Highkey one of the funniest parts of Gravity Falls is how obnoxiously close they come to revealing Ford’s existence in the early seasons but never do out of just. Cosmic levels of dumb luck
Episode 1 Stan nearly catches Dipper with the journal and it’s passed off as a gag about Gold Chains for Old Men magazine. In Time Travellers Pig they go back to the Shack 30 years in the past and miss Ford opening the door on them by literal seconds. In bottomless pit Mabel gives him a set of truth teeth that make him incapable of lying and he tells the twins TO THEIR FACES that he regularly commits massive tax fraud and if they had asked him to elaborate he would’ve told them who he was impersonating. In one of the shorts Dipper and Soos find a sentient omniscient mailbox that will answer any question in the universe, and right before they can ask it who wrote the journals Mabel shows it a video of herself snorting gummy worms and it kills itself out of disgust. The entirety of Dreamscaperers is them delving into the depths of Stan’s psyche, going through his memories, all while fighting his brother’s ex-boyfriend and it somehow just. Doesn’t come up. Bill never mentions him. Their grandpa Shermie never said anything. Their parents never said anything. Either the universe was conspiring to cover it up or they are genuinely all that oblivious