“And where shall we end? If dreams can’t come true, then why not pretend?”
Didn’t your friend Beth slide you a copy when Mrs. You immediately question whether you read the book in elementary school. The lyrics are familiar and sound as if you heard them on your grandmother’s kitchen radio.
A tune billows into song, the theme written by McHale and performed by Jack Jones.
#OVER THE GARDEN WALL EXPLAINED SERIES#
The series opens on a frog playing a piano swirling in empty blackness. Yet, it still manages to stand apart as something wholly original. If Steven Universe, Regular Show, or Gravity Falls are your jam, Over the Garden Wall slots perfectly into place. The cartoon appears paradoxically rooted in the past while emanating an utterly modern glee for absurdist fantasy. He takes orders from the great shadow of this saga, The Beast, a nightmare entity who whispers soothing thoughts and makes large promises.Ĭreated in 2014 by Adventure Time alum Patrick McHale, the ten-part Cartoon Network miniseries draws inspiration from Don Quixote, vintage Halloween cards, the bouncy linework of 1930s animated cartoons, the illustrations of John Tenniel, a 19th-century board game called Game of Frog Pond, and god-knows-what-else old-timey shinanigans. There is also the Woodsman ( Christopher Lloyd), who must keep the flame lit inside his lantern or his daughter’s soul will perish. We meet pumpkin people, fancy-dressed frogs, talking horses, and a circus performer imprisoned within a gorilla costume. Want something? Do something.Īs they traverse the woods, Wirt and Greg continue to encounter impossible creatures and characters. In return, Wirt is a mystery to Greg, who only wants his brother to be happy and cannot fathom the indecision that plagues the teen. Greg’s inability to contemplate doom even when seemingly staring into his assured destruction grates on Wirt’s carefully constructed neves. Together, with a little help from a talking bluebird, “The Unkown” bramble need not be their tomb. Alone, neither would survive the peculiar and unfamiliar forest they’ve bumbled into. His younger half-brother Greg (voiced by Collin Dean) worries little, considers even less, and bounds down any path that reveals itself. Wirt (voiced by Elijah Wood) is a quivering teen who obsessively considers every decision and the negative inevitabilities of every outcome. Over the Garden Wall presents two very different types of children. The kids who kicked off their sheets and braved the immense chasm between bed and closet and flung open the door, exposing the dark to the light, develop into champions of change. The kids who stayed under the covers mature into sheepish followers of the status quo. To do nothing is to remain safe from harm, both physical and psychological.Īs we age, we pretend we’ve conquered fear, supplanting ideology atop the emotion to mask the jangling, shivering bones beneath our skin. And the impossible knowledge of the future stunts most from acting on their aspirations. The world is a swirling sandstorm of what-ifs. There are monsters in the closet, under the bed, in the shadows, and in the hearts of others. Grappling with fear is an essential component of existence and an all-encompassing battle as a child.
In this entry, we wander into the woods and foolishly resist the dread uncovered Over the Garden Wall. Our lives may no longer be scheduled around small screen programming, but that doesn’t mean we should forget the necessary sanctuary of Saturday ‘toons. Welcome to Saturday Morning Cartoons, our weekly column where we continue the animated boob tube ritual of yesteryear.
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