200th POST EVER!!: I Love Over The Garden Wall (my thoughts on the series)

Hey, everyone. You know...
I've never been more excited for a series with less than 20 episodes total in my life than I have with Over The Garden Wall.

Over The Garden Wall is a mini-series (the first for Cartoon Network) created by Patrick McHale, about a young man named Wirt and his little brother Greg going on an adventure like never before. Wirt is a shy teenager with a lov of self-indulgent poetry and clarinet, and Greg is a happy-go-lucky kid with a wonderful dispostition and can-do attitude. The two end up lost; Wirt freaks out, and Greg is busy wondering of a name for the pet frog he kept. And in this story is a completely different world beyond imagination. There, they face questionable tactics, evil figures and--that makes their brotherly bond, and Wirt's new-found confidence, aalong with undying love for Greg grow stronger.

Since New York Comic-Com, my interest in this increased. From the video clips and pictures I've seen, and from the music I've heard, this series is just a wonderful mash of beautiful animation, amazing voice acting and just plain wonderful music. I've read many comments, tweets and Facebook posts I've read, I've read nothing but amazing praise about Over The Garden Wall, praise I've never seen for a series before. And all because of that, I thought that this series was certain (despite being only 10 11-minute episodes long) to be one of Cartoon Network's best series in its history. You would bet your butt it'll this great...and it was. And then some.

Everything about it screamed brilliant. The writing, the producing, the animation, the voice casting and the way it was all put together. We all thought there would be a start, middle and end. Nope, there was a middle, start, shocker, and end. And this placement made everything more amazing. Oh, the start of the chapter where we saw many people and things and sights and sounds, like the pretty girl and cute dog, the dolls and trinkets, the guy looking at a picture and quivers when he sees a shadow, and a fish fishing for fish? Freakin' genius! All of these things shown would later be part of a reveal in a later chapter. (SPOILER ALERT)
--The pretty girl is Beatrice, and the dog is hers.
--The trinkets are people who work at or frequent a local tavern in Chapter 4.
--The man, the painting and the shadow are (in order) tea company owner Quincy Endicott, a woman he once loved, and Margurite Grey, a competitor he now loves in Chapter 5.
--The fish-fishing fish saves Wirt from drowning in Chapter 8.

The animation is also brilliant. It's like Adventure Time and Gravity Falls mixed together to make beautiful landscapes of color, tint, detail, and shine. I almost always stop and look at the backgrounds and appreciate how stupendous they look. If an animator could have a brain orgasm, this would be a show to get one from. Well, along with AT and GF (also great series with great animation). The animators took to great lengths and spent painstaking hours to create a beautiful new world no one will ever forget, and it paid off big time.

Also, the work the actors who voice the characters did a really great job. Elijah Wood does an awesome job as Wirt, making him sound believable as an angst-addled teenager with not much direction in life. Colin dean does an equally-awesome job as Gregory, making him sound really believable as cheerful child that never stops being cheerful and happy, never stops jumping in to help out a person in need (and succeeds) and never stops being funny (and he really succeeds at that). Melanie Lynskey also wowed me as Beatrice, a bird filled with guilt, regret and pain masked by sarcasm, wit and amazing spirit (well, at first, mostly to Greg, and not to Wirt at all), and Christoper Lloyd just amazing as The Woodsman. His voice, mannerisms, haminess and overall talent just make Woodsman captivating. Like I said before, he's Doc Brown or The Hacker, but he is his own character, and that's what makes him great.

And it's not just the main four actors that put in work in this series. The is also the supporting cast that also do really good work. Including singer Chris Issak as Enoch, John Cleese as Quincy Endicott and Adelaide, Bebe Neuwirth as Marguerrite Grey, Tim Curry as Auntie Whistles, Shirley Jones as Beatrice's mother and opera singer Samuel Samey as The Beast, among others. The producers went outside to box to cast voice actors we either don't know of or haven't heard of in a while, and dammit, it worked so well.

And I just wanna talk about the music. Oh right, I already have. It's all in my special edition of Long/Short Music Review: The Music of Over the Garden Wall. It's a good read that even the people that make the music, The Blasting Company, loved it.

(Okay, corny, shameless self-promoting over)

This series is just beautiful. Everyone who lent their talents into this series should get a pat on the back, take a bow, get a hug and other things that express gratitude and praise. And it's all deserved. This is a series you should watch and watch again, with family, friends, people you don't know, or just yourself. Any awards it gets nominated for, it deserves. Everything about it is just awesome.
I Love Over the Garden Wall, and you should to.