Wildfire Relief Fundraising Brings 'Gravity Falls', ‘Andi Mack' Reunions
Dipper Pines singing Chappell Roan like he did &ndra and BABBA was exactly what the world needed
The Eaton and Palisades wildfires have been devastating, and in its wake, all sorts of fundraising efforts for people to regain their livelihood have been made in this time of need. While Thursday night’s omniplatform Fire Aid concert is probably the biggest broadcast, smaller Hollywood efforts somehow brought on not just one but two reunions of Disney Channel shows. The first was the animated series Gravity Falls on January 16, and the dramedy Andi Mack on January 26.
Gravity Falls was a highly-beloved supernatural animated mystery series that ran for two seasons and 40 episodes from 2012 to 2016, about twins sent to live with their great uncle in a mysterious town in the Pacific Northwest. It was created by Alex Hirsch, who also voices important characters like Grunkle Stan Pines, Soos Ramirez, “Old Man” Fiddleford McGucket, and Bill Cipher, and starred Jason Ritter and Kristen Schaal as twins Dipper and Mabel Pines. The trio were the stars of a charity draw-a-thon which rewarded fan donations with live drawings, song performances and special animation-related memorabilia and collector’s items. But they weren’t alone, as director, character designer, and artist, Joe Pitt, namesake of the in-universe Pitt Cola and director and storyboard artist, eventually creator of Amphibia Matt Braly were also along. There was a bit of a rough start to the stream on Hirsch’s Twitch channel, but things stabilized for it to last over 2 hours that ended with over $93,000 donated to the GoFundMe for the Wildlife Relief Fund, but in the near two weeks since has grown to over $267,000. The accompanying auction ended on January 21 but featured Hirsch’s original Gravity Falls storyboard pitch, Mike Rianda’s frames created for his Sony Pictures Animation directorial effort The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Patrick McHale’s concept sketches for his Cartoon Network series Over the Garden Wall, Rebecca Sugar’s signed Steven Universe comic-books and posters, Chris Houghton’s sketches for Big City Greens, Dana Terrace art created for Amphibia, Jeff Smith’s autographed copy of Bone, Infinity Train collectibles signed by Owen Dennis and OK K.O! Let’s Be Heroes collectibles autographed by that show’s creator Ian Jones-Quartey, and a signed James Baxter sketch from Disney’s The Beauty and the Beast. There was even a special message from J. K. Simmons in-character as Grunkle Ford. They belted out “Pink Pony Club”, “Good Luck Babe”, and “Defying Gravity” too. Ritter currently stars on CBS’s new Matlock while Schaal continues to voice Louise Belcher on Fox’s Bob’s Burgers.
While that reunion got broader media coverage, another was standing on the edge. Sunday saw Luke Mullen, who played Thelonious Jagger “TJ” Kippen on the comedy-drama Andi Mack, which ran for three seasons and 57 episodes from April 2017 to July 2019, organize the first post-series reunion for the show in the five and a half years since the series finale, streamed on Twitch, TikTok and Instagram. The series, created by Lizzie McGuire creator Terri Minsky is about Andi, played by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, who begins the series learning on her 13th birthday that Bex (Lilan Bowden), who she believed to be her sister, is actually her mother, and the people who were raising her, Celia and Henry “Ham” Mack, played by Lauren Tom and Stoney Westmoreland are actually her grandparents. This being such a major adjustment, on top of the typical teenage things like school, friendships, like friends Buffy Driscoll (Sofia Wylie) and Cyrus Goodman (Joshua Rush), and crushes, namely Jonah Beck played by Asher Angel, is a major part of the series that quickly has her finding her father, Bowie Quinn, played by Trent Garrett. TJ is Cyrus’s eventual boyfriend, the latter’s coming out storyline being the first for a Disney Channel main character. Heck, TJ (who remained recurring) wasn’t even allowed to be gay at first. Essentially the network wouldn’t allow Cyrus to enter a gay relationship. He could be gay, but an alone gay. Obviously that changed.
Nearly everyone was present, with Mullen being joined by Lee, Bowden, Tom, and Emily Skinner, who played mean girl and romantic rival Amber, while Garrett, Rush, and Angel had their own individual setups. The only real absence was Wylie. Westmoreland was caught as a pedophile in 2018, promptly fired. He was sentenced to two years in prison in June 2022, and ten years of supervised release. It is because of this that the show becomes an odd experience to rewatch. His presence was edited out of his final batch of episodes, dropping runtimes to as low as 18 minutes, and reduce the availability of the series on Disney+ to just 31 episodes. Season 1 only has its final two episodes, season 2 only has 12 of 25, and season 3 only having 17 of its 20. That has certainly hurt its ability to rack up viewership ’minutes over the five years the streamer has existed.
The fundraiser was set up by Letters Charity on the nonprofit fundraising platform Givebutter. During it there was a lot of reminiscing on favorite moments and such thanks to fan questions, while also pondering what the kids’ college lives would’ve been like as they head toward the ends of their own in real life. Lives beyond were also pondered. Garrett believes that Bowie and Bex, who married in the penultimate episode, probably would’ve had more kids, giving Andi a sibling or two. Time was also spent browsing YouTube revisiting press junkets and interviews, digging up compilations of their own Musical.ly videos, which they acknowledged were cringe enough to be worth a joke about the TikTok ban. About an hour and a half in, creator Terri Minsky stopped by with audition stories, like Asher not being able to throw a frisbee or feeling the need to create a role for Emily. She showed a lot of pride in her cast’s talent. But hey, the three hours they allotted was almost up, and while Mullen kept streaming, Angel and Garrett had to drop out, so before they left, everyone serenaded Minsky with the theme song “Tomorrow Starts Today”.
The stream ended up lasting over 4 hours and reached its $20,000 goal either by the end or overnight, exceeding it by about $500. Both fundraising efforts are still open, and the full livestreams are available to watch on YouTube.
Sources: Animation Magazine, GoFundMe, Givebutter