A series of Gravity Falls shorts airing during "Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained Week" as part of Disney Channel's Monstober 2013. They detail Dipper's various adventures uncovering the mysteries and secrets of Gravity Falls. And they are:
- #76: Candy Monster
- Dipper and Mabel hunt down a strange creature that steals their leftover Summerween candy.
- #23: Stan's Tattoo
- Dipper investigates the mystery that is Grunkle Stan's tattoo.
- #54: Mailbox
- Dipper and Soos find an odd mailbox in the middle of the forest and try to find out who leaves a series of all-knowing letters behind.
- #82: Lefty
- Dipper tails a mysterious citizen of Gravity Falls who always appears to face left.
- #42: Tooth
- Dipper and Mabel discover a gigantic tooth on the shore of Lake Gravity Falls and set out to find where it came from.
- #132: The Hide-Behind
- Upon finding evidence, Dipper goes after a legendary creature that has been heard, but never seen.
Tropes present in these shorts:
- Ambiguously Evil: The Hide-Behind certainly looks very creepy, and has the decidedly unsettling habit of always hiding behind people, never letting itself be seen, but "creepy" doesn't always equate to "evil," and it never does anything especially harmful, outside of maybe freaking a couple of people out.
- Animated World Hypotheses: Let's face it, Lefty's entire schtick (that he's actually a robot piloted by aliens, with his entire right side exposed to the public) is only possible in a 2-D cartoon.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The candy monster is easily distracted by the television. So is Dipper.
- Behind the Black: The left-sided man is always facing left.....at least for the camera. Other characters seem unable to see his other side even if they're standing in a position where they should be able to.
- Behind a Stick: The Hide-Behind is the size of a small tree yet can still perfectly hide behind a much smaller sapling, emerging from behind it as Dipper gives up on ever finding it.
- Berserk Button: Do Not bring up Stan's tattoo. Dipper finds this out the hard way. Because the "tattoo" is a burn scar he received during a fight with his twin brother and the Author, Ford, over how they grew apart. Immediately after, Stan accidentally caused Ford to disappear into the interdimensional portal. Understandably, it's not something he likes to be reminded of.
- Brain Bleach: After Soos takes his shirt off and poses, Stan states that he's going to go scoop his eyes out with a melon baller.
- Call-Back: The monster in the first episode is eating the candy from Summerween.
- Creepy Doll: Bear-O, who's shown to make small children cry.Child: I hate Bear-O, Mommy! I hate it!
- Crazy-Prepared: Stan went into the shower fully dressed, waiting for Dipper to try and film his tattoo. Dipper even lampshades this.
- Cyanide Pill: The creatures controlling the left-sided man all commit suicide by swallowing glowing red pills that cause them to spontaneously combust.
- Description Cut: Inverted, but played for a similar effect. Sometime after we see Lazy Susan getting herself stuck spinning in circles to see if the Hide-Behind is behind her, Stan says that the people of Gravity Falls are "literally the dumbest people on Earth." Cut to Lazy Susan, still spinning in circles.
- Eerily Out-of-Place Object: The mailbox in the middle of the woods. Even weirder, the mailbox knows the answers to all of life's mysteries, and is implied to have a mind of its own.
- The End of the World as We Know It: According to the mailbox, it will take place in the year 3012.Dipper: Huh. We've got a while!
- Exact Words: Stan says that he doesn't have a tattoo on his back. As "A Tale of Two Stans" would reveal, he isn't lying.
- Expy: The Hide-Behind's design was purposely similar to Groot's, to foreshadow the GotG movie.
- It also resembles Slender, though that might not be intentional.
- Mabel’s dilapidated doll, Bear-O, bears a resemblance to Billy Bob Brockali.
- Extreme Omnivore: The candy monster also eats golf clubs.
- Face Doodling: Stan writing the word "goober" on Dipper's forehead.
- Fan Disservice: Soos without a shirt. Stan even lampshades it.
- Attempted when Dipper goes into the shower to catch Stan to get his tattoo on film. However, Stan was expecting him...
- Fearsome Critters of American Folklore: The Hide-Behind is one of these figures.
- For Science!: Dipper says this is the reason to capture the candy monster. This is apparently also the reason he was willing to get into Stan's shower to get a look at his tattoo.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Each short ends with a snap-shot of part of a parchment with a coded message on it.
- Found Footage Films: All the shorts are recorded from Dipper's camera.
- Funny Background Event: While Dipper is interviewing Manly Dan in "The Hide-Behind", Dan's sons are cutting down a tree... and accidentally bring it down on a cabin.
- Gave Up Too Soon: After Dipper came to the conclusion that the Hide-Behind was a myth and walked away, it showed up on the camera following him.
- Getting Hot in Here: Dipper and Soos try to get Stan to take his shirt off by cranking up the thermostat.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Mabel's drawings suggest that she suspects the left-sided man to be one.
- Implausible Deniability: Stan seems to mention the tattoo he has, but apparently says it doesn't exist.
- Leave the Camera Running: After failing to find evidence of the Hide-Behind, Dipper assumed it didn't exist and walked away from his camera that was still recording...which caught footage of the Hide-Behind.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: After discovering the bizarre truth about "Lefty", Dipper says to Mabel as they flee the scene "I think we might want to burn this tape."
- Mid-Battle Tea Break: The Candy Monster gets distracted by the TV and even Dipper and Mabel decide to stop chasing it and watch along.
- Mobile-Suit Human: The left-sided man turns out to be a robot piloted by miniature aliens.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Mabel hadn't intervened with her home video in "Mailbox", Dipper could've learned everything about the journals' author. Something of a fate-driven Foregone Conclusion, though, as it would've spoiled a big plot point of the then-upcoming Season 2.
- No Ending: Dipper's camera actually caught footage of the Hide Behind while he was leaving, and is still left running in the woods somewhere...
- Non-Nude Bathing: Invoked when Stan turns on the shower while still wearing his suit, knowing that Dipper would interrupt in hopes of a glimpse of his tattoo.
- Properly Paranoid: Mabel mentions that she thinks Dipper has a few screws loose regarding his suspicion of the left-sided man.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Stan, during Dipper's final attempt to see his tattoo.Stan: You're never gonna see it, kid. Never. Gonna. See IT!
- "Psycho" Strings: After Bear-O's arm falls off and all the children Mabel was performing for cry.
- Real After All: Dipper concludes that the Hide-Behind is just a myth. The last few seconds of the footage said otherwise.
- Right Behind Me: The location of the Hide-Behind. All the time.
Seriously, all the time. The entire short featuring the Hide-Behind is about actually getting it onscreen for a second. Note that to pull this off, the Hide-Behind possesses speed that nearly reaches Flash Step. But through a meta performance of Loophole Abuse, the creators of the show let us know what the Hide-Behind looks like by filming the backs of the Pine Twins as they walk away. - Sanity Slippage: Stan slowly starts to get more and more ballistic when Dipper tries to see his tattoo.
- Shirtless Scene: Soos has one, much to Stan's disgust.Stan: "Watch the shop for a minute, Soos. I need to go find a melon-baller and pull my eyes out."
- Sitting on the Roof: "Stan's Tattoo" ends with Dipper sitting on the roof, hiding from Stan.
- Stealthy Colossus: The Hide-Behind is the size of a small tree,
◊ yet is able to quickly hide when people turn to look in its direction. - Surreal Horror: The Hide-Behind. It hides behind things so nobody will see it, has a tall, slender shape, is totally black aside from yellow "eyes", and it's hard to tell if it has any malicious intent or not.
- That's No Moon: The island in the middle of the lake is actually a giant head slumbering underneath.
- Truth in Television: The Hidebehind is a "real" creature from American folklore.
- The Unreveal:
- We never see Stan's tattoo. Based on the show's penchant for keeping major reveals hidden until later and hints from the online game, it might be involved with the Myth Arc. It is—it's a burn scar that Stanley received while fighting his brother, Stanford, the Author of the Journals. That same fight would trap Ford in another dimension and is the reason Stanley is in Gravity Falls to begin with. It's also a reminder of Stanley's version of My Greatest Failure, which is why it's such a sensitive subject.
- When Dipper is about to ask the mailbox to reveal the Author's identity, Mabel tries to use it to send their Mom a video of herself sticking gummi worms into her nose and it disgusts the mailbox into self-destruction.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Many have questioned what happened to Dipper's camera or if it was just left in the woods.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: One of Mabel's theories about "Lefty" is that he's just a normal guy and Dipper is being needlessly paranoid.
