Over the Garden Wall

Over the Garden Wall is one of those oddball animated miniseries that feels like it came from another era—like the folklorey parts of classic children’s lit, but with a distinctly modern sense of humor and unease. The show follows two half-brothers, Wirt and Greg, who are lost in a mysterious, autumnal world populated by singing frogs, woodsmen, and unsettling creatures. The premise sounds twee, but trust me, it’s way more Uncanny Valley Grimm’s fairytale than cutesy Nickelodeon.

What really sells it is the atmosphere. Creator Patrick McHale (Adventure Time alum) leans hard into paintings-in-motion visuals—there’s a painterly quality to the backgrounds, especially the spooky nighttime woods and melancholic fields. You can practically feel the chill in the air. The music hits similar notes: old-timey folk tunes, ragtime ditties, and some genuinely haunting melodies that do a lot of heavy lifting emotionally.

Elijah Wood voices Wirt, and he nails the anxious, dramatic overthinking of a teen who wants to act grown up but is desperately out of his depth. Collin Dean as Greg is pure comic relief without ever getting annoying (a miracle for animated kids, frankly). There’s also a stacked supporting cast, including Christopher Lloyd and Melanie Lynskey, who both bring surprising warmth and weirdness.

Episode length is bite-sized—about ten minutes each, ten episodes total—so the whole thing is bingeable in an evening. That pacing helps; there’s no room for filler, and each episode introduces a new, fairy-tale vignette while still pushing the central mystery forward. A couple episodes feel a little aimless, but even those offer some fantastic imagery or gags, and everything pulls together tightly by the ending.

The themes sneak up on you. There’s nostalgia, fear of growing up, sibling dynamics, confronting mortality—very “kids’ show for adults,” but also something I wish I’d had as an actual kid. It’s darker and weirder than you’d expect, and sometimes the tone swings from light whimsy to full-on unsettling. But it never feels edgy-for-edgy’s sake; even the creepiest moments are in service of the story or world.

If I have any knock against it, it’s that your mileage may vary with the knowingly old-fashioned Americana vibe, and Greg’s relentless optimism could grate for some. But for me, it’s refreshing: smart, creepy, touching, funny—an autumn mood in a bottle. I revisit it almost every year.