Watch This: Over The Garden Wall 10th Anniversary Short
Once upon a time, two brothers named Greg and Wirt went on an adventure into a place named The Unknown. In another reminder of the relentless onward march of time, Over The Garden Wall recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. And to mark the occasion, Cartoon Network teamed up with the stop-motion geniuses at Aardman to produce a new stop-motion short.
Over The Garden Wall was originally created by Patrick McHale, based on his original short Tome Of The Unknown. The 10-episode mini-series was originally aired between November 3 and November 7 2014. Despite the fact the series was aired just after Halloween, the series has become something of a spooky season staple for many fans. Its reputation has only grown in the years since it aired, and is now considered something of a seasonal classic.
In the original series, Wirt and Greg become lost in the woods known as the Unknown. They try to find their way home, encountering many mysterious and often menacing characters along the way.
The stop-motion short takes us back to the Unknown, and recreates some of the most memorable moments from the mini-series in beautiful stop-motion animation. It also brings back original voice actors Elijah Wood, Colin Dean and Melanie Lynskey.
The short is directed by Dan Ojari and Mikey Please, the duo behind Aardman's Robin's Robin holiday special. It's written by Ojari and Please alongside Patrick McHale. It was produced by Alan Thorpe and executive-produced by Helen Argo, Sarah Cox, and Patrick McHale. The Blasting Company returned to score the short.
The animation is produced almost entirely in stop-motion, with the only digital element being the facial animation. Digital is also used to remove unnecessary elements. The cast are hand-carved puppets that stand to a height of several inches. The sets (which include a scale model of The Unknown) took around two months to build, and are super-detailed recreations of locations from the series.
It all results in what feels very much like a natural fit. "In some ways, it seems like Over the Garden Wall probably should have been realized in stop-motion all along" McHale told Inverse. "It just feels kind of right for that world." We couldn't agree more.
Check out the short, below.
