School House Flock - The story of the Lost (and Found) Alex Hirsch film!

Welcome to part one of a mini series I'm gonna be doing on Alex Hirsch and his pre Gravity Falls work and how he referenced it in the show.

For this first blog, I'm gonna talk about a lost and found student film made by Alex so long ago, that many of you reading this may not even have been alive when it was made. So here is the story of the first Lost Hirsch short,

Alfred Hitchcluck Presents School House Flock

The Story

In 2015 as David Letterman was retiring, Alex tweeted this...

As stated by Hirsch himself, in an attempt to remain a virgin for life, he took part in the Piedmont Bird calling contest. The winners get to be on David Letterman and in 2002, Alex won. As listed on Piedmont High's website.

Along with winning, he also made a short animated film with a couple of his friends. What isn't known is why he made it.

A local TV station named KCOM made and sold VHS copies of the event on which the Alex Hirsch film was in at the end of. In the credits a person named Elliot Grossman is also listed as a creator but I couldn't find any info on him.

Years past and Alex graduated Piedmont High and went on to CalArts. The VHS tape containing this lost Alex film lay in a nook in a closet somewhere in the high school. A new teacher by the name of Mr. Brown took over as head of the Bird Calling contest and came into possession of the tapes.

2012 arrived and a new cartoon on Disney Channel aired. It was called Gravity Falls. And it was created by CalArts graduate and long former Piedmont High student, Alexander Robert Hirsch.

Around the same time, at Piedmont High, things were about to happen that would give this lost and by now forgotten Hirsch film a new life.

A student at PHS, who's YouTube channel is named TheLazyComet (who I'll refer to as LC from here on) came into possession of equipment that allowed him to convert old VHS cassettes into digital files and then DVD's.

In an attempt to make a bit of money, LC put ads around PHS offering to convert people's old VHS cassettes into DVD's. Mr. Brown approached him with a couple of old VHS tapes from previous Bird Calling Contests that he wanted converted into DVD. Among them was the 2002 contest in which the lost Hirsch film was.

The job was done and Mr. Brown got his DVD's. Based on the information I could find, LC viewed this film before he cleaned out his hard drive of VHS footage.

It should be noted that LC had never seen Gravity Falls and didn't even know who Alex Hrisch was. He just found the film to be too funny to be forgotten and as no one who made the film had never ed it themselves, he ed it to YouTube on May 11, 2013.

Sometime after that, in 2014, LC was approached by a YouTuber and Gravity Falls theorist named The Sqoou.

As someone who knew about Alex pretty well, Sqoou filled LC in on the matter and he agreed to let Sqoou the video onto his channel with a much bigger audience on April 13, 2014.

The Sqoou used it as part of a theory they had on a connection with Alex's obsession with birds. You can read that HERE!

On January 11th, 2015, TheLazyComet, by then who had graduated PHS, ed a video explaining how he came to be in possession of this film.

He also assumed many of the staff and students featured in the film are based off most likely long gone alumni from PHS. The bagpipes are based off the school's mascot. Many locations seen in the film are based off real places at Piedmont High.

And that's about it. I planned on making this sooner but in making this blog, I attempted to The Sqoou for an interview and to hear more of his side of the story. He's still pretty active on Reddit and Twitter so I assumed he'd reply. Sadly, I never got a response.

Luckily, LC's video did a good job of explaining everything.

And that's pretty much all I have on this story. Tune next time when we have a look at other old Alex Hirsch student films. Ones that Gravity Falls paid bigger homage to than you might think!

See you then and ...

#GravityFalls

#TheSqoou

#HirschFilms

#curatorreview