Because the leaves flip and the crisp autumn chill seeps into the air, one factor turns into crystal clear: It is Over the Backyard Wall season.
Created by Patrick McHale, this 2014 Cartoon Community miniseries nabbed an Emmy award for Excellent Animated Program, and for good motive. All through its 10 beautiful episodes, Over the Backyard Wall captivates you with two brothers’ odyssey by way of the surprisingly lovely (and fantastically unusual) land generally known as the Unknown. There, they uncover curious communities, remedy urgent mysteries, and ally themselves with essentially the most sudden of mates. The one factor they can not seem to discover is their approach house.
What makes Over the Backyard Wall the perfect fall watch?
Ain’t that simply the way in which.
Credit score: Cartoon Community
You’ll be able to undoubtedly take pleasure in Over the Backyard Wall at any level within the yr, however its palette of orange-hued timber, golden sunsets, and darkish nights simply hits more durable within the fall. Plus, the present is the proper mixture of autumn’s coziest and spookiest parts. Falling leaves, piping sizzling consolation meals, and an entire slew of seasonal pumpkins seem alongside treacherous spirits, witches, and an encroaching entity recognized merely because the Beast (voiced by Samuel Ramey). Once you’re within the Unknown, you do not know if you happen to’re about to be comforted or creeped out — or some unusual fusion of the 2.
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Our entry factors into the Unknown are teenager Wirt (voiced by Elijah Wooden) and his youthful stepbrother Greg (voiced by Collin Dean). They’re misplaced on this new world and have not a clue the best way to get out. Fortunately for them, the denizens of the Unknown are blissful to assist. Effectively, most of them are, anyway. A mysterious Woodsman (voiced by Christopher Lloyd) gives Wirt and Greg with shelter, whereas a speaking bluebird named Beatrice (voiced by Melanie Lynskey) presents to take them to a sensible girl named Adelaide who may convey them house. Among the many remainder of the Unknown’s charming ensemble are a city of pumpkin individuals, a schoolteacher devoted to educating animals, and a pub filled with character archetypes just like the Tavern Keeper, the Tailor, and the Highwayman.
Whereas these characters know precisely the place they match into the Unknown’s ecosystem, Greg and Wirt are outliers. Greg, along with his cheerful disposition, is endlessly enthusiastic about discovering extra of the Unknown. He’ll discuss to anyone, strive something. He is bought a teapot on his head, a pet rock that spouts Rock Info, and pants filled with sweet — he is like strolling childhood whimsy.
Against this, Wirt is a bundle of teenage angst and fried nerves. He approaches each scenario with a heaping quantity of trepidation. Pair that along with his annoyance with Greg, and also you’re taking a look at two important characters who’re glorious foils for one another. Each Greg and Wirt’s reactions to being someplace as new and weird because the Unknown are legitimate — but neither fairly understands the place the opposite is coming from. Their ensuing journey brings them collectively in masterful but stunning methods. The truth is, the identical may very well be stated of the remainder of Over the Backyard Wall.
You could suppose you recognize the place a sure plot goes, however the collection usually performs along with your expectations: A sinister outdated girl is probably not as evil as you’d suppose, or an attractive ghost could also be one thing else completely. What you suppose you see is rarely the complete image.
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Over the Backyard Wall is an attractive, nostalgic journey with darkish undertones
The Woodsman and his lantern.
Credit score: Screenshot: HBO Max
Despite the fact that Over the Backyard Wall got here out in 2014, it has a timeless high quality to it. You already know you are watching one thing that was produced within the twenty first century, nevertheless it may simply as simply match into the panorama of mid-Twentieth-century animation.
That timelessness is due in a big half to the present’s beautiful animation, which evokes hand-drawn, hand-painted kinds that we hardly ever see in fashionable animation. Visible inspirations vary from classic Halloween postcards to the work of animator Max Fleischer to the Nineties board recreation “Recreation of Frog Pond.” The Unknown is a fantastically crafted world that you’re going to need to get misplaced in repeatedly, simply so you possibly can catch all of the present’s pretty visible particulars.
Including to Over the Backyard Wall‘s allure is its soundtrack, a group of folksy, jazzy songs by McHale and The Blasting Firm. “Potatoes and Molasses” is a pleasant earworm, whereas “Over the Backyard Wall,” carried out by Jack Jones, who voices a frog within the present, has the texture of a basic love track.
The standout quantity is the present’s title theme, “Into the Unknown,” additionally sung by Jones. A lone piano accompanies him as he croons concerning the arrival of autumn and pretending desires can come true. Like Over the Backyard Wall, “Into the Unknown” is haunting but lovely. In listening to it, you’ve got gained one thing particular. However on the identical time the track acknowledges a loss — of spring, of recollections, of easier instances.
A lot of Over the Backyard Wall considerations itself with these sorts of loss. For each Greg and Wirt, it is a coming-of-age story, and subsequently, entails a lack of innocence. For lots of the characters they meet, it is a story about overcoming grief. The reason for a lot of that grief, in addition to a big a part of Greg and Wirt’s emotional journey, is the Beast.
Antlered, wreathed in darkness, and sporting a deep, operatic voice, the Beast looms giant over the woods of the Unknown. Encounters with him — and with a number of of the Unknown’s spookier residents — are genuinely scary. From demonic canine to hungry ghosts, Over the Backyard Wall would not pull its punches with its scares. Nor does it draw back from any of the existential dread such explorations of loss can evoke. The collection balances this darker, extra mature content material with lighthearted moments and musical bangers, guaranteeing that individuals of all ages and leisure preferences will discover one thing to like right here.
Over the Backyard Wall clocks in at ten 11-minute-long episodes, so you possibly can binge it during or unfold it out and savor it. Whichever choice you select, you will really feel such as you’ve stepped out of time and into some long-lost Halloween particular.
I like to recommend bundling up in a blanket, grabbing a mug of tea or apple cider, and leaping proper into the Unknown alongside Greg and Wirt. There isn’t any higher solution to spend your fall. And that is a Rock Reality!
Over the Backyard Wall is now streaming on HBO Max (opens in a brand new tab)and Hulu. (opens in a brand new tab)
