Lessons from “Over the Garden Wall”

Last autumn, my friends hosted a kind of movie night featuring a favorite show of theirs. It had become an annual tradition for them around this time of year, as the show perfectly fits the fall atmosphere: the animated Cartoon Network show “Over the Garden Wall” released in 2014.

The show follows two brothers, the older named Wirt and the younger Greg, as they attempt to leave the woods of a land called the Unknown, where they encounter a number of strange characters and avoid the evil Beast. The whole setting of the Unknown is rooted in a chronologically vague but solidly American, and especially New England, setting. Grist mills and red schoolhouses are the stages for characters dressed in top hats, backed by American folk and brass band music giving a distinctly Americana feel.

From now on I will be delving into spoilers so continue reading at your own risk. One of the overarching themes of the show is death. The title cards themselves are styled like colonial headstones one would see in Plymouth above the graves of pilgrims and the song “Old Black Train” (which is played in a flashback scene as the boys fall into the Unknown) is entirely a lyrical euphemism for death as a train taking people away.

The viewer will notice at the end of the show that the entire series and the Unknown itself could be interpreted as the brothers’ near-death experience as they are both freezing in a pond after falling down a hill in the cemetery one Halloween night. In fact, it was a train just like the one mentioned in the song that forced them to make for the hill.

However, the death that follows them is not really malicious. One would think that the Beast, the fabled monster following them through the woods, is death personified. Yet it is an acceptance of death that scares the Beast himself away at the end. The Beast feeds off of death and, even more so, the fear of death. The red herring villain, the Woodsman, ends up being merely a slave to the Beast who has fallen to this fear. The Beast gave him a false hope that by keeping a lantern lit and serving the Beast, he could keep his daughter alive. When it appears to Wirt that Greg is going to die and he is given the opportunity to be like the Woodsman in order to keep him alive, he turns him down and realizes it is the Beast who is the desperate one. The moment the Woodsman realizes this empty promise and accepts the death of his daughter is the moment he finds her alive.

The whole tale ebbs and flows between near-storybook naivete and the dark terror of a Brothers Grimm book, all held together by an incredible plot and a star-studded cast with names including Elijah Wood, Christopher Lloyd, John Cleese, and Tim Curry. The show itself is concise and the total watchtime is comparable to a movie.

I highly recommend watching “Over the Garden Wall” this fall, because if there’s any show to get you into the autumnal (especially Halloween) mood, it is this one.