So, is that why Over the Garden Wall feels so familiar – or does it go deeper, exploring why it is that we love a good folk tale? The story and setting are immediately evocative of folktales which in turn creates one level of nostalgia, although for most people, their interactions with folklore are mediated through other animation as stories from writers such as Hans Christian Anderson fall into public domain. Searching for the way home, they meet an assortment of weird and wonderful characters, fall into impossibly absurd situations, and are unknowingly stalked by the terrible Beast that lurks in the darkness.
The series follows the journey of Greg and Wirt who find themselves lost in a place known only as the Unknown.
Cartoons like Patrick McHale’s miniseries Over the Garden Wall.Ī favourite of so many cartoon-fans, this 2014 series manages to achieve something I have seen few within the genre do: it evokes nostalgia on your very first watch. But some cartoons manage to cross these boundaries. Sometimes, it offers us a safe-space to explore our fears and to meet the monsters that were once terrifying and now, within this animated environment, fascinating. Blissfully unaware of the existential horrors waiting to scare us as the years go by, instead we watch cartoons.Īs adults, many of us turn back to cartoons.
We are too busy clutching at teddy-bears, wondering about the monsters under our beds and being scared of the dark. We spend our lives dipping into a state of fear fear of the past, fear of the future, fear of the unknown.