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"Headhunters" is the third episode of Gravity Falls. It aired after the premiere of the Disney Channel Original Movie Let It Shine: Rap Battle Edition, on June 30, 2012.
Synopsis[]
It's almost bedtime at the Mystery Shack. Dipper and Mabel are watching a show called Duck-tective. Soos runs in and want to show Dipper and Mabel what he found while he was cleaning. He takes them to see a secret door hidden behind the wallpaper. They open it and discover a secret wax museum. Mabel is admiring how lifelike they are. Dipper points out one that he thinks isn't so lifelike. It's actually Grunkle Stan, which scares Dipper, Mabel and Soos and they run screaming. Grunkle Stan introduces the Gravity Falls Wax Museum. He says it was one of their most popular attractions before he forgot all about it. He then notices that Wax Abraham Lincoln has been melted by the sun. Mabel offers to create a new wax figure to replace it. Grunkle Stan likes Mabel's idea and agrees to let her do it.
Mabel begins to think of ideas for her wax figure. Her first idea is a girl that is part fairy princess and part horse fairy princess. Dipper suggests she carve something from real life and Mabel thinks of a waffle with big arms. Dipper then suggests she draws someone in her family. Mabel then gets the idea to sculpt Grunkle Stan. Once she is done, Grunkle Stan loves it and declares that the Wax Museum is back in business. The next day, they have a grand re-opening of the Wax Museum. There is a mini press conference where Mabel takes questions. A reporter named Shandra Jimenez questions where the pizza that was promised on the flyers is. Grunkle Stan claims it was a typo, shuts down the press conferences and runs off with the admission money. The customers leave infuriated due to there not being any pizza. Mabel thinks it went well.
It's night again at the Mystery Shack and Grunkle Stan is counting the money he made today. He tells Dipper and Mabel to go wash up because they have a long day tomorrow. Grunkle Stan sits down to watch Duck-tective with his wax figure while Dipper and Mabel are brushing their teeth. Grunkle Stan gets up to use the bathroom, but when he comes back, his wax figure is headless, much to his devastation. He calls over Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland, but they deem the case as unsolvable. Dipper believes he can solve the case and takes on the job. He and Mabel come up with a list of suspects. Dipper says it could be months before they find their first clue due to all the strange creatures they encountered in Gravity Falls so far. Mabel then notices a clue. She sees footprints that lead them to an axe which the believe is the murder weapon. Mabel realizes that the axe could belong to Manly Dan. They take the axe to Soos who tells them that Manly Dan hangs out at a crazy intense biker joint downtown.
Dipper and Mabel head to the biker joint called Skull Fracture and use fake IDs to get inside. Mabel begins talking to one of the customers there while Dipper questions Manly Dan. Manly Dan has proof that proves he couldn't be the murderer. Manly Dan also points out that the axe is left handed and he only uses his right hand. Dipper and Mabel go through their list of suspects to see who is left handed. Once they go through several suspects, there is only one person left on the list - Toby Determined. Dipper and Mabel get Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland to raid Toby's office, but he also has proof that proves he is not the murderer. Dipper believes that Toby has to be guilty. Toby reveals he was in his office making out with a cardboard version of Shandra Jimenez. Dipper tells Sheriff Blubs to check the prints on the axe. He says there are none, leaving Dipper and Mabel confused and embarrassed.
We then see Stan having a funeral for his wax figure with Dipper, Mabel, Soos, and the rest of the wax figures in attendance. Stan runs out crying while reciting a eulogy with Soos following. Dipper then notices that Wax Stan's shoe has a hole in it, just like the culprit. He pieces together the clues and realizes that it was the other wax figures. The wax figures come to life and threaten to kill Dipper and Mabel. Mabel asks if they are magic and Sherlock Holmes says they're cursed. He reveals that Stan took them from a haunted garage sale and had them on display in the Mystery Shack (the wax figures hung out and played tricks on Stan during the night), but when the figures stopped making profit they were locked away in storage and forgotten until Soos found the door's knob. They tried to actually kill him for real in revenge, but they decapitated the wax version by mistake. The wax figures then begin attacking Dipper and Mabel for learning the truth (and planning to rule the night again after their family is out of the way), but the kids kept them back with heated objects like electronic candles and fireplace pokers. Dipper leads Sherlock Holmes outside where they duel until Sherlock is melted by the sun. Mabel gets rid of the rest of the wax figures by throwing them in the fireplace. Grunkle Stan walks in and thanks Dipper and Mabel for finding his wax head. Bulbs and Durland arrived asking Dipper and Mabel if they solved the case and ended up scalding each other from their hot coffee spits upon Dipper telling them that they did. When questioned by Dipper if all the other wax figures are gone, Mabel says she is 99% sure she got rid of all the wax figures, which was good enough for Dipper, but Wax Larry's head is still in the vents.
The end credits show Mabel trying to decide which sweater to wear, the purple sequins or the yellow llama hair. She asks Dipper which sweater she should pick and, unknown to her, the wax head of Larry King peeks at her through the heat vents and suggests the one with the llama. Mabel thinks she heard Dipper and thanks him and leaves to change, while Dipper looks around in confusion.
Voice Cast[]
- Kristen Schaal - Mabel
- Jason Ritter - Dipper
- Alex Hirsch - Grunkle Stan, Soos, Old Man McGucket, Duck-tective
- Coolio - Wax Coolio
- Larry King - Wax Larry King
- John Oliver - Wax Sherlock Holmes
- Linda Cardellini - Wendy
- John DiMaggio - Manly Dan
- Keith Ferguson - Deputy Durland
- Will Forte - Tyler Cutebiker
- Kevin Michael Richardson - Sheriff Blubs, Tats
- Gregg Turkington - Toby Determined
- Greg Ellis - Wax William Shakespeare
- Kari Wahlgren - Shandra Jimenez
- James Adomian - Additional Voices
- Eric Bauza - Additional Voices
- Horatio Sanz - Additional Voices
Trivia[]
- One of the prominent wax figures is Richard Nixon. Alex Hirsch did a short animation featuring Nixon called "Imaginary Friend."
- There is no such thing as a left-handed ax.
- Blendin Blandin's picture is seen in the pictures of the suspects.
- Viewership: 2.710 million.
- This is the only episode to premiere on Saturday.
- Interestingly, according to Toby Determined's alibi camera footage, the wax figure's beheading took place on Saturday.
- The title of the episode is a reference to the term "headhunter," which is a personnel recruiter for a corporation.
- Grunkle Stan allows the kids to stay up late, because when the "murder" happened, it was 10:00pm.
- When Old Man McGucket is talking, you can see Blendin Blandin running off in the background.
- When Mabel was playing with the ax, she was doing the Psycho shower theme.
Cryptogram[]
- During the end credits of this episode, there was a cryptogram that read "KH'V VWLOO LQ WKH YHQWV." Once decoded, it reads "HE'S STILL IN THE VENTS." It is referring to Wax Larry King's head.
Errors[]
- Wax Larry is first shown to be the same height as Wax Sherlock Holmes, but in the next scene he is much shorter.
- Mabel's drawings of her sculpture ideas had color, but she was using a regular pencil.
- Shandra Jimenez is not at the re-opening of the Wax Museum, but she is there when Mabel calls on her for questions.
- When Grunkle Stan left to use the bathroom, the lights were on, but when he came back, the lights were off.
- The footprints left holes in the shag carpet the pushed down into the carpet. If the shoe had a hole in it, the carpet fabric would push up into the shoe.
- Some of the footprints that are supposed to have holes in them don't have holes.
- When Blubs and Durland checked the axe for fingerprints, they would have found Soos, Dipper, and Mabel's prints because they each touched it earlier.
- When the security footage of Toby is shown the first time it starts at 10:00 and the seconds are at 1. But the second time it is shown, the seconds are back at 0 and the clock still says 10:00.
- All of the wax figures have the hole in their shoe on the right. The ones on the carpet show a hole on the left.
- The wax figures' unveiling is outside in broad daylight, but the figures don't melt.
- The wax figures say they come alive during a waxing moon, but the moon shown during the fight between Dipper and Wax Sherlock Holmes is waning.
- Toby Determined had a picture of wax Grunkle Stan's head, despite it being missing at the time.
- When Grunkle Stan leaves to use the bathroom, Wax Stan has a stand. Yet, when he is on the ground, the stand is missing.
- Manly Dan's name is misspelled as "Manley Dan" in Dipper's list of suspects.
- Wax Robin Hood's bow switches from having an arrow to nothing.
- In the scene where Mabel says, "Are you saying you could outwit Duck-tective?", before she says her line, her eyebrows and eyelashes are missing. Even her headband is now transparent.
- In the flashback when Dipper explains why Toby Determined was the murderer, Toby's left shoe had the hole inside. But when they show the footprints, the hole was in the right shoe and earlier it was in the left shoe when they looked on the carpet.
- Although Toby Determined was a suspect, his name was not on the list of suspects that Dipper creates.
- In the flashback where Wax Sherlock Holmes decapitates Wax Stan, he appears to be sitting down because his legs are bent. When Wax Stan falls, he is standing up again.
Allusions[]
- When lamenting Wax Lincoln's death, Grunkle Stan references the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth.
- Mabel makes a "wree wree wree" noise while swinging the ax. This is a reference to the musical score "The Murder" played during the shower scene in the film Psycho.
- The nickname "Mabelangelo" is a clear reference to the famous sculptor and painter Michelangelo.
- Wax Sherlock Holmes falling off the Mystery Shack to his death while dueling Dipper may be an allusion to Holmes's original death in the Arthur Conan Doyle book series; falling off the Reichenbach Falls while dueling his nemesis, Professor Moriarty.
- Wax Groucho Marx asks "Why is there nothing in my hand?" Groucho Marx is known iconically for holding a cigar; however by television content regulations, US children's shows cannot have tobacco products unless it is integral to the plot (such as a "Drug Free" special).
Credits[]
- Written by:
- Aury Wallington
- Alex Hirsch
- Directed by:
- John Aoshima
- Storyboards by:
- Tyler Chen
- Erik Fountain
- Niki Yang