Over The Garden Wall mini-series
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary. – Edgar Allan Poe
We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us. – Andrew Ryan
Every so often, I come across a show that, above all else, makes me feel a pining for childhood again. Gravity Falls and Adventure Time are the two biggest I can point to when it comes to nuance-laced nostalgia. The feelings of childhood are all there, but none of the “talking down to”. It’s the difference between having a box of Mott’s and pressing apples for juice. The taste is close to the untrained, and pressing seems unnecessary, but the hilarious tales talked over, the feelings of inevitable boredom, and the hugs after screw-ups make the mix a sour and encouraging invigorator.
Anecdotes aside, in the spirit of autumn’s fall and winter’s eve, let’s discuss the mini-series from Cartoon Network that made everyone take notice. Over the Garden Wall is not a difficult show to follow, nor is it a sweeping tapestry of an ordeal with only eleven episodes to its name. However, the clues are there in the form of handprints from the past.
This has Disney, Disney, and Disney written all over it. It’s not just any Disney, either. This is the Fantasia/Bambi/Legend of Sleepy Hollow era. You may also call it the “just look at how good this looks” era.
Indeed, this is a very pretty picture, with classic frames and title cards done in an umber and black contrast to boot. The way leaves blow in the rural wind, the grotesques drawn into woodland trees, and the late 19th century American picturesque landscape are some of the best animation I have seen this year, and I will comes to blows with anyone saying otherwise. Preferably on a scant field with dueling pistols.
Not only is Disney present, but touches of the old and new masters dot the path as well. Poe’s macabre, Bradbury’s haunting, and Machen’s ängstlichkeit echo from beyond the grave. Winsor McCay and L. Frank Baum also get a chance to speak their minds, particularly in Episode 8 “Babes in the Woods”. Meanwhile, creator Patrick McHale took inspiration from his work on Adventure Time (fans will know him best for his episode “Ocean of Fear”) and mixed it with a Fleischer Studios broth, with little drops of Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away flavor, to mellow out the tones. It’s a hodgepodge of inspiration and everyone’s invited.
But, I digress. The picture may be purdy, but a picture says a thousand words. What’s this honest to goodness have to say?
Our story proper is the adventure of Wirt and Gregory, two brothers along the path of rural society. They’re trying to return home but find they have no direction. Upon seeking rest in an old gristmill, they meet the owner, an elderly woodsman, who says a beast roams the woods, and they must keep an eye out for it lest they be another meal. However, a trail of candy that Gregory left as they would not get lost has been followed by a canine monster. The ensuing attack destroys the mill and frees a basset hound from the corruption that was the true beast. Wirt blames the attack on Gregory, but the woodsman points towards Wert, saying as the older brother, he is responsible for the actions of both. Realizing the old man is right, the elder sibling must take on the position that fate has gifted him. On the path again and soon accompanied by a bluebird named Beatrice and a frog with multiple names, they seek anyone to point them home, at the risk of succumbing to the woods. All the while, the beast preys on the woodsman and the boys.
What this show does best with its stories is that each eleven-minute episode is isolated in a sense, yet part of a larger tale. Much like the short films of the fifties, they introduce colorful characters and surprising scenarios to tell story. From the song-happy tavern where every patron has a role in the village to a steamboat filled with highborn frogs to a town where pumpkin people and massive turkeys live in harmony, each set piece is fantastic in its own right and could very well hold my attention for a full thirty minutes. However, the eleven-minute runtime for each episode plays an advantage. The story is careful tightened and tuned to have the maximum impact without sacrificing integrity or suspense. By the time you finish, your little marathoning heart might not be able to take it.
This, unfortunately, hampers our main characters, who I only could describe has hapless. With the minor characters driving the story, our heroes play the common and wholly uncomfortable role of stranger in a strange land. Appearances aren’t what they seem, however, as this show best demonstrates.
Wirt, voiced by a well-cast Elijah Wood, is a hapless everyman who lets fate and order guide him rather than intuition. I’ve seen this before in Ichabod Crane of Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, except Crane was a scoundrel with ulterior motives and a lackadaisical personality. Even more of a recent influence is Dipper Pines of Gravity Falls, with his cunning and determination to solve the mysteries that surround his life. Wert has none of that, and he suffers for it by replacing it with Shinji Ikari syndrome, or “being a stick in the mud while trying to sound deep”. What I cannot fault the writer’s on is the justification for the nature, which comes wandering in at the end of the show like a sad and wet kitten. This ultimately makes his sympathetic rather than just pathetic. Wert may not be a great character, but his affliction and struggle are what define him, and it is well done.
Gregory is the hapless tyke full of happiness who wants everyone to know it. Luckily, Cartoon Network knows when to snag child actors who can actually act. His nature is a smile on his face and a song in his heart, and it does make for lovely songs (potatoes and molasses, anyone?). The problem arises when the story dictates that his faults advance the plot. Having him leave a trail of candy that lures the monster or tossing earned money away for no good reason is not how you build a solid character, and it doesn’t make him any more likable because he’s not simple. He commits his faults, despite everything that should tell him otherwise. His good-hearted nature shines bright in the last three episodes when it seems hope is lost, and the clamoring past catches up. It’s just enough to make me tolerate a character that otherwise may have been unsalvageable.
Then there’s Beatrice the bluebird. Her story is complicated, and does have a twinge of hackney to it. She’s the hapless straight man to the antics of the brothers and is often given humor associated with stress. Her character is important, as she is one of the main elements dictating the plot to the brothers. I can’t shake the feeling, though, that she is just a series of tropes given sentience. Her backstory has been done to death, and I don’t think I need a new iteration. Her character is solid, but I’ve seen it before.
If you thought our main characters would be nothing more than average, consider yourself shocked, as our last main is very well executed. The elder woodsman, played by the outstanding Christopher Lloyd, is everything I like about shadowy men in the woods to the nth degree. A tragic backstory that gives context to isolation, being in the right about events he witnesses, a constant reminder of imminent doom over his shoulder. He stands as our moral guide and the one who reveals information throughout the story to the audience, but not in a desperate or forced way. His conclusion is terrifying, as the grotesque face of Machen I mentioned earlier rears up to meet him. Yet it is warm and tender all the same. Everything I could have asked for is there, and I love it all the more.
The music is Cartoon Network quality, which seems to mean quite a lot these days. The age of composer Rebecca Sugar of Adventure Time and Steven Universe fame brought a new vision, and with it came enjoyable showtunes with a earworm quality. In Over the Garden Wall, the Dixieland riverboat inspired soundtrack of banjo chords and bassoon harmonies, paid courtesy by Tim Borquez and The Blasting Company, is a far departure from Sugar’s ukulele heavy ramblings. Yet, considering that everyone these days is using the ukulele in some form of renaissance, this style is welcome. I don’t need the southern twang every day of the year but it’s good to know that it is there. Overall, I would demand an encore from the lovely composer.
What I take from Over the Garden Wall, holding it in my trembling hands, is a great sense that the stylistic tone of haunted America needs to make a full-fledged comeback. The colorful modernity of curves and the bright retroactive 1980s-90s nostalgia bombs have been good to my generation. Yet, sometimes a winding road on a crisp shoulder season day is all that is required. Some would argue this story could have been longer, but in the process charm would have been sacrificed. Eventually, the pieces do fit together and the last two episodes will floor you in the reveal, placing the series high in the echelon of quality that comes from Cartoon Network, a worthy rival to anything currently airing.
In the end, this is a journey you should take. The road will be dangerous and the welcoming embrace of surrendering finality will be ever present. However, the conclusion will leave a pang of melancholic beauty on your mind, and long after it leaves, it will return again and again as an old friend. It will keep you company and reveal so much. And that’s a rock fact.
