https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YLfwZBvMGk

Watch Gravity Falls’ Kristen Schaal and Jason Ritter do everything possible to love (and guard) their copy of Journal 3. Also featuring, special guest — and show creator — Alex Hirsch.

Of course, the book sweater and Journalert products are NOT real, but the best-selling Journal 3 is real. And now you can pre-order the Special Edition Journal 3, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI-CeNsOpkI

In 2010 recent CalArts grad Alex Hirsch pitched "Gravity Falls" to the Disney Channel. He wrote and drew the storyboard entirely on post-it notes and a rushed pilot was commissioned by Disney to a small low budget flash animation studio in Canada.

This rough in-house "pilot" Disney produced, though ultimately in a very different style and never fully "finished", shows us the very first ever glimpse of Dipper & Mabel.

Unsatisfied with the look and style of this pilot, Alex Hirsch personally hired his own team when the show was greenlit to series.

https://twitter.com/shadow_wolfwind/status/760670787611140097

https://twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/755870882027802624

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtlX1pujSr4

Some trivia, Alex told on BigFest today:

• The way the crew usual way of coming up with a story was to think of some normal situation and then add something magical and crazy. “Sock Opera” was used as the example: first they came up with an idea of Mabel trying to impress her puppet-obsessed crush with puppet show, and then they began brainstorming weird things that might happen. Some of the earlier ideas included Mabel getting super-knitting powers and making living sweaters, and puppets coming alive and attacking Mabel (Alex even made a drawing of that).
  
  
• Soos never tasted alcohol in his life. As for Stan… Well, there’s the reason his nose is this color.
  
  
• There will be more about Ford’s (mis)adventures beyond the portal in the Journal. Alex couldn’t talk about it much, but he gave a little teaser: Ford was thrown into a dimension, that was controlled by Bill (or his lackeys); there, his top priorities were:
  1) learn to survive,
  2) make a weapon capable of destroying Bill;
  On his journeys Ford made many friends and even more enemies and eventually became an interdimensional criminal. There will be a wanted poster for Ford in the upcoming Journal (and even more “Rick and Morty” references)
  
  
• The journal will also have more info on Ford’s & McGucket’s adventures during their youth.
  
  
• One of the chapters in the upcoming choose-your-own-adventure book will reveal something important about Bill’s dying message.
  Giffany is still alive, she managed to import here code somewhere, before her disc was destroyed. Again, more on that in the Journal.
  
  
• Originally, Soos was supposed to go by his full name (Jesus), but Disney advised against it, thinking that some people would accuse the show of blasphemy. But the decision to give Soos shortened name backfired, since many people thought his name was “Zeus”.
  
  
• Originally Bill didn’t have a surname, but Disney again advised against it, since they were afraid that people behind the character “Mr. Bill” might sue them for copyright infringement. So Alex came up with the name “Bill Black”, he thought it sounded cool and mysterious, but it turned out there was a some real guy with that name, and Disney was afraid he might sue them. All the other names Alex came up with were rejected for the same reason.
  Eventually, one late night, Alex was coming up with ciphers for the upcoming episode and thought “What if I just name him Cipher?”. The rest is history.
  
  
• There was a scene in “Sock Opera”, that had to be cut for time, where Bill claimed, he was behind many great minds of the history, like, for example, helping Isaac Newton discover gravity and helping Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing.
  
  
• Bill can never go back to the place he came from. Alex also hinted that there may be more about his origins in the Journal, although not much, since Bill is the kind of character that benefits from being mysterious.
  
  
• Dipper’s real name is NOT Michael, Alex, Mabel or Bill.
  
  
• There was supposed to be a sub-plot in the finale, where clones #3 & 4 would try to kidnap Dipper and go back home with Mabel instead of him, but it was cut due to being too confusing.
  
  
• Alex is talking with Disney about making some Gravity Falls comics, although nothing is concrete yet.
  
  
• One of the ideas for the sixth “Mabel’s Guide” short was “Mabel’s Guide to Death”, in which her pet caterpillar gets eaten by a bird, and she talks about coping with death. The idea was rejected for being too morbid. The replacement idea - “Mabel’s Guide to Smiles” - was deemed offensive by Disney, since Mabel was going to visit local prison and try to teach inmates to smile. Although Alex might upload the storyboards for this rejected short online some day.
  
  
• The password of the computer was "STANFORD"

Sources:
http://stepzour.tumblr.com/post/142917759504/some-trivia-alex-told-on-bigfest-today
http://mistrel-fox.tumblr.com/post/142925729385/toxicsugar-toxicsugar-say-what-you-will-but