Over The Garden Wall: Why Is The Unknown So Familiar?

If 'the unknown' in Over The Garden Wall is meant to be so mysterious, then why is it so familiar? This video essay looks at why the show's creators might have chosen to reference so much nostalgic Americana and Germanic fairy tales and how it shapes 'the unknown'.

Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed this video essay!
If you have any thoughts on the ideas in this video, or just your interpretation of the film in general, please leave them down in the comments. :)
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[bookclubish]

"Something weird might just be something familiar viewed from a different angle" - Adventure Time

I feel like that quote fits perfectly here

[zachrose]

The appropriate word to describe the feelings evoked by this story doesn’t even exist in the English language. Hiraeth- a Welsh word which conveys a sense of belonging to a time or place in which you’ve never experienced, but which you are mysteriously called to. The memories of this past time are beyond familiar to me, almost real.

[benskolnik]

It’s fall so time to rewatch this masterpiece again

[ShinGallon]

I rewatch this show every October, and every time find something new. This year's rewatch it struck me exactly *how many times* the show does a feint into deliberately misleading the audience. Making you think Jason Funderberker is going to be this typical high school football player jock or something when he's absolutely not that, Beatrice's motivations for trying to talk Wirt out of wanting to go home in episode 6, the entire Auntie Whispers episode...over and over the show deliberately misleads the audience into a certain expectation, only to invert it. I noticed that the first time I watched it, but this time for some reason it just hit me more exactly how prevalent the storytelling technique is in this show.
It's such an amazing series, I could gush about it for hours...

[michikomanalang]

This analysis is much better than the idea that “the loveliest lies of all” straight-up pertains to death.

Events, it seems, are merely events—the loveliest lies might be the notion of destinies, and the shaping of them, and how they shape you.

[MontyBoosh]

You mention fairytales and American folklore but for me the whole coming-of-age journey through the woods plants OTGW firmly within the Romantic Kunstmärchen sub-genre, more specifically the Bildungsromane. These are stories in which a (male) protagonist's journey from boy to man is paralleled by a journey through nature and all of its dangers. He learns to become more responsible and "manly", and at the end of the story he will always become worthy of the love of a previously introduced love interest. In most of the well-known examples of the genre the protagonist is a poet or writer, and chapters will often feature lyrical or poetic asides. I would even go further and say that the relationship between Wirt and Greg parallels the struggle between enlightened thinking (seen in Wirt's favour for the rational) and the more faith-based romantic approach (Greg).

It was a very popular genre in the 18th and 19th centuries and many of the writers were contemporaries of the Grimms.

[ToozdaysChild]

I've heard Over the Garden Wall described as "Alice in Wonderland, if it had been written by Mark Twain."

[PhilipABuck]

7:25 "...Just as you think you may know your path, something prevents you from moving forward." As a leaf blowing in the wind gets caught on the fence. NICE!!! A very thoughtful & well made video containing good observations & editing!

[ThePariot]

I appreciate that you mentioned the nostalgic Americana. That’s part of why I find this series so memorable and important to me as I grew up in a setting just like the Unknown.

[sashawayblight]

Before I watched this *LITERALLY BLESSED* show, I had a dream that was terrifyingly close to over the garden wall.

[grimmcorvid]

Every time I see this episodes I feel my childhood. The autumn, bluebird, bird scissors, black creature, garden, flowers and more. Maybe its called the unknown becose its somehow filled with our memories and that makes this land misterious. Its like....do some of you know about peacock feathers? Its bad luck. And this cartoon hide so many superstitions from past like lets say... 1965? Something like that. Btw this is the reason why I LOVE this cartoon ;)

[StrawberryCelebi]

I read a storybook when I was very young about two boys going out into the garden late at night to find that the vegetables were preparing for a harvest moon ball. To this day I cannot remember the name and have had no luck in finding it. When I saw OVTGW, I thought for sure the creators took some inspiration from that book, or at least from the original fairytale that inspired it in turn.

To anyone who might know what it is, there was also a part about a turtle with a barbeque and a dolphin with silver eyes, I think? It got pretty fantastical near the end.

[whoneedsalife_]

Over the garden wall provokes that same feeling of nostalgia and warmth that you get for a time period of before you were born. As if you were born in the 90s/00s but feel nostalgic for the 50s/80s or even farther back from that. And the uncertainty of the time period in the unknown and Wirt and Greg's home town plays on that even more. Playing on freedoms and adventures you couldn't have had for a multitude of reasons.

[liketottenham]

Cool stuff. And i gotta praise you for matching what is on screen with what you say, not many youtube essayists have the patience to do that nowadays. Godspeed. Subbed.

[LyricNear]

Okay the real question here is... Can we make OTGW into a stage play?

[Marxist_Bidenist]

Over the garden wall showed us that CN can still make great shows but choose not to

[idlewave]

over the garden wall is one of the best, if not the best cartoon series to have ever been made. no one can deny that <33

[shmeeful]

October the fourth here, I feel as if YouTube knew just what I wanted to see as an opener for the season of fear

[amerlad]

Watching this series was one of the most bizzare blissful experiences in my life.
While watching it i got this odd surge of nostalgia like it relates to other things ive seen or experienced before.
I whole heartedly love this show, it will remain one of the most and best bizzare experiences ive been through forever.
I always keep coming back to this video for some reason.

[navilluscire]

I'd love to see another animated series explore a rich mix of classical Germanic fairytales, wiccan, witches and good'ole Americana folk lore and ghost stories! The whole thing was both charming and harrowing! **sighs** Maybe some day...