The show was the first miniseries on the network. McHale first envisioned it in 2004 and pitched it to the network in 2006. After working on other Cartoon Network shows including The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Adventure Time, the network expressed interest in McHale pitching a pilot. That pilot, Tome of the Unknown, became the catalyst for Over the Garden Wall. Production of the show began in March 2014 and was largely done in Burbank, California, but many of the show's artists worked from other U.S. cities, while the program's animation was outsourced to South Korean studio Digital eMation.[4] The series' environment evokes 19th- and 20th-century Americana, while its digital backgrounds are designed to resemble brunaille paintings.
The series was acclaimed by television critics, who praised its atmosphere and characters. In 2015, the series won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program. A one-shot comic book adaptation penned by McHale has been produced, with four further issues commissioned. This was later expanded into an ongoing comic series that ran for 20 issues and continued in a series of graphic novels and comic book miniseries. A three-minute stop-motion short film, produced by Aardman Animations, was released on November 3, 2024 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the series, bringing back several cast and crew members, including McHale, Wood and Lynskey.[5]
Plot
The series follows two half-brothers, Wirt and Greg (voiced by Elijah Wood and Collin Dean respectively), who become lost in a strange forest called the Unknown. To find their way home, the two must travel across the mysterious forest with the occasional help of the wandering, mysterious and elderly Woodsman (Christopher Lloyd) and Beatrice (Melanie Lynskey), an irritable bluebird who travels with the boys to find a woman called Adelaide, who can supposedly undo the curse on Beatrice and her family and show the half-brothers the way home.[6]
Wirt, the older brother, is a worry-prone teenager who would rather keep to himself than have to make a decision. His passions include playing the clarinet and writing poetry,[7] but he usually keeps these private out of fear of being mocked. On the other hand, Greg, the younger brother, is more naïve and carefree, much to Wirt's chagrin. Greg carries a frog (Jack Jones) that he found; Greg's attempts to give the frog a name are a running gag. Stalking the main cast is the Beast (Samuel Ramey), an ancient creature who leads lost souls astray until they lose their hope and willpower and turn into "Edelwood trees".[citation needed] Once they find Adelaide, Wirt discovers that she intends only to enslave the boys; outraged that Beatrice misled them, Wirt takes Greg and abandons her.
Final chapters
The penultimate episode reveals that Wirt and Greg are modern children. The two boys entered the Unknown after falling into a pond on Halloween. Wirt, while attempting to take back a tape of poetry and clarinet music he made for a girl he is infatuated with, followed her to a ghost story party in a graveyard. While attempting to regain the tape a police officer scares the kids into jumping over the cemetery's garden wall. On the other side of the wall, they land on a train track. To save Greg from being hit by a train, Wirt pulls him off of the tracks, causing both of them to roll down a hill into a pond, knocking them both unconscious. This is the precursor to the first episode, explaining what sent them to a Limbo-like realm between life and death.[citation needed]
In the final episode, Wirt saves Greg from being turned into an Edelwood tree by the Beast. At the end of the episode, Wirt and Greg wake up in a hospital back in their hometown. As the scene ends, Greg's frog, which swallowed a magic bell in the Unknown, begins to glow, suggesting that their experience in the Unknown may have been real. The series ends with a montage of how Wirt and Greg affected the inhabitants of the Unknown.[8]
Production
Over the Garden Wall was first envisioned in 2004 with a scarier and more adventure-based storyline. Before working as a storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, artist Patrick McHale pitched the show in 2006, then known under the title Tome of the Unknown. The series would follow two brothers—Walter and Gregory—who, after signing themselves into a Faustian deal with a devil named Old Scratch, journey across the Land of the In-Between to track down the pages of a book of forgotten stories.[9]
McHale saw it as "a possible Halloween special", but had trouble adapting the premise with a larger story arc.[10] After his work for Flapjack, McHale moved on to co-develop Adventure Time, where he served as creative director, and subsequently as a writer. The network later asked him if he had interest in developing a pilot, which led to him returning to Tome of the Unknown, polishing it and pitching it again to the network.[11]: 29 After creating a pilot episode, Tome of the Unknown: Harvest Melody, McHale and the network settled upon the miniseries format for the ensuing series, as McHale felt that it would lead to "something that felt higher quality than what we could do with a regular series".[10] McHale abandoned the original idea centered around chapters of a mystical tome and the series' title became Over the Garden Wall.[12]
Production for Over the Garden Wall commenced in late 2013. McHale initially envisioned eighteen chapters in the series, but the episode count was brought to ten to accommodate budget and time constraints. Early drafts of episodes from the show's pitch bible included a skinless witch character and a villain who carves dice from the bones of kidnapped children, as well as a running plot throughout four episodes in which Wirt and Gregory are transformed into animals (Gregory being a duck and Wirt being "either a bear or a dog ... Nobody can tell which").[13]
The ten episodes marked the first miniseries on the Cartoon Network.[14] The show features Wood and Dean (reprising their roles from the short), along with Lynskey as the main voice cast. McHale and his crew tried to maintain a balance between frightening imagery and "episodes that are just light and funny".[15]: 24 For the music, McHale drew inspiration from "classic American, opera singing".[10]Nick Cross served as art director and Nate Cash as supervising director; both worked with McHale alongside storyboard artists located in New York and Chicago. This distance proved difficult for McHale, who found it "particularly daunting considering the idiosyncratic nature of the production".[10]
September 9, 2013 (2013-09-09) (LA Shorts Fest) May 18, 2015 (2015-05-18) (Online)
Wirt and Gregory grow tired of walking, so they borrow a car made of vegetables from a romantic songwriter named John Crops. They travel to a town of dancing vegetable people, unknowingly bringing crows and other dangerous animals along with them, but they manage to escape while John Crops finds a lover.
Wirt and Greg, along with a frog that Greg attempts to name, are lost in a forest and meet a talking bluebird and later a woodsman. The old Woodsman informs them that they are lost in the Unknown and warns them of "The Beast". He takes them to his oil mill for shelter, but they are followed there by a savage wolflike creature. Greg knocks out the Woodsman, and the two brothers attempt to fight off the wolf. The wolf eventually coughs up a turtle it swallowed and reverts to the form of a domestic dog, but the mill is destroyed. The Woodsman, angry at their actions but still forgiving, chastises Wirt to take responsibility for his younger brother, warns them that the Beast is still at large, and advises the brothers to seek shelter in a nearby town.
Greg rescues the bluebird, Beatrice, from a thorn bush, and she offers the brothers a favor in return. Looking for help, the trio arrive in a strange town, Pottsfield, whose residents wear costumes made of pumpkins. They disrupt Pottsfield's annual harvest festival, and the village leader, Enoch, sentences them to a few hours of manual labor assisting with the harvest. As they dig graves in a field outside the village, Wirt becomes afraid the Pottsfield residents plan to kill them and bury them there. Instead, skeletons emerge from the graves, dress themselves in pumpkins, and are warmly welcomed by the community, as Wirt realizes that all of the Pottsfield residents must be skeletons. As Wirt leaves Pottsfield, Enoch tells him "You'll join us one day." The brothers decide to follow Beatrice to Adelaide of the Pasture, a witch who she claims can help them get home.
Wirt and Beatrice come across a school full of animal students being taught by a human teacher, Miss Langtree. She mistakes them for students and tells Wirt to join the class. Meanwhile, Greg and some of his newfound animal friends are chased by a gorilla and they hide in the school. Greg cheers everyone up by adding molasses to the potatoes that they are having for dinner. The meal is interrupted by Miss Langtree's father, the school's founder, who angrily confiscates the animals' musical instruments. Greg and Wirt follow him as he laments that he will have to sell the instruments to continue funding the school. When he wakes, he finds Greg and Wirt have organized a benefit concert, which earns enough money to keep the school open. Wirt trips and falls into the gorilla, revealing that it was Miss Langtree's missing fiancé, Jimmy Brown, stuck in a circus costume.
Wirt and Greg visit a tavern to ask for directions to Adelaide's house. The people in the tavern warn the brothers about the Beast, telling them that the creature turns people into trees of oil to burn in his lantern. Based on this description, Wirt concludes that the Woodsman must be the Beast. Hearing Beatrice in distress, Wirt steals a talking horse named Fred and rides to her rescue. He finds Beatrice unconscious next to the Woodsman, and Wirt and Greg ride off with her. Meanwhile, the Beast reminds the Woodsman that the flame inside his lantern contains his daughter's soul, and that he must cut down Edelwood trees so the fire can keep her alive.
Wirt and Greg claim to be the nephews of the wealthy and eccentric Quincy Endicott so they can steal two cents from him to pay for the ferry to Adelaide's house. Quincy tells them he has fallen in love with a ghost he saw one night, but fears he is going mad and imagined the ghost. While Wirt and Beatrice search for pennies, Quincy takes Greg and Fred to search for the ghost. Beatrice reveals to Wirt she was once human, but she and her family were cursed by a bluebird and Adelaide is the only one who can change them back. Wirt reveals he has a crush on a girl back home named Sara. The groups reunite and discover that the ghost was in fact Quincy's neighbor and business competitor, whose mansion is connected with his. The two embrace each other and award Greg a penny each for his help; however, Greg discards the two cents in Quincy's fountain, claiming he has "no cents at all".
Wirt, Greg, Beatrice, and Greg's frog sneak aboard the ferry, whose other passengers and crew are clothed frogs. They disguise themselves as a member of the ferry's band; when the band starts performing, with Wirt reluctantly playing the bassoon, Greg's frog unexpectedly starts to sing. When they arrive at their destination, Beatrice, who has been acting strangely throughout the ferry ride, tries to convince them to stay in the Unknown and not to visit Adelaide. That night, Beatrice flies away to Adelaide's house, with Wirt and Greg following her in secret. The brothers learn that Beatrice originally planned to give them both to Adelaide as slaves in exchange for a pair of scissors that would lift the curse off herself and her family. Adelaide attempts to capture Wirt and Greg, but is killed by Beatrice. Beatrice attempts to explain that she had a change of heart as she grew attached to the brothers, but Wirt is hurt by her betrayal and runs away with Greg.
Greg, Wirt, and Greg's frog encounter the Woodsman, who warns them that the Beast is ready to claim them. They come across a lonely cottage in which they meet a girl named Lorna, who hides them from her caregiver Auntie Whispers (Adelaide's sister). Auntie Whispers uses a magic bell to control Lorna and makes her work constantly lest she "become wicked"; she also darkly warns that unwelcome visitors to her cottage will be devoured. The brothers help Lorna to escape by helping her finish her housework early. Just before they leave, Greg and his frog accidentally awaken Auntie Whispers, who warns them to stay away from Lorna or they will be eaten. Lorna transforms into a horrific demon. Greg shakes his frog, who has eaten Auntie Whispers' bell, and Wirt commands the demon to leave Lorna's body and never return. Lorna decides to stay with Auntie Whispers. After leaving Lorna and Auntie Whispers, Wirt begins to lose hope of ever leaving the Unknown, which pleases the Beast who is watching from afar.
The brothers and Greg's frog sail down a lake, where they hear the Beast's singing, and Greg remains hopeful while Wirt has given up. They reach land and sleep under a tree for the night. Greg has a dream of an angelic cloud city, where he is welcomed by its residents. The festivities are cut short when the North Wind is released and starts destroying the city, but Greg manages to defeat it. The Queen of the Clouds appears to Greg, allowing him one wish as a reward. He wishes to find his way home, but the Queen informs that Wirt, who by now is covered in Edelwood branches, has already been claimed by the Beast and cannot return with him. Greg instead wishes to take Wirt's place, and leaves with the Beast. Wirt awakens and chases after them, but falls through the ice and nearly drowns before being saved by a fishing net.
Before the events of the first episode, on Halloween, Wirt has just finished making an audiocassette for his crush, Sara. Greg gives the tape to Sara's friends, who tell Wirt that another boy, Jason Funderberker, intends to ask her out at a party that night. Trying to get the tape back, Wirt follows Sara to the party and then to a ghost-story gathering at the graveyard, oblivious to the fact that Sara is delighted to see him and has no interest in Jason. A police officer jokingly scolds them for being in the graveyard, and Wirt and Greg run off, scaling a wall at the edge of the graveyard. At the top, Wirt notices Sara finding the tape, and he panics. They jump off the wall and land on train tracks on the other side. As Greg finds a frog in the bushes, a train comes down the tracks. Wirt and Greg jump out of the way and fall into a lake, knocking them both unconscious.
Wirt wakes up after the events of the previous episode, and finds himself with Beatrice's family. He thanks them and heads off into a snowstorm to look for his brother.
Beatrice finds Greg performing meaningless tasks for the Beast. She is blown away by the wind and crashes into Wirt. The Woodsman finds Greg transforming into an Edelwood tree; the Beast attempts to persuade him to use Greg as fuel for his lantern. When Wirt and Beatrice arrive, they try to break the Edelwood branches off Greg; Wirt names Greg's frog "Jason Funderburker". The Beast offers to keep Greg's soul alive inside the lantern if Wirt takes over the duty of keeping it lit. Wirt is tempted to accept this offer, but realizes that the lantern actually contains the Beast's own soul. He frees Greg and gives Beatrice Adelaide's scissors. They head off as the Woodsman resists the Beast's lies and extinguishes the lantern, ending the Beast's life.
Wirt wakes up in the pond and pulls Greg and his frog to the surface. The brothers are taken to the hospital. Wirt wakes up surrounded by Greg, Sara, and her friends, and invites Sara to listen to the tape at his house. The frog's stomach glows with Lorna's bell still inside.
Back in the Unknown, the Woodsman finds his daughter alive; and Beatrice and her family have been restored to human form.
At the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, a preview of the show was screened along with various panels for other shows on the network.[30] Episode 2 was previewed at the 2014 New York Comic Con, which McHale and the main cast attended.[31] The show made its premiere on November 3, 2014, on Cartoon Network, and ran over five consecutive nights.[32] The entirety of it was published on iTunes preceding its broadcast.[33]
The series aired on Cartoon Network in Australia from December 15 to 19, 2014[34] and on Cartoon Network in the United Kingdom and Ireland from April 6 to 10, 2015.[35]
Various melodies and songs based on pre-1950s music are heard throughout the series.[36]Elijah Wood, the voice actor for Wirt, has said that "if this show were a record, it would be played on a phonograph".[37] Songs from the series include "Into the Unknown", its title song, composed by Patrick McHale and sung by Jack Jones; "A Courting Song", composed by the Petrojvic Blasting Company and performed by Frank Fairfield; and "Come Wayward Souls", sung by Samuel Ramey as the Beast.[37]
The majority of the series' songs have been officially uploaded to YouTube. The 32-track album was released in the form of a 180-gram vinyl record by Mondo at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2016.[38][39][40] During September 2015, an audio cassette tape titled "For Sara", based on the cassette tape labelled with the same name seen in the series, was released by Mondo, featuring poetry from Wirt (Wood) and songs featured in the tape produced by The Blasting Company.[41][42][43]
Home media
Over the Garden Wall (with the short film Tome of the Unknown) was released on DVD in Australia by Madman Entertainment on July 8, 2015,[44] and by Warner Home Video in the United States on September 8, 2015.[45] The DVD features all ten episodes of the show, commentaries, the original pilot, alternate title cards, and deleted animatics. Other extras on the DVD include a "Composer's Cut," an option wherein a viewer can watch the show with only the visuals and the background music; and the mini-documentary Behind Over the Garden Wall.[46]
On April 6, 2016, Madman Entertainment released the miniseries on Blu-ray in Australia and New Zealand with the same bonus content as the DVD release.[47] On March 2, 2020, Manga Entertainment released it in the UK on Blu-ray and DVD.[48]
Reception
Critical reception
Over the Garden Wall was critically acclaimed. On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the series has an approval rating of 94% based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Over the Garden Wall's modern sensibilities mix well with its fairy-tale setting, creating a whimsically witty series for viewers of all ages."[49]
Preceding its premiere, Patrick Kevin Day of the Los Angeles Times called it "funny, creepy" and, from the premise, "not as simple as it sounds".[10] In TV Guide and also before the premiere, Megan Walsh-Boyle felt that the show's fictional universe "sounds like a world worth getting lost in".[15]: 24 Meredith Woerner of io9 called a preview of the show "amazing", "weird, and cute and great", reflecting "all the things we love about this oddball animation renaissance we are currently living in".[50] Conversely, Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew judged from the same preview that the animation was lacking. While not discounting its storytelling, music, and production design, he felt that production skimped on animation; he was still looking forward to the series.[51]
Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it was "a little too folksy and fairy story" at times, but that its "contemporary strangeness wins out", and concluded that "it is throughout something to behold".[52] Lloyd later wrote that it evoked "a kind of artisanal quality", both in its design and setting, and though the writing felt "a little too intent on its own folksiness", it became more enjoyable throughout.[53] In The New York Times, Mike Hale also felt the writing was sometimes weak and the stories "perilously thin", but concluded that McHale developed an environment worth visiting.[54]
Brian Moylan of The Guardian wrote that the visuals were "absolutely stunning", and that the stories contained "a certain darkness to it that is both mellow and twee at the same time, with a fair amount of anxiety creeping around the edges".[55] Brian Lowry of Variety wrote that Garden Wall was "an admirable experiment", but not one to sustain "the five-night commitment", calling it "slightly mismatched" while praising a departure from "the more abrasive characteristic" of the network's primetime content.[56] Kevin McDonough of the Illinois Daily Journal criticized some of the writing, but summed it up as "an ambitious cartoon" for both younger and older audiences.[57] Jason Bree of the website Agents of Geek called the miniseries "the greatest thing Cartoon Network has ever produced".[58] Kevin Johnson of The A.V. Club praised the series, giving it a grade of "A" and writing that "with such a perfect blend of mood, atmosphere, story, and characterization, Over the Garden Wall's 10-episode run will leave you wanting more, but like every great fairy tale, it's a story that knows when it's over."[59]
Awards and nominations
Awards and nominations received by Over the Garden Wall
A one-shot comic book adaptation of the show was announced in October 2014. Produced by KaBoom!, an imprint of Boom! Studios, the comic was released on November 5, 2014. The comic was supervised by McHale and was produced as an oversized special. The comic was illustrated by Jim Campbell, a writer/storyboard artist on the television series. A special variant cover, by McHale, was also released.[66] The success of the standalone comic led to further issues being commissioned in May 2015 and began to be released in August 2015. According to McHale, the comic books would be similar to the one-shot comic, detailing the events that occurred in between certain episodes and would expand on the television miniseries.[67] The success of the series of one-shots led to an ongoing series of comics, serving as both a sequel and prequel to the series, rather than telling adventures that happened between episodes. The stories are told parallel, with half the comic detailing Greg returning to mysterious dreamlands in his sleep. The other half chronicles the Woodsman's daughter, Anna, and how she became lost in the Unknown.[68] After the ongoing series ended in November 2017, the Over the Garden Wall comics continued as a series of miniseries and original graphic novels.[69][70][71][72]
^Hersh, Farrah (September 3, 2014). "Over the Garden Wall – About". Cartoon Network. Turner Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on October 18, 2014. Retrieved October 11, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)(password-protected)
^Hersh, Farrah (September 3, 2014). "Over the Garden Wall – Characters". Cartoon Network. Turner Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on October 18, 2014. Retrieved October 11, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)(password-protected)
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