Over the Garden Wall

Our Review

Cartoon Network’s ten-episode miniseries (2014) remains the most perfect thing the network ever aired: Wirt and Greg, two half-brothers lost in the Unknown — a strange autumnal storybook world of woods, frogs, and a Beast — wander home through a folk-tale America. The art (the painted, antique… — the… — the painterly backgrounds, the 19th-century Americana design), the songs (the frog’s… — Greg’s frog’s… — the… — and the gentle, melancholy dread add up to something closer to a poem than a cartoon.

The finale (the Beast’s true nature, the… — the brothers’… — resolves the whole thing in twenty minutes that contain an entire philosophy about growing up. Watch it every autumn. One perfect loop.

Verdict: Watch it. The best miniseries animation ever made for television.