Over the Garden Wall: A Review

Cartoon Network is experiencing something of a renaissance lately. After a string of awful ventures made the cable channel look nearly dead not too long ago, they bounced back with startlingly original programming like Adventure Time, Regular Show, and Steven Universe which earned both commercial success and critical acclaim. This Cartoon Network, one more open to experimentation, seems a more conducive environment for the channel to premiere its first miniseries, a whimsical 10-part adventure called Over the Garden Wall.

Our story follows two brothers, older neurotic Wirt (Elijah Wood) and younger cheerful Greg, who have found themselves lost in a strange forest called The Unknown. The woods are dark and deep, and the two have no idea what direction will lead home, but thankfully they rescue a talking bluebird named Beatrice who agrees to take the brothers to someone that could help in exchange for saving her life. The journey will be a long one though, with many weird and wonderful encounters along the way, and the mysterious Beast who leads lost souls astray could be following Wirt & Greg at any moment. Will the two find their way home, or will the Beast finally catch up with them?


Let's get the obvious out of the way first, the animation in Over the Garden Wall is gorgeous. The simplistic character design becomes an asset, allowing the characters a fluidity of movement and wide range of expression that a more detailed production wouldn't have been able to pull of. Because of that, character emotion comes to the forefront and helps the stakes of the action connect with the audience better. But that's not to say it's all very sparsely drawn, on the contrary. The animators just save the lushness for the backgrounds and atmosphere, which are at different turns dark & grey to emphasize the looming dread of the Beast or amber light when the story becomes more whimsical and heartfelt. That ability to be both frightening and fantastical really gives The Unknown its fairy tale quality, I'd say it feels realistic but that's not accurate. It gives the setting a verisimilitude, it's obviously not the real world but it feels complete within itself. If that makes sense.

Greg (left) & Wirt (Right)

That unified aesthetic is a boon to the tone of the miniseries, letting even the most fanciful flights of the narrative stay connected to the main theme, with everything from the clothed animals and odd dress of the Unknown's denizens invoking turn of the century Americana. The miniseries has a look very much rooted in the past, which is why when, for instance, in Part 8 the story gives over to a dream of Greg's that has callbacks to early silent cartoons and Little Nemo in Slumberland it doesn't come across as out of place with everything else that's been presented. This vintage aesthetic is what gives the piece its Nostalgic tone, calling back to no specific point of time in the past but to a general milieu of Pre-WW1 America.

The other great element of that tone, and one of the miniseries' strengths overall, is the music. It's just as rooted in the past as the visuals, with elements of ragtime and classic folk that transport the listener back to that same period before Prohibition and Modernity. This was a conscious choice on creator Pat McHale's part, filling his cast with singers from backgrounds in American Opera & Folk to give his series a unique sound to make it stand out and it paid off brilliantly. It sounds like it would have been recorded on a Edison wax cylinder 100-something years. That combination of look & sound makes Over the Garden Wall one of the most authentically Autumnal pieces of media I've ever seen. Just watching it conjures up the colors of changing leaves, the slight chill of late October, and the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. I don't know if McHale is a New Englander or not, but he and his animators managed to perfectly capture the age and atmosphere of a New England Fall.

The Beast
Here's what he sounds like

Curiously, it's the choice of format that is to Garden Wall's detriment. The story works better as a whole than as pieces, where the over-arching story of Wirt & Greg trying to find their way home and Beatrice's attempt to help them has all the narrative weight it should but the individual escapades they get into along the way, while entertaining, are more hit & miss. Each of them do have elements of the greater theme, of confronting the unknown with confidence instead of fear, that elevate them above their flaws. But strangely, I can't think of another way this story could have been told. Circumstances the audience learns of later require Wirt's emotional arc, Greg is mostly a comedic foil to his brother's journey, to have some finality that an open-ended series couldn't have provided. In addition, there's a mystery angle with excellent foreshadowing to the narrative that would never have worked in that format and would have suffered from being condensed in a more streamlined stand-alone film.

Whatever the format, the story has wonderfully realized characters. Colin Dean absolutely steals the show as Greg, voicing him with a childish obliviousness that makes almost every line hilarious but also enough talent to know when to play a moment straighter. Elijah Wood brings his talent to voicing Wirt as well, even if the mix of teenage neurosis and buzzkill older brother that make up the character are a bit old hat for him. The other denizens of the Unknown are fun, with voicework by veteran character actors like Christopher Lloyd, John Cleese, and Tim Curry giving them enough dimension to rise above the archness of their narrative functions. The only character I found didn't work was Beatrice the bluebird. Not because of Melanie Lynskey's performance, but because of how the character is written. She was actually cursed into being a bluebird and her motives for helping Wirt & Greg are not exactly pure, and while that works narratively it makes her character come off as shrewish and ill-tempered with few other sides of her personality shown. She starts off annoyed and stays there throghout the piece for the most part, suffering in the same way female characters who mostly just tell the male characters not to do something dangerous often do.

But whatever its flaws, Over the Garden Wall is a success. It's aesthetic and soundtrack are unique and the story has enough heart & mystery to keep the audience engaged. I have a feeling that its folksy hipsterishness and R.L. Stine meets Garrison Keillor narrative may turn some people off, but that shouldn't stop anyone from checking it out. It fits comfortably with Cartoon Network's other recent triumphs but is its own creature, an excellently realized fairy tale adventure that you won't soon forget. Brew some hot chocolate and give it a watch before the first snow falls.