Grunkle Stan

Role in Gravity Falls

Stanley "Stan" Pines, known to most as Grunkle Stan and using the alias Stanford Pines until the real Stanford returned, is a main character from the 2012 animated series Gravity Falls. He is the great-uncle of twins Dipper and Mabel Pines, who spend the summer with him at the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap he runs that displays odd taxidermy and fake supernatural artifacts. At work, Stan wears a black suit, a red string bow tie, a fez, sometimes an eyepatch over his glasses on either side, and carries a cane topped with an eight ball. Off duty, he is usually in slippers, blue and white-striped boxer shorts, a white tank top, and a gold necklace.

Stan is a scheming, money-minded man who uses sneaky and funny tricks to make the Mystery Shack profitable. Despite his greed, he genuinely cares for and protects Dipper and Mabel, who are in his care for the summer at their parents' request. He pretends not to notice the strange events in Gravity Falls and frequently butts heads with Gideon Gleeful, a nasty child who runs a rival attraction called the Tent of Telepathy and wants to take over the Mystery Shack. Unbeknownst to others, Stan secretly owns the first of three journals written by his twin brother, Ford. By the end of the first season, he gets all three journals, the other two having been held by Gideon and Dipper. Using the portal design from the journals, Stan activates an interdimensional portal and brings Ford back from another dimension in the episode "Not What He Seems."

The Pines brothers then tell Dipper and Mabel their history. They are the sons of Filbrick and Caryn Pines, raised in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey. Their relationship fell apart when Stan accidentally ruined Ford's chance to get into a top university. After their parents kicked Stan out, he drifted through sales jobs and illegal activities. Later, Ford invited Stan to Gravity Falls, where Ford was studying cryptozoology and the supernatural. Stan was furious to learn Ford wanted him only to hide one of the journals because the portal designs threatened the world, not to reconcile. They fought, accidentally activated the portal, and Ford was pulled in. Stan then took Ford's identity, faked his own death in a car crash, and for thirty years ran the Mystery Shack from Ford's cabin as a cover while trying to fix the portal and bring his brother back. While watching Dipper and Mabel that summer, he finally succeeds.

The brothers struggle to mend their relationship as they prepare for "Weirdmageddon," an apocalypse caused by Bill Cipher, a demon from another dimension. During the apocalypse, Stan leads a group of characters to rescue Ford, but Bill captures both brothers while they argue. To destroy Bill and stop the apocalypse, Stan swaps clothes with Ford to trick Bill, who wants a secret equation only Ford knows, into entering Stan's mind instead. As Ford starts erasing Stan's memory, Stan defeats Bill and realizes his purpose was protecting his family. After Gravity Falls returns to normal, Stan wakes up with no memories, but his family and friends help him recover them. On the last day of summer, Stan and Ford decide to sail around the world together researching anomalies. Stan promotes his handyman Soos Ramirez to run the Mystery Shack and is last seen fighting an anomaly at sea with Ford on a ship called the Stan-O-War II, named after a boat they claimed as kids.

Stan is based on series creator Alex Hirsch's grandfather, also named Stan, who was a big, barrel-chested man with popped buttons, a gold chain, and gold rings. The term "grunkle" comes from how Hirsch and his twin sister referred to their great aunt, "Graunty" Lois. Stan has appeared in related media like the novel Gravity Falls: Journal 3, the graphic novel Gravity Falls: Lost Legends, and the novel The Book of Bill. An alternate version of Stan, an anthropomorphic frog named Mr. Ponds, appears in the Amphibia episode "Wax Museum," voiced again by Hirsch, as the curator of a "Curiosity Hut" with a wax museum.