It’s hard to believe a decade has passed since Patrick McHale’s animated essence of Fall, Over the Garden Wall, first graced television screens. Based on McHale’s short film Tome of the Unknown, produced as part of Cartoon Network’s internal animated shorts development program, the 10-episode event series premiered on November 3, 2014, following brothers Wirt and Greg on a peril-filled dark fantasy trek through a mysterious land, trying to find their way home.
Marking this milestone, Cartoon Network has released a stop-motion short film from the masterful artists of Aardman in the U.K. The piece was directed by Robin Robin duo Mikey Please and Dan Ojari, who wrote the story with McHale. Series stars Elijah Wood (Wirt), Collin Dean (Greg), Melanie Lynskey (Beatrice) and Frank Fairfield (The Toy Maker/Narrator) reprise their roles for the short, with their characters reimagined as puppets crafted by Joshua & Nathan Flynn (Sculpt-Double) and Laura Tofarides, who share credits on Robin Robin, Isle of Dogs, Kiri and Lou and Love, Death + Robots, and Rachel Brown.
Welcome back to the Unknown. Walk through the familiar yet mysterious mist. Feel the gentle wind beckoning through the leaves. Listen closely to the birdsongs and whispered secrets. And join Wirt, Greg and Beatrice in their quest to answer life’s biggest question…are we all lost? It’s Over the Garden Wall’s 10th Anniversary, we’re so happy you’re here.
Patrick McHale with a special Over The Garden Wall anniversary message 🍂🐸#cartoonnetwork #overthegardenwall10thanniversary #overthegardenwall @Patrick_McHale @aardman pic.twitter.com/MB2lA2x21W
— Cartoon Network (@cartoonnetwork) November 2, 2024
The short is available to watch across Cartoon Network’s socials, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. You can watch it below!
The original series won the 2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program, as well as an Individual Achievement in Animation recognition for production designer Nick Cross. Over the Garden Wall also received two Annie Award nominations for TV series and directing a TV series, and the People’s Choice Behind the Voice Actors Award for ensemble in a new series, as well as nominations for the juried ensemble award and individual nods for Wood, Lynskey, Christopher Lloyd (The Woodsman) and Tim Curry (Auntie Whispers).
McHale, a CalArts Character Animation graduate, created several shorts during the program and after graduation, while making a professional name working as a writer and storyboard artist for CN’s The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Adventure Time (for which he was also creative director for Season 1-2), and later provided voice over for a few episodes of Gravity Falls, as Hectorgon. More recently, McHale co-wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-winning stop-motion feature Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix) and wrote lyrics for several of the film’s songs. He also penned songs for last year’s Adventure Time spinoff, Fionna and Cake.
