thousands* of these. Each one still haunts me pic.twitter.com/qV5bIGFtFM
— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) June 16, 2022
All of this… pic.twitter.com/sbawkoVu2x
— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) June 16, 2022
Among the notes: “Please revise the action of Blubs putting his arm around Durland. As noted in previous concerns, their affectionate relationship should remain comical versus flirtatious.” Hirsch’s response was simple: “Nope. They’re… buddies. Chill out.” The gesture was approved with that context.
Then came some of the more humorous replies from Hirsch. When S&P wrote, “Please revise Soos’ line about dressing as a giant teddy bear. It may call to mind the people who dress up as stuffed animals as a ‘furry’ fetish,” he asked, “Do I even have to respond to this?” Then he wondered, “How is this my life?” when the note read, “Please revise Wendy’s response ‘Aw crud-dang!’ as ‘crud’ has an inappropriate slang definition.”
The use of the word Lucifer and a request to revise led to Hirsch offering his own response that could be used for any complaints. That included, “Please eat this Mickey shaped cookie and enjoy this cute, classic, family-friendly Disney cartoon.”
Watch the video in the tweet embedded above to see what Hirsch called “the dumbest collection of notes I’ve ever received” and when he suggested to replace a line with “Not S&P approved.” Plus, as you can see in a tweet of his from 2021 below, he has previously called out Disney.
Disney privately: Cut the gay scene! We might lose precious pennies from Russia & China!
Disney publicly: 🤡 Honk honk we put rainbow bumper sticker on Lightning McQueen today CONSUME OUR PRODUCTS TEENS https://t.co/1eco8YgaoP
— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) June 2, 2021
Hirsch’s video has prompted other creators in Hollywood to share their story. For example, The Boys creator Eric Kripke tweeted, “My fave S&P note on #Supernatural: you can say ‘dick’ as an insult, but not a noun. Me: So Bobby can call someone a dick, but can’t say ‘I’m really worried about this spot on my dick?’” In a subsequent tweet, he added, “Which is another reason I loovvvveee streaming!” (Supernatural aired on the WB and the CW, while The Boys is on Prime Video.)
Lucifer co-showrunner Joe Henderson also chimed in. “We had so many S&P conversations on #Lucifer. My favorite was when we wanted to use an edible sex toy, but they wouldn’t approve anything that actually WAS a sex toy. (our S&P person was lovely btw). We went through a ton of versions, and finally landed on giant gummy worms,” he wrote on Twitter.
Which, of course, looked so much more sexual than any of the actual sex toys we wanted. I mean, this was the gummy worm we ultimately bought: pic.twitter.com/NPakgLAR5Y
— Joe Henderson (@Henderson_Joe) June 16, 2022
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