Bottomless Pit!

Plot

The Mystery Gang—Grunkle Stan, Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, and Soos—dispose of unwanted trash at the bottomless pit near the Mystery Shack. Dipper doubts the pit's existence, but strong winds cause the group to fall in. To pass the time, they tell stories. Dipper's story involves him running to the Mystery Shack screaming for help, only to be mocked for his high-pitched, cracking voice.

Ashamed, he encounters Old Man McGucket, who shows him a formula that changes his voice. Dipper drinks it and gains a more manly voice, shocking the crew. He plays a prank call on a local citizen, but Soos dislikes the new voice. The prank call victim and townsfolk chase Dipper, who returns to McGucket and regrets his decision.

He receives a new formula that restores his original voice, and he dumps the remainder into Grunkle Stan's coffee. Soos tells a story about achieving a high score on a pinball machine. Dipper suggests tipping the machine, and they cheat. Soos gets the high score, but a cowboy skull inside the machine detects the cheating and pulls the three inside.

The machine enters its most intense mode, and the crew hides. Soos devises a plan to reach the manual switch-off. While Mabel and Dipper distract the skull, Soos rides a minecart to the button. Turning the machine off would erase all data, including Soos' high score.

The skull finds Dipper and Mabel, and Soos reluctantly pushes the button, returning them to normal. Grunkle Stan tells a grandiose story about helping his team win a championship, with congratulations from the team, a robot, and a trophy girl. The rest of the crew finds the story boring.

Reception

Alasdair Wilkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A−", praising its trilogy format and the relative insanity of the stories. A clip from the episode became a meme within the Gravity Falls fandom in 2024 after a user edited Grunkle Stan to say "Grunkle Stunkle wins the Funkle Bunkle," with visual and audio alterations. Multiple versions of the meme surfaced, and show creator Alex Hirsch eventually responded to it.