When writer/director Alex Hirsch set out to create his first animated Disney Channel series, he used family ties and Oregon as inspirations.

"Gravity Falls," debuting with a preview episode at 9:55 p.m. Friday and premiering with another new episode at 9:30 p.m. June 29, follows the adventures of city kid twins Dipper (voice of Jason Ritter, "Parenthood") and Mabel Pines (Kristin Schaal, "30 Rock") as they spend the summer with their great uncle Stan (voiced by Hirsch) in Gravity Falls, Ore. It's a small, remote town where "Grunkle" Stan runs a tourist trap called The Mystery Shack.

Hirsch, 26, grew up in California's Bay Area with a twin sister, Ariel, which helped inspire the show's central relationship. But he attributes the show's setting to the summer of 2006, which he spent working at Portland's Laika animation studio as a storyboard artist on "Jack and Ben's Animated Adventure," a movie that was scrapped in 2008.

Gravity Falls

What:

Gravity Falls Premiere, kids show

Where:

Disney Channel (check local listings for channel)

When:

9:55pm Friday June 15th, New Episode June 29th at 9:30pm

"That was just the most fun summer I've ever had," Hirsch said. "We went whitewater rafting and skydiving and I fell in love with Oregon over that summer. When you write scripts, it begins to feel like you're living in them. Well, if I'm going to be writing a lot of scripts, it might as well be (in) Oregon, which I enjoyed so much."

The town of Gravity Falls is an amalgam of places Hirsch visited in Oregon and national parks he spent time in as a child. But there was one town name he saw on an Oregon road sign that was particularly inspiring.

"We passed a sign for Boring, Oregon. We never went there, but I was positively enchanted with the idea that there was a town called Boring," Hirsch said. "Gravity Falls is partially from what I imagine Boring might be like. Or maybe the opposite of Boring, Oregon, would be Gravity Falls."

Friday's episode begins with the twins arriving in Gravity Falls at their uncle's Mystery Shack, which was inspired by roadside tourist traps like the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, Calif., or the Oregon Vortex in Gold Hill.

"I've been to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz and they're always so, so disappointing when you get there and that, to me, is really funny," he said. "You see four teenagers running the place and how rundown it is and it just made me think, what a great location for a comedy that would be."

Part museum of oddities and part collection of optical illusions, the Mystery Shack serves as a home base on "Gravity Falls."

"Everything in the Mystery Shack is some form of smoke and mirrors and general hokum," Hirsch said. "And the kids have to work there with their uncle. It's a boring day job and serves as a point of ironic contrast to the fact that the real magic and mystery is all outside in the woods."

Hirsch, a 2007 graduate of California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, didn't want to give away what those mysteries will be, but he said fans of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and UFOs will not be disappointed by "Gravity Falls."

Hirsch said he doesn't picture any particular audience for the show, but he acknowledged that Disney considers the "Gravity Falls" target audience to be children ages 7 to 12.

"I feel like if I've done my job right, kids of all ages and parents and everyone will enjoy the show," said Hirsch, who previously worked on Disney Channel's "Fish Hooks."

Oregonians may get a particular kick out of the writer/animator's take on loggers -- there's a whole family of them in the June 29 episode -- and hipsters.

Hirsch ponders other Oregon influences in stories and says he has an idea for an episode for the show's second season, should "Gravity Falls" get renewed.

"I remember visiting Herman the Sturgeon in his tank (at Bonneville Fish Hatchery) and he had groupies, people who were fans of Herman," he said. "A seed of an idea for an episode has come from there. There's fun to be had making a cult around an ancient fish."

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