An episode of a popular American animated series made some Filipinos wishful about elections.
It started after one fan account of Gravity Falls, a 2012 animated series of Disney, shared screenshots of the episode on Twitter on July 13.
“Gravity falls really is a work of fiction,” the fan account tweeted.
gravity falls really is a work of fiction pic.twitter.com/oBYYkw77yV
— poop head (@bsmewdone) July 13, 2022
The screenshots showed a scene from Episode 14 of the show titled “The Stanchurian Candidate” which premiered in August 2015.
Stan Pines or Grunkle Stan, one of the main characters, had supposedly won the mayoral race of Gravity Falls in the scene.
However, the local reporter announced that “election officials” disqualified him because of his “extensive criminal record.”
“Despite winning an overwhelming 95% of the vote, election officials had to disqualify him due to discovery of an extensive criminal record,” the reporter in the episode said.
By the end of the episode, which was not featured on the tweet, a character named Tyler was declared the town mayor because he was the only candidate who filled out the necessary paperwork for the position.
The fan account’s tweet soon blew up on the micro-blogging platform.
So far, it gathered 9,806 retweets, 1,041 quote-retweets and 117,400 likes.
Different users seemed to have something in common with their reactions.
They expressed wishful remarks that the results of the fictional election in Gravity Falls would also happen in real life.
Some Filipinos made the same comments in the quote-retweets and replies.
“Philippines needs to learn from this,” one user said.
“Philippines, take note,” another user tweeted.
Other users, however, were more snarky in their comments.
“The Philippines in an alternate universe,” one user said.
This episode was also talked about in an online forum for fans of the animated comedy called r/GravityFalls.
“Why did Alex Hirsch have to make such a perfect town??” the Redditor said.
Alex Hirsch is the creator of Gravity Falls.
In the post, the last image showed a meme that seemed to pertain to the fictional show (which was represented by Chris Evans) mocking the world.
It was upvoted 3,006 times on the forum.
Another Redditor later cross-posted this to the subreddit for the Philippines called r/Philippines.
“*Laughs at PHILIPPINES in particular*,” the user said.
Gravity Falls is a critically acclaimed Disney TV program that tells the weird, supernatural adventures of twins Dipper and Mabel Pines when they spent the summer with Grunkle Stan, their paternal uncle, in his Mystery Shack in a town of the title’s namesake.
It was nominated and won several prestigious awards including two Primetime Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation.”
