Neil Sharpson's Blog, page 22

Over the Garden Wall: The Ringing of the Bell

Wha’ Happen’?:

So the…I feel weird calling Wirt, Greg and Beatrice “our heroes” all the time. I really should come up with a name for them. The Unknown Wanderers? The Frog Squad? The Autumnal Avengers? Greg and the Gregettes? What am I saying, the answer is obvious.

So Greg and the Gregettes have split up with Wirt and Greg having ditched Beatrice after her trying to sell them into indentured servitude to an evil witch (God some people are so sensitive).

They’re ambushed by the Woodsman who tries to warn them the Beast is after them after the events of Songs of the Dark Lantern but they of course think that he’s the Beast…or a lunatic with an axe which either way, y’know? So they flee until they come to a creepy cottage in the middle of the woods and hide inside.

Inside the cottage they find a barrel of the mysterious black turtles that have been cropping up all over the forest. The boys are discovered by a thin, pale servant girl named Lorna. They hear a noise outside and Lorna nervously whispers at the boys to hide in the turtle barrel so that they won’t be found by “Auntie Whispers”.

“How’d you do I, see you’ve met my, faithful HANDY man…”

Whispers asks Lorna if anyone has visited the house because she can smell children. Lorna lies and says that there are none, but Whispers uses a magical bell to force Lorna to tell her the truth. Lorna tells her that they’re in the basket but when Whispers goes to look she only sees the turtles and assumes they were what Lorna was talking about. She thentells Lorna to sort the bones “of those who have previously been devoured” and goes off to bed, taking the bell with her.  The boys come out and Lorna explains that Auntie Whispers keeps her working constantly so that she doesn’t “succumb to wickedness” and Wirt says that’s super sketch because it is indeed super sketch. He offers to help her get her chores done quicker so that she can then escape…which I can’t believe it’s taken me this many rewatches to realise that that makes no sense.

If Lorna is ready to escape, surely they can just go? What’s the point of staying, doing all the chores and then escaping? Good etiquette?  Well anyway, while Wirt and Lorna work to clean the house and blush at one another from across the room like a couple of cuttlefish, Greg goes wandering upstairs and wakes up Auntie Whispers who chases him down the stairs. The children lock themselves in the cellar while Auntie Whispers howls that they will soon be eaten alive. Wirt and Greg turn to look at Lorna and OH GOD…

HELLO!

Yes, it turns out Lorna really does have an evil spirit and Auntie Whispers really was making her do all that housework to keep the demon under control. Just when it looks like the Gregettes are about to be eaten alive, Greg reveals that the Frog ate Auntie Whispers’ bell. Wirt shakes the Frog, which rings the bell, which gives him control over the demon, who Wirt orders to leave Lorna’s body, freeing her forever.

Auntie Whispers and Lorna tearfully reunite and Auntie Whispers says that she’s glad Lorna is now cured but regrets that Lorna is going to leave her now. But Lorna says that Whispers is her only family and of course she’ll stay with her and I’m sorry WHAT?

Auntie Whispers could have cured Lorna at any time. We all agree on that? But INSTEAD, she used the bell to keep working her 24/7 while leaving the demon still in her where it could (and did!) eat any passers by who wandered in. Now, granted, it was probably only a few people…

JESUS. Bitch had a higher body count than the Khmer Rouge.

Any, with Wirt firmly convinced that this not a family he wants to marry into the Gregettes continue on their way. Wirt admits to Greg that he doesn’t have a plan and doesn’t know where they’re going.

And from the shadows, the Woodsman and the Beast watch them go. The Woodsman pleads with the Beast, saying that the souls of children cannot be traded like tokens and that there has to be another way to keep the lantern lit but the Beast replies: “No. There is only me. There is only my way. There is only the forest, and there is only surrender.”

How was it?: The Ringing of the Bell is without a doubt the scariest episode of the whole series and does a great job subverting your expectations. By having Whispers and Lorna dress and speak like Puritans, we’re primed to view Lorna’s “demon” as simply her burgeoning sexuality which Auntie Whispers is ruthlessly working to suppress. Until the point where the cartoon says “No, literal demon. Why, what did you think we meant?”. It’s clever. Less clever are the logical plotholes like why they choose to stay and do the chores if they’re already planning on escaping, or why Lorna doesn’t even try to explain to Wirt what her deal actually is. It’s perhaps less polished than some of the other scripts but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t one of my favourites, and that’s mostly down to:

Holy Crap, that sounds like…: TIM CURRY giving a very un-Tim Curry but utterly hilarious and memorable performance as Auntie Whispers. This was (I believe) Curry’s first voice work after suffering a stroke and it’s not entirely clear how much of his performance was affected by it but…damn it, he’s perfect.

Can I see some references?: Auntie Whispers: Baba Yaga from Slavic folklore, the giant from the Jack and the Beanstalk and the Witch Yubaba from Spirited Away. Lorna is named for Lorna Doone.

This frog’s name is: Doctor Cucumber, and congratulations to him for getting his medical degree.

My book, When the Sparrow falls, is now available for preorder! Links here.

Over the Garden Wall: Lullaby in Frogland

Wha’ Happen’?:

Nearing the end of their journey, our heroes are riding a ferry to Adelaide’s house and everything seems great. Greg is having a grand old time and even Wirt (Wirt!) is happy and relaxed for once. Plus they’re on a boat inhabited entirely by fancy, fancy frogs and who doesn’t love frogs?

Daaaaaaaw don’t touch it, it is literally poisonous enough to kill an entire village.

Only Beatrice seems ill at ease and unhappy. Suddenly, two frogstables show up and try to arrest our heroes for sneaking on to the ferry without paying. Beatrice suggests they just surrender and get thrown off the boat but Wirt refuses because they’ve come so far. The cops chase them all over the ship until they disguise themselves using the Ol’ Totem Pole Trench technique.

And afterwards, they can buy beer and go see R-rated Frog movies.

But then, because they’re wearing a band uniform, they get pushed onstage with the rest of the musicians and accidentally knock the bassoon player overboard. Of course, as we all know, frogs are all about that bassoon so the crowd start losing their shit.

Beatrice tells Wirt to play the bassoon but he protests that, as a clarinet player, he doesn’t have the embouchure for bassoon which is a word I did not have to look up either for its spelling or its meaning.

“Uh huh. What’s it mean Mouse?”

“Balls. It means balls. He doesn’t have the balls to play bassoon.”

Anyway, Beatrice convinces Wirt to sack up and he plays the bassoon. The Frog starts singing the title song, Over the Garden Wall which wows everyone.

The ship arrives at its destination and the frogs start to hibernate in the mud of the river bank, but not before offering Greg’s frog a record contract. Greg is sad at losing his friend but is proud that he’s finally made it big in the amphibian music scene. Wirt wants to press on to Adelaide’s house but Beatrice convinces him that it’s too late and that they should make camp for the night.

Over a camp fire, Wirt tells Beatrice about life back home and we learn a bit more of his back story (seriously, this kid’s like the frickin’ Mandalorian in terms of keeping his backstory close to his chest). He says that before coming to the Unknown he was going to confess his feelings to a girl called Sara but that he was cock-blocked by Jason Funderberker, who’s apparently a real cool guy who has his shit together.

Jason Funderberker, probably.

Beatrice tells Wirt that he’s probably better just staying in the Unknown where he gets to be a hero and not return to his loser life and Wirt seems half convinced.

Later, Beatrice flies off in the middle of the night. Wirt wakes up and sees her leave and he and Greg follow her from a distance. Beatrice arrives at Adelaide’s house and we discover that Adelaide is not a sweet old lady but a creepy insane hag who stays holed up in her cabin, obsessing about keeping out the cold night air and muttering darkly about the “the beast of Eternity”…

We learn that Beatrice made a deal with Adelaide that she would find children to be her servants in return for a set of magic scissors that she could use to turn her family back into human beings. Beatrice can’t go through with the deal, so she offers herself instead as Adelaide’s servant. But just then, Greg and Wirt arrive and Wirt realises that Beatrice was always planning on selling them out. Adelaide captures the boys and says that she’s going to fill their heads with wool to control them forever. But Beatrice opens the window which lets in the night air and Adelaide melts faster than a Nazi with his head shoved in the Ark of the Covenant.

Furious at Adelaide’s portrayal Wirt takes Greg and runs off into the night, leaving a heart-broken Beatrice behind.

Oh, and the Frog joins then agin after turning down the recording contract because he’s not a sellout, man.

How was it?: Lullaby in Frogland is kinda weird because it feels like two episodes jammed together. The Adelaide sequence could have been added to the end of any of the previous episodes and it would have had about as much continuity. It’s a game of two halves, and while the Adelaide stuff is not bad by any means, coming after the endlessly charming ferry sequence means the short doesn’t finish as strongly as it starts and also comes off as quite tonally dissonant.

That said, the frogs are awesome. Over the Garden Wall is such a lovely, lovely song and I don’t know if I could ever get tired of watching fancy frogs in old timey clothes having a jolly good time and frankly I don’t care to know.

There is just such joy and craft and personality in every single one of the frog characters. Wonderful stuff.

Holy Crap, that sounds like…: Again, give it up for JOHN MOTHERFUCKING CLEESE as Adelaide, the Wise Woman of the Woods. He’s plenty funny and has some great lines (“I want a child-servant!”) but there is only one Quincey Endicott.

Can I see some references?: We’re back in Twain country with the steamship setting and the frogs bring to mind the illustrations of that racist shit-monkey John Tenniel….

Possibly a nod to Steamboat Willy in there? I dunno, maybe that’s a reach. The part where Adelaide melts is a pretty obvious Wizard of Oz reference. And lastly, the scene of all the frogs singing together may be a reference to Rupert and the Frog Song.

This frog’s name is: The Frog has been renamed George Washington, which is appropriate as he doesn’t have any teeth.

Over the Garden Wall: Mad Love

Wha’ Happen’?:

We begin In Media Res…

…with Wirt, Greg, Beatrice and Fred the horse having dinner with the fabulously wealthy and utterly batshit insane tea mogul Quincy Endicott who thinks that Wirt and Greg are his nephews. And he thinks that because…Beatrice has straight up told him that they are because she wants his money.

Wirt is aghast that Beatrice wants to scam this sweet old man and Beatrice explains that she was actually thinking of just straight up robbing him.

Beatrice says that they’ve already stolen a horse and are now way too deep into their life of crime to stop now. But Wirt counters that Fred cannot be stolen as he is a sentient being with inalienable rights, free to do whatever he wants. Fred says that he wants to rob the old man because free will is a double edged sword and the freedom to choose by definition means the freedom to choose the wrong action. And then Beatrice says that they only need to steal two cents from Quincy to pay their boat fare to Adelaide’s house. Which raises another ethical question as to whether it’s ever right to rob an old man even if you have a pressing need, he’s fabulously wealthy and the amount you’re stealing is so miniscule that losing it would not impact him in any meaningful way.

We are two minutes into this cartoon and already I feel like I’ve learned more about ethics than I did during two semesters of Philosophy.

Anyway, the boys notice that Endicott seems a bit jumpy and he confides in them that he believes the mansion is haunted by the ghost of a beautiful woman who entrances and terrifies him in equal measure. Greg, his uncle’s nephew in soul if not in blood, insists that he and Fred go with Endicott to look for the ghost. This leaves Beatrice and Wirt to search the manor for two cents where they get locked in an armoire. While trying to escape Beatrice lets slip that she used to be a human being. She tells Wirt that she threw a rock at a bluebird who cursed her and her entire family, who are now all bluebirds. She says that she was going to visit Adelaide to ask her to change her family back into human beings but sadly says “that was the plan”. Now it’s Wirt’s turn to reveal a secret so he admits that he has a crush on a girl in his school, that he secretly recites poetry to himself at night and that he plays, get this, the clarinet.

Beatrice is understandably pissed that she traded away her story of revenge and black magic for Wirt’s asinine teenage bullshit. But she tells Wirt that that’s all normal and nothing to be ashamed about. They find a secret passage out of the armoire and find themselves in a different part of the mansion that seems strangely at odds with the rest of the house. Or, as Wirt puts it “it’s French rococco style which doesn’t really seem in line with Endicott’s Georgian sensibilities”.

This leads Wirt to deduce who Endicott’s ghost really is…

Meanwhile, Endicott, Greg and Fred arrive at the room where Endicott claims he saw the ghost. They don’t see no ghost, but they do see signs of a struggle which leads Fred to accuse Endicott of MURDER.

Fortunately, before the cartoon devolves into a brutal man on horse fight to the death, the ghost appears and she and Endicott both faint at the sight of each other.

When Endicott comes to, Wirt has arrives and he explains the mystery like a little pointy Hercule Poirot. Endicott’s house had grown so large that it merged with the mansion of his competitor, Madame Margueritte Grey, and he had accidentally wandered into her home. The two fall instantly in love and the couple bid Wirt, Greg and Beatrice a fond farewell. Fred, having become disillusioned with his life of crime, stays behind to become a tea horse for Endicott.

To thank the boys, Quincy and Margueritte each give Greg a penny, saying that’s a fine boy with good sense. Beatrice and Wirt are delighted because they now have the fare to get to Adelaide’s, until Greg throws both cents into a pond saying solemnly “Uncle Endicott had me pegged all wrong. I got no cents. no cents at all.”

***

How was it?: Probably the flat out funniest episode of the whole series but also pretty important in terms of lore. For the first time we see Beatrice treat the boys as anything other than a nuisance. In particular, she seems to have a lot more respect for Wirt, which creates nice continuity with the events of last episode. Some pretty important lore is revealed here too, like Beatrice’s back story. We also get the first references to Wirt’s crush on Sara which will be important later on. T

Holy Crap, that sounds like…: JOHN MOTHERFUCKING CLEESE THAT’S WHO IT SOUNDS LIKE. Giving, and I’m not even being a little hyperbolic here, probably the best performance he’s given in anything in the last forty years (which is simultaneously impressive, and also kinda not).

My God he’s been in some awful shit.

Regardless. Every single line he has in this is just phenomenal.

Can I see some references?: Easing up on the Americana for this one and instead drawing on British children’s literature. Endicott has elements of both Ebeneezer Scrooge and the Mad Hatter and the armoire leading to an unexpected place has a touch of the Chronicles of Narnia.

This frog’s name is: Still Wirt Junior. I swear I remember this frog having more names.

 

My book, When the Sparrow falls, is now available for preorder! Links here.

Rimini Riddle: “I like shooting children”.

Greetings traveller. Remember how forty years ago in 2018 I cursed you all with the knowledge of Rimini Riddle, either a vanishingly obscure Irish children’s programme from the nineties or (as seemed more likely) a collective national nightmare akin to the time we all convinced ourselves that Twink was a real person?

REMINDER: Twink is not a real person, and never has been.

Well, there have recently been developments. Significant developments.

Commenter Kev recently left a Kev comment as commenter Kevs are wont to do:

Right. Just “popped” into his head. What a completely normal and totally un-suspicious coincidence pause for bitter mocking laugh.

That was the beginning. I waited, caught in a mad no-man’s-land between dread and anticipation. And then, hark!

Oh GOD.

I told myself that it couldn’t be possible. the Riddle…survived? No. And it couldn’t be. Surely not. And then…

FUCK.

Yes. It’s true. Kev, that modern Prometheus, that monomaniac, that…guy, has, like a Carl Denham of the modern age, tracked the monster to its attic lair and dragged it in chains out into the harsh light of day to be gawped at for our amusement.

WE HAVE A (partial) EPISODE OF RIMINI RIDDLE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

AND I AM GOING TO REVIEW IT MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON US ALL!

Alright, because I’m damned if I’m shouldering this curse alone, I’ll embed the video at the end of the post:

Just be sure not to answer any calls from Japanese phone numbers.

So the setup is as follows.

Orphans Rory, Ellen and Leo live with their miserly Aunt Vera in her seaside guesthouse. As this episode begins, Vera is going away and the three kids are supposed to be staying with Ellen’s best friend, Una. But, Rory, as the eldest, has decided that he’s going to just stay in the guesthouse alone.

Well, I say alone. He will be sharing the house with Otto, the devil’s mustelid. You remember Otto surely?

Extra-dimensional demon inhabiting the form of Leo’s toy otter with the ultimate goal of feeding him to his masters, the child-eating abominations known as the Mommos? You remember. That Otto.

Una, who is 100% that bitch, suggests to Ellen and Leo that they sneak into the house in the middle of the night wearing masks to properly traumatise him for daring to think he could have a quiet night to himself without having to put up with everyone’s psychotic bullshit.

The kids say goodbye to Rory and then Una steals the key to the backdoor so that Rory will be properly defenceless and they leave him to it. Now at this point, I was thinking “this isn’t as weird and off-putting as I remember it”. Then we got the scene of Rory dancing alone while chanting “THE FORESTS OF THE EARTH WILL DIE” all the while being watched by a possessed sock puppet and then I was like “well never fucking mind”.

The song sounds like it was written by someone who had never actually listened to Heavy Metal but had it described to them once. By a drunk. Through a door. In a language they were only somewhat fluent in.

David Lynch wishes he could come up with something this deranged.

Anyway, after Otto decides to fuck with Rory’s walkman with demon otter powers, Rory cooks himself some food and gets ready to go to bed. But, because Una took the key with her, he can’t lock the back door so he pushes the kitchen table against it so he’ll at least hear it if large men break into the house with designs on his valuables/nubile teenage body.

So watching this again, seventy times, on loop, in a darkened basement, huddled naked before the flickering screen, muttering words under my breath in a language I do not speak I finally realised just why this show creeped out my entire generation so much. It wasn’t the horror elements, or the seriously ugly puppets or the honestly-not-that-great puppeteering (and I speak with authority as an honestly-not-that-great-puppeteer). It’s the delivery. Every character in this speaks with that super deliberate slow delivery you see in children’s shows the world over. But instead of saying things like “Oh LOOK. A RED ball. I’ll show this to the COW because RED is her favourite colour” they’re saying things like “Oh LOOK. The KEY has been STOLEN. I should barricade myself in with the TABLE so I don’t get MURDERED in my sleep by a MANIAC who then wears my SKIN as a HAT.” And that juxtaposition is really fucking creepy, actually.

So Rory hears noises downstairs and goes down to investigate. There he finds one of his Aunt’s neighbours in the kitchen eating sausages.  This is Fergie who is, and let’s be generous and not jump to any conclusions here, absolutely 100% a paedophile.

Rory demands to know what Fergie is doing in his house in the dead of night and Fergie says that Vera has given him the key so that he can come and go as he pleases. And I’m pretty sure this is not what Vera had in mind. Fergie says they can wait until Vera arrives to confirm his story and Rory admits that she’s not at home and that he’s here alone (DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON). Fergie susses that Rory is hear without Vera’s knowledge, and Rory tells him that he’s only doing it because Una and Ellen said that he’d be too afraid to stay on his own. Fergie nods and says “Ah women, they are the source of all our troubles, Rory.”

“Tell me Rory, do you like movies about gladiators?”

Rory bribes Fergie into keeping his secret by offering him more sausage NO SUBTEXT THERE THEN and goes back to bed.

He wakes up in the middle of the night when he hears the kitchen table being knocked over. Grabbing a rolling pin as a weapon, and terrified out of his mind, he creeps downstairs. He overhears Ellen, Una and Leo talking about how they’re going to traumatise him like this show did to the entire Irish millennial cohort. He waits until they put on their masks so they can’t see and then ambushes them, pretending to be a burglar himself. Terrified, Una begs him not to shoot them as they’re only children and Rory snarls “I LIKE shooting children.”

I seem to recall that this caused a great deal of controversy at the time with people worried that including a line like that in a children’s programme could inspire school shootings. Then we remembered that, thanks our common-sense gun laws, that was literally impossible and then we forgot all about it.

Ellen says that their brother is upstairs and has already called the police and Rory pretends that he has murdered himself (THIS IS A CHILDREN’S SHOW A SHOW FOR CHILDREN).

Rory reveals himself and Una is furious at him for scaring them like that (Una is the worst, I remember that now). Rory mocks them, saying that he didn’t realise they were “only children” and Una splutters “Rory Fagan…you’re a BEAST!” like the fustiest dowager in the manor or something.

Rory goes back to bed, saying to himself “that should shut Una Brophy up for a while, she was fit to burst with temper!” and man I forgot how we all use to talk like we were in a JM Synge play back in the nineties.

He is woken up again when he hears more noises down in the kitchen. Furious, thinking that Ellen, Una and Leo have come back, he runs down waving the rolling pin and confronts TRUE HORROR

Jesus. It’s like Spitting Image made a Margaret Thatcher puppet and rejected it for being too mean.

Yup, Aunt Vera’s home early, and wants to know why the house looks like it’s been burgled and all the food’s been eaten and what exactly Rory is doing here. And scene.

***

Well, I think I can safely say that was the weirdest and most disturbing thing I’ve seen in 2020.

This was not close to how dark the show could get but it is a delightful, rare little taste of what was honestly one of the most unique television shows ever produced in Ireland. Unique is not always “good” and there’s definitely some technical shortcomings. But there’s also some real talent on display. I forgot how damn effective the music was, for a start. And it’s actually very well paced. All the elements good and bad, come together to create something utterly unique, thoroughly bizarre, absolutely compelling deeply, deeply creepy.

Huge thanks to Kev Geraghty for uploading the episode and agreeing to let me review it. 

My book, When the Sparrow falls, is now available for preorder! Links here.

UK Cover Reveal!

Oh I have been itching to show you guys this one!

This is the cover for the UK edition of When the Sparrow Falls and it is a feast for the eye.

See what I did there? Matt Needle, the artist, gave us three concepts for the cover and honestly picking one was one of the hardest parts of this whole process because they were all so beautiful. But I think we picked the right one. It manages to pack in so many of the themes of the book in one deceptively simple image. I love it. And if you want to get a first peek at the inside of the book, Rebellion have released and excerpt which you can read here.

When the Sparrow Falls Now Available for Pre-Order!

My new novel, When the Sparrow Falls, is now available to pre-order!:

“Welcome to the Caspian Republic. The last bastion of true humanity in a world given over to artificial intelligence.

Stray from the path towards anything “machine” and the state will correct you.

When propagandist Paulo Xirau dies, and is discovered to himself be a “machine”, State Security Agent Nikolai South is given a new assignment he could hardly want less: chaperone the widow, Lily, the only “machine” visitor ever invited from the outside world, and help her determine what happened to her husband.

Nikolai knows it will be nearly impossible to complete the job without running afoul of the Party—but when he sees that Lily bears an eerie resemblance to his late wife, Nikolai stumbles on a larger plot, one that exposes all the lies he’s told himself and which may bring down the Republic for good.

WHEN THE SPARROW FALLS  illuminates authoritarianism, complicity, and identity in the digital age, in a page turning, darkly-funny, frightening and touching story that recalls Philip K. Dick, John Le Carré and Kurt Vonnegut in equal measure.”

When the Sparrow Falls will be published by TOR on June 29 2021, but you can order it now from the following retailers!

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Indiebound

Kobo

Apple Books

Over the Garden Wall: Songs of the Dark Lantern

Wha’ Happen’?:

Looking for shelter in the middle of a storm, our heroes arrive at a creepy tavern full of people dressed in American colonial era garb and who apparently have no names, only job descriptions. The Tavern Keeper insists that Beatrice wait outside as birds bring bad luck. When Beatrice tries to explain that blue birds bring good luck the Tavern Keeper snaps “good luck, bad luck, I don’t need any of it!” and hits her with a broom.

Fuming, Beatrice waits outside in the stable with a weird horse that seems to be wearing lipstick. She hears the sound of someone chopping wood in the dark forest, and a deep voice singing…

In the tavern, the Tavern Keeper demands to know what Wirt and Greg’s deal is but Wirt doesn’t know what to tell them. After listening to the Highway Man’s song, Wirt asks the way to Adelaide’s House. This leads the tavern patrons to decide that he’s The Young Lover and throw him up onstage to sing his love song.

Outside, frustrated that Wirt’s not making any progress, Beatrice flies off into the dark forest in the direction of the singing and chopping, hoping to ask for directions.

Wirt sings a song that’s officially known in the credits as “Wirt’s Terrible Song” which is a tad cruel to Elijah Wood who had to improvise it, explaining what he and Greg are doing in the Unknown. The tavern patrons then decide that Wirt is actually The Pilgrim, a noble hero on a sacred quest. Greg regales the rapt tavern patrons with tales of Wirt’s great deeds like tripping up a gorilla but when the boys tell them about the Woodsman and the Beast, the patrons go quiet and tell them that the Woodsman is The Beast.

Wirt doesn’t believe that, saying that the Woodsman gave them directions to avoid the Beast and the Tavern Keeper notes that they can’t have been very good directions because they’re now lost. She tells Wirt that “whosoever carries the Lantern must be the Beast”. Just then, they hear Beatrice scream and Wirt and Greg jump on the horse and ride into the forest to save her.

In the forest they find Beatrice lying unconscious and the Woodsman standing over her. Wirt realises that the Woodsman was trying to turn her into an Edelwood tree and the Tavern Keeper was right about the Woodsman being the Beast. He distracts the Woodsman by getting the horse to kick the lantern out of his hand and the boys grab Beatrice and ride off into the night.

Beatrice wakes up and tells the boys that she was startled by a strange shadow and flew into a tree. Greg excitedly tells her that Wirt was a hero and she says that’s all very well but he was supposed to get directions. Wirt proudly says that he did, from Frank. The horse. Who can apparently talk.

Back at the Edelwood tree, a mysterious shadowy figure notes that the Woodsman is running out of oil asks him if he wants to give him the lantern for a while.

The Woodsman furiously refuses, and the figure calmly reminds him that he must keep the lantern lit lest his daughter’s spirit goes out.

“Now” he says. “What way did those children go?”

How was it?: After the light, frothy Schooltown Follies, episode 4 is the darkest episode thus far, both literally and tonally. It’s also a very important episode in terms of the lore of the series. We learn that Wirt and Greg are step brothers, and also some very important details as to what the Beast is up to and his relationship with the Woodsman, the lantern and the Edelwood trees. This episode also sees Wirt undergoing major character growth and becoming downright heroic towards the end. Fittingly, given the title, the episode has more songs than any other and they’re all pretty great with the exception of Wirt’s Terrible Song which at least lets you know what you’re in for up front.

Holy Crap, that sounds like…: Voice actor, actor and stand up comedian Fred Stoller plays Fred the horse.

Can I see some references?: Maybe the most reference heavy episode in the series. The whole premise of patrons huddled in a colonial era tavern signing songs about the monster outside in the wood instantly brings to mind Disney’s version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Tavern Keeper’s design and voice are both clear references to Betty Boop. Continuing with the Fleischer theme, the Highway Man’s dance is lifted from Cab Calloway’s rotoscoped moves in Minnie the Moocher. I also kinda feel that the scene of the Highway Man watching the trio from the window of the Dark Lantern Tavern might be a reference to a similar scene in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Probably a coincidence, but then Tim Curry was cast in this series so it might have been intentional. Oh, and speaking of things I can’t possible prove and have no source to substantiate; I can’t shake the feeling that the Toymaker with his thin reedy voice is a reference to the children’s song singer Burl Ives.

I dunno. Listen to them both and tell me if I’m crazy.

EDIT: Since some readers seen to be having trouble viewing the second video, here’s the link https://youtu.be/42HzdD1MG04

This frog’s name is: Greg’s really been slacking off with his Frog-naming so this frog’s name is still Wirt Junior.

Over the Garden Wall: Schooltown Follies

Wha’ Happen’?:

After leaving Pottsfield, Wirt, Greg and Beatrice are now trying to reach the house of Adelaide, the Wise Woman of the Woods. In order to get Greg to stop singing, Beatrice tries to crush his indefatigable optimism. She tells him that the world is a miserable place and that he should be more like Wirt, a beaten down husk of a pushover who just quietly does whatever he’s told. Well, Wirt may be a triangle nosed goober cosplaying as David the Gnome’s secret abandoned lovechild, but even he has his pride. So when the trio stumble across a small school in the middle of the forest where a young woman named Miss Langtree is trying to teach a class of blank eyed animals to read, he joins the class just to spite Beatrice. Greg, who isn’t that big on book learnin’ (I know, stunned gasps all round) instead hangs around outside the school with a bunch of truant racoons, deer and possums.

As Miss Langtree explains in a wistful monologue, the school’s in real trouble. Her father, the owner of the school, is threatening to shut it down, her fiancée Jimmy Brown has done R.U.N.N.O.F.T. and there is the little matter of a mad gorilla on the loose.

When the gorilla attacks Greg and the truant critters they run into the schoolhouse just in time for lunch. The animals are being served bland mashed potatoes so Greg decides to mix things up by pouring mollases on their food. This leads to the song Potatoes and Molasses, one of the catchiest little ear worms you’ll ever hear. Before you know it all the animals are playing instruments and having a grand old time. But then Mr. Langtree shows up and demands to know if “Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis” is what he’s been paying money for. Mr. Langtree says that the school should only be teaching animals to count and spell and confiscates all the instruments like a Tory education minister.

The trio sneak out of the schoolhouse in the middle of the night to continue their journey, and come across Mr Langtree sleeping rough in the forest. They overhear him saying to himself that, what with Jimmy Brown having run off and the whole gorilla situation the school is facing bankruptcy and that he has to sell the instruments just to keep its doors open.

The next day, Mr Langtree wakes and is horrified to find the instruments are gone. But then he hears music playing and discovers that Greg, Wirt and Beatrice took the instruments back and arranged a benefit concert for the school with all the animals playing the song they learned from Greg. The concert is a success and the school is saved. The gorilla attacks the crowd but Wirt trips him and his head goes flying off, revealing that’s he’s actually Jimmy Brown. Jimmy explains to a stunned Ms Langtree that he joined the circus to make enough money to marry her and they had stuck him in a gorilla costume, and that when he got trapped in the costume everyone was too scared to help him.

So the school is saved, the animals get to play their music, Beatrice realises that Writ isn’t a pushover and that sometimes optimism isn’t stupid and the gorilla’s reign of terror is brought to an end.

How was it?: Follies is Over the Garden Wall at its lightest, frothiest and silliest. The horror elements are almost entirely absent and there’s no real threat or peril (the gorilla is too silly to be scary even before you know it’s Ms. Langtree’s no-good handsome man in there). The episode has two of the best songs in the series, Ms. Langtree’s Lament and Potatoes and Molasses and some of my favourite lines (“Young man, go to the dunce box!”, “That’s right darlin’, I was the gorilla”). It’s also one of the more idealistic episodes, where the day is won not by Wirt’s practical no-nonsense attitude or Beatrice’s cynicism but by Greg’s unfailing optimism and belief that the world is a good, kind place.

Holy Crap, that sounds like…: Janet Klein (Ms Langtree), Sam Marin (Mr. Langtree) and Thomas Lennon (Jimmy Brown) aren’t big name voice actors, but they deserve to be.

Can I see some references?: I couldn’t place any specific animation references but the animals wearing fussy Edwardian clothes harkens to Beatrix Potter, whereas the truant critters and the Southern vibe of the schoolhouse reminded me of the works of Mark Twain.

This frog’s name is: Still Wirt Junior.

Over the Garden Wall: Hard Times at the Huskin’ Bee

Wha’ Happen’?:

Still following the Woodsman’s directions, Wirt and Greg come across the Beatrice the talking bluebird again. She’s trapped in a thornbush and offers to do the boys a good turn after Greg frees her. She tells them that she can take them to Adelaide the Magical Woman of the Woods, who could send them home, but Wirt really isn’t up for a magical Wizard of Oz esque quest and they continue looking for a town with a reluctant Beatrice in tow.

They come to a town called Pottsfield where the locals are celebrating the harvest in pumpkin costumes and dancing to music that’s ever so cheery and it’s not creepy at all…

Beatrice, to her credit, is all “go, go, go, go” but Wirt has never seen The Wicker Man and tries to ask one of the Pumpkin people for directions. When the townsfolk learn that Wirt and Greg ain’t from around heyah (and that Greg stepped on one of their pumpkins), they lock the doors and bring the boys before their leader, Enoch.

In silky, menacing tones, Enoch tells them that he must punish them for their transgressions and sentences them to…a few hours community service.

Thinking that they’ve got off lightly, the boys spend a pleasant afternoon doing farm labour until they’re given their last task; digging two holes in an abandoned field. Beatrice is all “…seriously?” but Wirt refuses to believe there’s anything amiss until Greg uncovers a skeleton.

The pumpkin folk arrive and Wirt thinks that they’re goners but then the skeleton walks out of the hole, puts on some pumpkins and then joins the other townsfolk who are, of course, all skeletons. As Pottsfield celebrates another successful harvest, Wirt, Greg and Beatrice continue on their way having learned a valuable lesson about prejudice.

Sometimes the creepy skeleton people just don’t want you to step on their pumpkins.

How was it?: Hard Times at the Huskin’ Bee is really the episode where I feel Over the Garden Wall becomes what it’s supposed to be. If I had to pick a word to describe this series it would be “Autumnal” or, if you’re American: “Fally”, and Huskin’ Bee is by far the most Fally episode of the bunch. Everything from the pumpkins, to the massive turkeys that the Pottsfielders use as transportation to the harvest setting. This episode also sees a major jump in animation quality (and Episode 1 was no slouch to begin with). Couple this with the beautiful backgrounds…

And you have something truly special.

Huskin’ Bee also sees the central trio of Beatrice, Wirt and Greg finally come together and the interplay between the three is great. It’s also prime Over the Garden Wall in that it’s beautiful, funny and at times, really, really creepy.

Holy Crap, that sounds like…: No superstar voices here but I will still namecheck Melanie Lynskey as Beatrice. Beatrice’s adorable design and Lynskey’s sweet, Disney Princess-esque voice contrasts hilariously with Beatrice’s cynicism and sarcastic barbs.

Can I see some references?: Huskin’ Bee doesn’t draw too obviously from any one literary source, but more the general genre of creepy small rural townships. Think The Wicker Man, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and a good chunk of HP Lovecraft’s oeuvre. For animation references, I dunno. Maybe a reference to the 1929 Disney cartoon The Skeleton Dance? Or they could just be skeletons.

This frog’s name is: Wirt Junior.

Over the Garden Wall: The Old Grist Mill

Over the Garden Wall is the creation of Adventure Time alumnus Patrick McHale which first premiered on Cartoon Network in 2014. Consisting of 10 ten-minute episodes, the series is a gorgeously animated brew of 17th, 18th and 19th century Americana, children’s literature and deep cut references to the Golden Age of animation. Which, as you can probably guess from that description, means that if it was any more my jam I’m be spreading it on my crumpets. Throughout October I’ll be doing short reviews of each episode so let’s crack on. Episode 1. The Old Grist Mill.

Wha’ Happen’?:

After the opening song a montage introducing many of the characters we’ll meet over the course of the series we meet two young boys, Wirt and Greg (and a frog) making their way through a dark, spooky forest. Wirt realises that he has no idea how they arrived there and begins to panic because this place is creepy as hell and everything just seems slightly off. Greg, who’s very much “the Mabel” in this Dipper/Mabel dyad, offers to leave a trail of candy behind them but that’s of little use since they’re already deep in the spooky, scary forest.

“You can’t make squirrels wearing bow ties creepy!” they jeered, mockingly. Patrick McHale simply smiled coldly.

They come across an elderly woodsman carrying a lantern and chopping down trees that are filled with a strange, black ooze. Wirt’s too afraid to approach the woodsman but then the boys are approached by Beatrice, a talking bluebird who offers to help them escape the forest. She flies off when the Woodsman overhears them talking and demands to know what they’re doing.

The Woodsman tells them that they’re in a place called “The Unknown” and that they need to am-scray because “The Beast walks these woods”.

The Woodsman takes them back to his mill and offers to let them stay the night. Wirt is getting serious stranger-danger from the Woodsman and asks him what he’s doing out in the forest. The Woodsman tells them that he has to grind the wood of the Edwelweiss trees into oil to keep his lantern lit. Wirt nervously suggests to Greg that they might need to knock the Woodsman out and make a run for it, before immediately dismissing that as a really bad plan. Seeing that Wirt’s nervous, he tells the kids that they’re free to go whenever they want but that if they’re still at the mill after he’s finished with his work, he’ll try to help them fin their way home.

Unsure of what to do, Wirt stays by the fire while Greg goes looking for his frog.  Outside the mill he gets attacked by a terrifying beast who, as Greg notes, has beautiful eyes.

 Greg runs back into the house, chased by the beast. The Woodsman tries to defend the children but gets knocked unconscious by Greg, who didn’t get the memo that they weren’t going with that plan.

The boys are chased by the beast into the mill where it ends up getting caught in the gears. This causing the whole mill to break apart but also dislodges one of Greg’s candies from the beast’s throat, which causes it to change back into a perfectly ordinary dog. (EDIT: Thanks to Alice Shattuck for pointing out that it’s not actually the candy that caused the dog to transform but the turtle that the candy was stuck to because it turns out that the black turtles have a mysterious connection to the Edelweiss trees and the Beast itself because dang but the lore is deep in this despite the whole thing clocking in at 100 minutes). The Woodsman regains consciousness and is furious to discover that the mill is gone and most of his oil has been lost. Wirt says that, hey, at least they got the Beast and the Woodsman yells that the dog was not the Beast. A beast, sure. But not The Beast. Wirt gets angry at Greg but the Woodsman tells him that as the elder brother, Greg’s dumb-fuckery is his responsibility and as an older brother myself that I find that sentiment to be rank Only Child Privilege. Anyway, the Woodsman wearily sends them on their way, calling after them “Beware the Unknown! Fear the Beast! And flee these woods if you can!”

How was it?: The Old Grist Mill is simultaneously an excellent cartoon and probably the worst OGW episode. Not a criticism, it just shows how insanely high this series sets the bar. It’s great, but the night-time setting means we don’t get the gorgeous autumnal colours of the later episodes. Beatrice (the blue-bird) only gets an early-bird cameo (see what I did there?) and while Lloyd is fantastic as the Woodsman, he’s no Auntie Whispers or Quincy Endicott. My point is, knowing all the fanastic stuff that’s coming down the line makes this first episode seem a little drab in comparison.

Holy Crap, that sounds like…: Wirt is played by Frodo Baggins himself, Elijah Wood. The Woodsman is played by a magnificently husky Christopher Llloyd.

Can I see some references?: This episode draws heavily on classic fairy tales. The two children lost in the woods, the candy trail and the Woodsman are all echoes of Hansel and Gretel. Greg’s terrified “You have beautiful eyes…” to the dog is a clear reference to Little Red Riding Hood. As for animation references, the creepy forest with its macabre, scowling trees is pure Snow White.  And the whole concept of a huge, gooey monster becoming small and harmless after a single corrupting influence is expelled reminded me very much of Hayao Miyazaki.

This frog’s name is: After the Woodsman tells Greg to give the frog a proper name, Greg spends the rest of the series trying to do just that. This episode, the frog is called Kitty and Wirt (to avoid confusion, Greg renames Wirt “Kitty”)