For many fans, rewatching Over The Garden Wall is now an annual fall tradition. Premiering on Cartoon Network in 2014, this dark fantasy miniseries is spooky yet cozily autumnal, with a hint of macabre humor. Perfect for the days leading up to Halloween.
The one thing standing in the way of people's annual rewatch habit is Over the Garden Wall’s uncertain availability. Right now you can stream it on Hulu, but a few years ago it was one of several animated shows that were abruptly (and controversially) removed from HBO Max as a cost-cutting measure. Fortunately, the series is now getting a very belated Blu-ray release in the US.
How Was Over The Garden Wall Received Upon Release?
Bridging the gap between children's and adult entertainment, Over the Garden Wall is the kind of project that gives kids permission to be sad and morbid and weird. In the process, it attracted a cult fanbase among older viewers — and earned critical acclaim. Reviews at the time praised the show's music and spooky New England setting, leading into two Emmy wins including for Outstanding Animated Program.
Over the Garden Wall’s enduring popularity is easy enough to understand. Created by Patrick McHale — an animator who previously worked on Adventure Time, and went on to co-write Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio — the series boasts a star-studded voice cast and charming original songs, following a dark yet whimsical folk-horror vibe. Appearing out of nowhere from a then-unknown showrunner, it’s a miraculous little treasure chest of a show. But it was always a little too eccentric to be a mainstream smash hit.
Elijah Wood voices the lead character Wirt, a neurotic boy who gets lost in the woods with his cheerful little brother Greg (Collin Dean). As they try to find their way out, they encounter a sequence of strange and disturbing characters including talking animals, undead skeletons, and a witchy aunt (Tim Curry) who controls her demonically possessed niece using a magic bell.
Why is Over The Garden Wall important to see now?
As any Over the Garden Wall fan will tell you, the show's appeal lies in its originality and attention to detail, reflecting an incredibly diverse array of creative influences stretching back to the 19th century.
In terms of character design, it obviously shares a lot of DNA with cartoons like Adventure Time, Steven Universe and Gravity Falls, whose creators all studied animation at CalArts around the same time as Patrick McHale. It belongs to a wave of animated projects that revolutionised children's programming in the 2010s, but McHale's work also harks back to a much earlier era of filmmaking. One of his formative influences is a short film called The Flying House (1921) by Little Nemo cartoonist Winsor McCay, who worked at a time when animation was still a new and experimental medium. McHale saw this film at a young age, and it's one of many esoteric reference points that fed into Over the Garden Wall's old-timey aesthetic, joining influences like animator Yuri Norstein, gothic children’s illustrator Edward Gorey, and Nosferatu director F.W. Murnau. These influences easily span a full century of film history, from nods toward the dancing ghosts and skeletons of the classic 1920s Betty Boop cartoon “Minnie the Moocher,” to the way Tim Curry’s character Auntie Whispers resembles the old women in Studio Ghibli movies.
McHale shares a writing credit on several of the songs, collaborating with The Blasting Company, a folk band who tapped into the show's vintage Americana atmosphere with instruments like the banjo and honky-tonk piano. Drawing from early 20th century blues and folk, Over the Garden Wall's songs feel like Tom Waits for middle-schoolers. They're also ferociously catchy. More than a decade after watching for the first time, I still have Greg's “Potatoes and Molasses” song stuck in my head, from a scene that encapsulates the show's creepy charm and deep-cut inspirations:
In this episode, Greg and Wirt (and their bird friend Beatrice) stumble upon a school whose students are all animals in human clothing. Unlike the more stylized character design elsewhere in the show, these animals look relatively realistic, echoing illustrations from turn-of-the-century children's books and holiday postcards. While Greg feeds everyone a meal of potatoes and molasses, the animals play instruments to accompany his song. Like many moments in the show, there's an eerie undercurrent to an otherwise cutesy scene, even though this particular episode doesn't lean into outright horror.
What new features does the Over the Garden Wall Blu-ray have?
Alongside the original miniseries, the new Blu-ray includes some cool special features, offering audio commentary tracks and a featurette titled “Behind the Garden Wall.” It also includes composer's cuts of the music, alternate title cards, deleted animation from the show's production process, and a copy of “Tome of the Unknown,” the original series pilot by Patrick McHale.
