Welcome to Garden Wall record a nostalgic time corpsule. I'm no spoiler book Club
of the original Over the Garden Wall. Thank dam are your creepy curators.
I am shocking Shelby, I am chilling Charlie, and I'm hell led through
the mist by the milk line. All that was lost is repealed, long
by gone, burdens mere echoes of a scream. But where have we come?
And where shall we? If dreams can't come true, then why not
pree Hello dumplings, Hello you little dumpling, Hello dumplings. We're a bunch
of jolly dumples recording a podcast. Tra a lot t here's a The smurf
is up on you, boy, to get out of here. Yeah,
he's only like three apples high, grey, could he be you better beware
the smurf is outside, boy. You're right this morn. So this is
the final episode of garden Will recall everyone I know. I'll this you most
of all, John Crops. Does that mean we're not gonna be friends anymore
after this? Or I have no idea. It depends how this episode goes.
So before we get into the final two episodes of Over the garden Wall.
It appears that we have some fan mail brought to us, perhaps by
talking carrier pigeon I suppose, of course, or carrying talker pigeons. Might
it might also have been a male man who might have been a werewolf.
Oh that's a that's a throwback. Yeah, yeah, that's a look back.
I know, right. I can recall the first electronic mail I believe
that we've we've received. This is from m Pound. She hurt and says,
hey, gang, medium time listener, first time emailer. I love
that that Turner phrase. Medium time over the garden Wall is my favorite cartoon
bar none, and I was so excited to see the series pop up in
my feed. The show means so much to me on so many levels,
and I take every opportunity to gush about it. I'm always going to remember
watching the series with a few friends in high school and that jaw dropping twist
toward the end of the show's run. I wonder what that'll be m I
think it was the first time a cartoon genuinely blew me away. My favorite
fall pastime is to sit my friends down and watch them watch the show.
For the first time. I watched it with my that's kind of the whole
essence of this podcast. Watched the episode, I just watched their facial expressions
exactly. That's what we did with Alexa with Gravity Falls. Yes, absolutely,
I watched it with my partner on our first date, deep in the
pandemic and seeing the reaction to the art the characters that everything was amazing and
yes, this is one of their favorites now too. We went as Worton
Beatrice for Halloween last year. Nice great episode about the pilot. I absolutely
love everything y'all do and can't wait to hear your discussion about the series from
M thank you, M, thank you. So this one comes from a
pd piranha plant or perhaps meaty parana implant. That's a good spooky name.
That's a very good, good one. Yeah. Hello, Charlie, Ella
and Shelby. Longtime listener, first time emailer. I never got to email
during Mystery Shack look Back due to not being part of the original Gravity Falls
fandom. I had no gripping or mundane tales of the time because I'm just
not one to be part of fandoms. However, thanks to over the Garden
Wall airing entirely in one week, I'd say the non fandom viewers recollection of
the time is equally as important as the fandom perspective. Throughout my first viewing
of episodes one and two, I wasn't quite sure what the extent of how
things could get for Whorton Greg. At the time, Cartoon Network was pushing
boundaries on what it could show, and I wasn't sure if this was expected
to be a teen show, much like regular show, which was regular for
the network. I might say so. I was on the edge for a
lot of the time, thinking what if the boys get injured or are they
throw in a jump scare? Well they might. It was quite a roller
coaster of emotions when I first saw them, the same feeling you get watching
ducklings cross a busy road. I don't know if that's what people who weren't
aware of the context of the time feel seeing the show. I hope they
do. I make it a tradition to introduce someone new to the show every
November. Now on to the main point of the email. I wish to
be a carrot when I die, But not just any carrot, no,
A classical purple one from before the Orange Nosaw Dutch Royal family had carrots made
orange for them. I'll be a sight to behold. Whoever digs me up?
Which vegetable would you be? Sincerely, meaty piranha implant. Hmmm,
well this is a very good question, implant. Thank you for your email.
Which vegetable would I be when I die? Yeah, it's a classic
question. You get it at every job interview, of course. Yeah,
it's almost a cliche at this point. But what vegetable do you see yourself
as in five years? I hope I live for longer than five years.
I want to I would, judging by my hair, I would probably be
broccoli. I would want to be broccolini. But I am small and round,
so I think I'm a spaghetti squash. Spaghetti squash kind of sounds like
your name, it does. That's a yump, Yeah, little Betty Betty
Squashler. Yeah. Oh man, Okay, I don't know why this came
to my mind, but I feel like I'm gonna be corn corn. I
love it. So I guess now that we all know, Now we all
know what vegetables are going to be when we enter that that that good night.
Yeah, it's time to actually go into the unknown. So is that
where is that where different rabel are headed in the final episode. Yes,
I guess so, yeah, ready to go into the unknown? No,
no, but let's do it anyway. That's the ninth episode of Over the
Garden Wall, premiered on November seventh, twenty fourteen, on the Cartoon Network.
It was a whole network, just the Cottoons. I know. It's
notably it's the only episode that is a script driven instead of board driven.
So it is written by Cole Sanchez, Bertjon Amelia Lavari, Tom Herpitch,
and Patrick McHale, and it is storyboarded by Cole Sanchez, Vinuen and Zach
Gorman. Cole Sanchez was also a director on Adventure Time, a bord artist
on Flatjack, and a supervising producer on Summer Camp Islands. This episode apparently,
yeah, all right, so let's just watch it then. Goodbye,
Thank you, old Lady Daniels, goodbye Gregory, and please don't call me
old lady. Yes, sir, young man. So that was really weird.
Did we watch the Right to show? The animation looked similar, Yeah,
but it wasn't really about anything like, you know, whimsical or old
timey or anything like that. I do think that poetry with clarinet is pretty
whimsical. That's true, that's true. The episode opens with electric guitar.
Yeah, wait a minute, what's going on here? Waited on a cassette
tape beautiful? That song is the Fight is Over, sung by series creator
Pat McHale. I know there's some you know, anachronistic stuff in over the
Garden Wall, but I mean this is like seventies or eighties. What's going
on here? Yeah, all of the lighting in the backgrounds is artificial and
electric. Yeah, it's a lot more blue, and there's a there's a
yeah, because it's very very candle lit in the unknown, so it's very
orange and here every single house has a blue glow coming out of it,
implying they are all watching TV right even on Halloween. And the music in
this one is based on sitcom stings instead of on the music of the Baltics
or whatever. Yeah, there's some really great little pratfall just like noises,
like when the egg falls over and just goes were And I wonder if the
episode being script driven is to make it feel more like modern cartoons. That
makes a lot of sense to me. But there are a lot of bird
driven modern cartoons as well. It depends on then, but it's definitely I
mean, there weren't script driven cartoons at the time. Oh yeah, yeah,
I see. Yeah, the movie, which is a modern invention.
Yeah yeah. This one does feel more like more like a sitcom or a
TV show than it does a cartoon, especially because it's about well it it
is apparently a prequel episode is a flashback because the end of the last episode
we had the reveal that Greg has apparently made a deal with the Beast,
was walking off with the beast, and then Work just passed out and was
caught by a man or fish and Beatrice. But after all that, we
didn't I didn't really see what happened. And now we're flashing back to work
having made a cassette recording of poetry and clarinet for Sarah, the character that
we heard about back in Lullaby and Frogland, like the girl that he has
a crush on, and you know, of course it's a very sit comy
sort of story. From there, where a lot of the other the other
kids at school like planted I and Sarah's jacket, and then he has to
get the tape back before he gets embarrassed and they hear it and they laugh
and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. And who voices voice is Sarah.
Sarah is voiced by Emily Brundage, who was apparently well one. She
sings a song called Jinky in the Scooby Doop movie A just one singular one
and two. She voices the title character and did a bunch of songs for
a series called Pubertina, which none of us have heard of. I don't
know what Pubertina is other than it being a fantastic drag name. Okay,
I pulled it up. It is from the smash wiki. Okay. Shut
Up Cartoons was a smash YouTube channel that featured original animated content. Uh huh,
created as part of Google's unsuccessful YouTube original channel initiative. I love the
wiki wiki had to specify, Yeah, this thing crashed and burned. Pubertina
was the second cartoon to air on shut Up Cartoons. I I feel like
it failed because the that's a very mean, uh cartoon name. That's a
very like production company name. It says, Join Pubertina as she tackles the
giant pile of mishaps, embarrassment, and acne. That is puberty every Wednesday
right here on shut Up Cartoons, created by Emily Brundage. In fact,
Oh interesting, Wow, Okay, so it's brace face meant big mouth,
yeah meets shut up later. There we go, shut Up La. We
also finally finally meet the iconic, the stallion, the man, the myth,
the legend, Jason Thunderberger. Let's give a hand for him because he
is an absolute specimen of masculinity of the Chad walks in such a Chad mister
steelo girl. Yeah. Absolutely. He's apparently designed based on Patrick McHale's high
school senior portrait photo. Not on purpose, he was. He was drawn
with a suit just you know, on the storyboards, and as Pat was
coloring it in, he's like, oh, maybe I can make the suit
green like the one I wore in high school. Wait a second, that's
my haircut for my school. Oh and Vine Neuen is one of the board
artists on this episode was also one of the inspirations for worts personality. As
Pat says in the art book, I remember I being particularly notorious in college
for accidentally blurting out something insulting, then digging in deeper and deeper a hole
for himself as he tried to talk his way out of it. It was
strangely endearing. Actually, this is a fun one. It's very fun.
I like, we get the origins of a lot of things we fight.
I mean, the outfit primarily right at the beginning, Yeah, yeah,
he cuts the trim off a very erect Santa hat. I said it was
stored with corn starch and is now stiff as a board, right, And
I pointed out that Wort is a pubescent boy, so sometimes you know that
happens to your Santa hat and it's normal, Yeah, just part of growing
up. But and then the the cloak is from like an old Civil war
costume, civil war nurse outfit, and I love that the that the other
kids are like, so, are you just like some kind of gnome?
Like what is it? I don't know, And he doesn't know. But
then when he's when he dresses himself and he puts the fan on to swish
his cape, He's like, yes, yes. So Pat Mcheal points out
that that moment where his cape is swishing in the wind is called back to
at the end when Wort finally actually becomes the hero and walks off into the
snow to find Greg when we cut back to the unknown, so call forward
then yeah, well calls back and for yes, whoa whoa Yes, Sir
Jason Frenderberger sounds like he's in pain all the time. It's fantastic. Yeah,
Cole sam Jays does the funniest mouth breather voice. Oh he worns you're
at Oh what's going on? And like, no one but Wert sees him
as like anything remotely threatening or to be taken seriously, Like he he fails
to startle Sarah when they're walking into the graveyard and she just comforts him on
his fail to like, Oh, you tried your best, You did your
best. It's okay. Yeah. I love that. The whole interaction between
the two, Worre is like, no, he's gonna steal my girl,
and Sarah's just like it's okay, buddy, you're doing your best, Like
there is no romantic tension at all. Yeah, it does. It kind
of reminds me of like the Inconvenience thing, or like any Gravity Falls episode
with the teens where it's like or even like any uh like Steve Universe episodes
where Lars would try to interact with the cool teenagers in that show where like
you have a character who is so like in their own head and so like
debilitatingly anxious all the time about social acceptance, and then the second you see
like from outside of their own perspective, everyone's just like, oh yeah,
like it's whatever. We're They're like, they're just normal, Like they're just
normal people like this. There's a character who sees them as this like unattainable
like institution socially, and then they're just like, oh, yeah, that's
cool, you can hang out with us. Like they're they're excited to see
where at the party, and they when they see them at the graveyard,
they're like, yeah, come on, come hang out. Like they the
idea that they are, you know, this cartoonish like click is entirely in
words head and I think that's really funny and also really like touching and really
true. Okay, so we've just got in an image of Pubertina, and
we also found out what her nickname is. If you scroll, that's I
don't like that. I don't like that at all. I'm sorry. What
would you shortened puper Tina to obviously pubes? Yeah, the wiki says she's
nicknamed Pubes by most of the characters, and that's all. And I don't
like it. That feels like nobody on the show likes her. That's just
mean. I mean it's from shut Up cartoons, So I guess you're right,
we should shut up. My chickens are screaming as loud as they can
out suck. They don't like Pubert. They don't like Pubes as a nickname
either. That's not in the recording. Part of me hopes it is.
So I'm like, I'm like Pubertina, I'm like Pubes. Most people seem
to like word, even though they may lightly tease him sometimes. But where
interprets this as just being an utter pariah, it reminds me of a buller
hat guy. Yeah, ye hey, hey goop cool gool binder, Hey
you want to hang out after school? They all hated be Yeah, that's
pretty pretty much like you see, how just how truly truly like warped Wort's
view of the situation is because we've heard him, you know, saying all
this dramatic poetry stuff before, but out of context, and now it's put
in context where basically, like he accidentally fumbles, like talking to his crush
at a party and then he just launches into oh is the Dove never to
meet the Sea for Watch of the Odious Mountain? And it's like, dude,
not that serious, but same when I was in high school. Yeah,
exactly, that's true. That is very like how it feels when you're
that age. But we have like this outside perspective and through the lens of
a cartoon you can really see like how fundamentally absurd most anxiety is and thunder
birth, how under Berkeley observed absurd most anxiety is absorb absord Yeah, how
fonder Berkeley absword most anxieties one take. I also love all of the background
character costumes. It's yes, someone with just a pizza around their or face.
Yeah. Wonderful spreadsheet of all of the different costumes in the art in
the art book, Yeah, which is linked to the description page one FI
four. I love the guy who's dressed as this cartoon duck who has the
cartoon duck on his shirt for context to what the mask is supposed to pay.
Well, yeah, because Nitkross said, we were trying to design homemade
looking costumes. I remember as a kid, everyone would have those plastic costumes
that you'd buy at the supermarket a Darth Vader plastic mask and a smock that
said Darth Vader on it. I hated those things, so there, Yeah,
there's there's one of those with the cartoon duck, and then another just
as Frankenstein's Monster, with a smock with Frankenstein's Monster on it. I would
say the most important reveal in this whole episode is that the entire main conflict
of the series, the boys being lost, is all a cops fault,
that's true, or a talking cop car. No, they didn't bother showing
us the faces of the police officers because they're not people, but the chase
them over this garden, this garden wall. Yeah, they're harassing kids all
night and then taking way too long to say just getting happy Halloween. But
yeah, the whole thing is the cops fault because Greg and Wurt are in
the cemetery. Why are they in the cemetery, Well, it's what Greg
believes is a frog hunt. Greg is also I feel like we talk a
lot about Greg being the MVP of every episode, and it's still true,
although it's a very work focused one. But we get iconic moments such as
please don't call the old lady. Yes, sir, young man. And
just before we'd enters the Halloween party, there's these two kids standing in front
of the house talking about stickball, sick and ball games besides base ball.
Yeah, baseball is not the only stick of ball game. There's one old
cat, too old cat? Yeah, and he lists one old cat and
two old cat And so Greg has overheard this and what we saw back in
the school episode, Greg attempting to play this is attempt to play the game,
to reconstruct the game from only its title, right, So it's a
call back at call forward situation. How do you play too old cat?
I stip come on speaks for itself. You find two old cats, No,
but not not a too old cat. That cat's too old. Is
that a real game? Is it a real game? I guess it is
a real game. Let's look it up old cat or cat ball? Uh
huh? Were bat and ball safe haven games played in North America? So
it's a it pregates baseball. Yeah, there's a lot of a little kind
of it's like a mix of a callback and a call forward, like setting
up what previously was like a strange out of context thing that now has context
in this this backstory episode, like we see how Greg got the rock facked
rock from old Lady Dan or young man Daniel, sorry, young man Daniel's
yard, and we also we get the exploitation of why we're dressed that way,
but also why Greg is dressed that way, why he has an upside
down teapot on his head. He is stressed as an elephant course, I
mean obviously you see his trunk. Yeah, and this there was going to
be kind of a set up slash payoff for that way back in episode one.
It was a line that got cut when Wert tells Greg like, oh
no, that was a bad plan. I told you to forget that plan.
Greg was going to say an elephant never forgets. But that line was
cut for time, I assume. But I think it would have been really
funny, because that's all it's a It functions without the context, and then
with the context it's even funnier. And not only is Greg in the cemetery
for a frog hunt, but Wort is there because Sarah is there, and
why is Sarah there for you know, ine appropriate drinks? You know,
nothing illegal or anything like, yeah, stuff that's not illegal. I love
that long and I love that we'ren't like either doesn't get it or is playing
along. He's just oh like juice. I mean, he definitely doesn't get
it. When Greg and Wert enter the graveyard though, when they're hiding behind
the gravestones to spy on Sarah and Jason Vouderberker and the rest of them,
one of the gravestones actually has the name Quincy Endicott written on it aka the
eccentric rich guy from the episode Mad Love What, and the gravestone next to
it you cannot read, but it is in a distinctly French Rococo style,
which implies which implies that that would be Mago Gras gravestone Ella the Quincy Endicott
gravestone. And the fact that we see they travel into the unknown by drowning
seems to imply a lot of what we've already kind of been theorizing about.
These children are dead or somewhere between life and death or are they in a
coma the whole time, much like Ash catch Him before them. Yes,
indeed we're Finn from Adventure time depending on who you ask, but yeah,
it certainly would make a lot of sense given all the Dante's Inferno type stuff
we've been seeing thus far in the show. They head over the garden wall
immediately almost get hit by a train, and then they fall into freezing water.
The old black train, The old black train. What about that old
black train? I hear it a comet? Yeah. Yeah. After that,
we get wort and dirt. Yeah, otp, this is my my
I call it otport. Did you do wort? We meet the rest of
Beatrice's family. Yeah, oh no, they're all blue birds. They're all
snuggling wort to keep him warm in a tree, in a tree, and
uh yeah, Beatrice, this mom is the only one that speaks. She's
played by Shirley Jones, famously from Oklahoma and the Partridge Family and the music
band Partridge Family. No, they're blue yeah Partridges. And they're not in
a pear tree. They're in an ad wood tree. That's true. They
twist your expectations and that's that. At the beach, this is the bethtub.
Yeah. After that, he goes into the unknown with the with the
hero callback cape thing to the unknown for real, this time forres and finally
having his ARC moment of admitting that he was never any good to his brother
alive because He's also still really mean in this flashback, and we get a
little more info about their family. Uh. He goes off about you know,
once again, you've ruined my life. You and your dad always trying
to get me to joint marching band. Yeah wait, you will play Clara.
Yeah, also get him closer to Sarah. Like, like Greg pointed
out, it's like, wait, if you were if you want to hang
out with someone, if you want to hang out with the mascot and you
play clarinet, why wouldn't you want to join? I mean it's again,
it's just showing how how abs were anxiety tends to be. Yeah, that's
to play against your interests a lot of the time thunders were. Yeah.
Yes, I just love how Greg's brain works, like it's very much like
a b This is what you need to do, Like you want to hang
out with Sarah, play the clarinet, join the marching band. He is
unspoiled by all of the uh garbage that an adult brain will give you.
Sometimes my brain just gives me garbage. Uh huh yeah yeah, mostly just
my brain telling me to eat my dirt. Yeah, let's all have a
quick snack break with some dirt. When when we come back, we'll cover
the final episode Over the Garden Well, Sunday. Was it a Sunday?
No, it wasn't. Oh it's a Friday. Came wayward, so little
wander through the dup darkness. There is a light for the lost, Stand
them salt and feisally for godtin when you submit to the soul, love the
ar So considering the last step, the previous episode was called Into the Unknown,
I wonder what this episode is called? What could it be? It
could be anything. It's a final episode. It's like the final chapter of
this story. Do you what's it called. It's kind of like the end
of this very long podcast journey. Actually, yeah, a little bit,
a little bit, and then it will be left to just go out into
some kind of uh, well unknown I guess, or unknown well where it
is dressed as some kind of gnome as we learned, but he's not sure
if he's a gnome, so he's which makes it unknown. He's he's wearing
an unknome costume. Yeah. So that's the tenth and final episode of Over
the Garden Wall. Oh yeah, when did it premiere? Oh? November
seventh, twenty fourteen. On a Little station. You might have heard of
that from that, you know, Ted Turner himself, the Cartoon Network.
Ohleodore Turner? How'd you get him? Turner? Yeah, Theodor Turner and
the Worst David? Who is it? Who is it? Written and storyboarded
by the Well I was written a story word by Natasha leg Rey, Jim
Campbell and Tom herpitch. Of course, of course, of course, of
course. Do you want to watch it? No? Yeah? Wait,
no, Ellie, you don't want to. It's two against one, so
yeah, I'll watch, Okay, Google, I believe in democracy, weird
energy in this episode. I love it, though. Are you ready to
see too Darkness? Are you? Are you? So? We just finished
watching Over the Garden Wall. Wait, I think you're a little ahead.
I'm still on the credits. Well, the credits is when it's over,
Ella, Well, we still had to see a rock go down first.
Yeah, you said something before the rock even went down. The rock went
down, and you know what that means? That Dad at that dad at
that cartoon cartoons. I would have to do that with the cartoon cartoon Cartoonoon.
Welcome to Cartoon Cardoon. Fridays, I'm TVs. The I'm TV's that
was a good joke that we made years ago. Yeah, so we just
finished Over the Garden Wall. The Rock went down, The rock went down,
The rock went down. I love this finelle. It's amazing. It
really really is amazing. In the art book they talk about how everyone who
boarded this episode had to do like a billion revisions because they kept retooling it.
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It's pretty tight. So
do you want to read this bit about the three acts? Show me?
All right? So the episode could be divided into three acts, each with
individual color palettes. The first was mostly white, the second black, whereas
the third is colorful. Pat McHale, the show's creator. Set in the
art of Over the Garden Wall book, the lighting in the second act is
meant to feel like a stage. That reference to the stage and opera is
a parent throughout, and is even more apparent through the evident talent of Samuel
Ramie, who portrays the Beast. Samuel Ramie was a star of the American
opera, and it shows through his operatic way of singing. Him when he
sings come Wayward Souls, I just want to like lay like my neck and
back on his vocal cords, to get like a to get like a massage
chair kind of effect out of his dibrata. It's actually how he performs it
on a massage chair, on a massage That's nice, that's very convenient.
Now I want to get a message. Can we just all get massage.
Let's go get a massage after this. I would love on my shoulders.
I have all of all of the tension I've ever had in my life is
still in my shoulders. Shelby con the US money to get massages over at
patreon dot com, slash mystery Shag. We're just gonna We're gonna be honest
here, We're gonna use the money to get massages here. Here, you're
here. I really love the sheer amount of operatic influences that this show does
take. Oh yeah, it's like kind of mind blowing to me because a
lot of people do say that opera is a dying art, but it's not.
And the fact that it does live on and things like over the Garden
Wall where they mirror like not only the structure of it, but they like
mirror other operas like Canceling, Gretel and every It's just it's really cool to
me the way that this show is done maybe a dying art, but this
episode is about dying. That's true. There's a lot of tech and I
love the first kind of set piece of the episode. Amalia Lavari says it
best in the art book, saying, so much of the humor in the
series comes from Greg's fearlessness. The points of suspense and actual fear. The
stakes come out of his courage, but also his obliviousness. One of my
favorite scenes is his encounter with the Beast because of how casually a child can
answer degrees of evil, the degree to which the Beast is sinister doesn't register
with Greg because his worldview doesn't make room for that caliber of ill intent.
Being able to take a character like that into an actually dangerous situation was really
challenging and really thrilling. We wanted to be true to his character, and
we wanted to be true to the impulses that he has, which tend to
vacillate between being really funny and kind of terrifying. Because he has this this
series of challenges that the Beast puts before Greg, and Greg, you know,
aces all of them by finding these creative white milk. The cape as
red as flood Slipper is cold, Yeah, pretty much, because he has
this inventiveness that really only his perspective could give as as as a child.
And it's so interesting how the Beast talks to him because he's not like actively
threatening, Like it's like the Beast still understands that this as a child,
and he is using him for his own ends, but not in a way
that makes Greg feel uncomfortable. Greg feels like he's winning, is winning always,
no way he's dying. But even as he's dying, as he's being
transformed into an adle wood tree, he tells where like I did and I
beat the beast, because that's how that whole scene went down. We also
get to reveal yeah, soiling green is people. The adle wood trees that
the Woodsman has been chopping up to fuel the lantern solent green are soiling green
and that's people. Well they're more brown. Well, I got leaves on
him, brown leaves, well, multiicolored leaves. It's fall, turning turning
into winter though turning into winter. Yes, this episode also kind of transitions
us from an autumn scenery to a winter scenery. He was also eating some
leaves earlier. It's my favorite line in the whole episode. I was just
eating some leaves as he's dying. U and Work reunites with Beatrice in this
episode, and we get the song one is a Bird, which I think
is also sung by a Shirley Jones. Yes, sure is. I think
we heard a little instrumental of it in the previous episode and maybe some episodes
prior. It's kind of been like Beatrice's motif because Beatrice is a bird.
Yeah, she's the one, the titular one. She is the one.
And Word is the guy. Yeah, he is the guy. I'm the
guy, the real guy. And I say, we go in, we
beat this unwinnable level and we get to the other side. We're untold riches
in a bounty fit for ten kings awaits us. Oh, he's definitely the
guy. But yeah, I love how they calling back to that quote.
It's really interesting because I never thought about the way the color palette does distinctly
change in the three acts. Yeah, and lighting it like a stage I
never thought about too, because the lantern like lights it in this void like
a stage light. And like I guess it's like the transfer between one and
the other is when it goes from the silhouette of the white into the black,
and then this luette of the black with the white in it, Like
that's the transfer from one to the other, which is very and yang thing.
Yeah, yeahhh, this just's so good. It's so good. There's
the one background when the Woodsman is walking and it's like you see, it's
kind of a sunset where there's still like color hitting the trees in the sky,
but everything else is white and gray, and just like that's I love
this shit. Aren't white and gray? The main character's name you're thinking of
Gandalf Wiret and Greg. That's Gandalf the gan off the wort, off the
wort and off the Greg, get off the wort and gan off the Greg.
Yes. So the operatic music that accompanies Dying Greg, Oh my god,
it's the funniest and saddest thing in the world is a cover of his
of his hit track Potatoes and Molasses in Latin, sung by a child choir,
sung slowly and dramatically. I think that's Colin Deine sing. I think
it's yeah, I think it's a single. It's a single voice. It's
just calling, but like there's a choir that comes in with a oh oh,
tiny Seed, that's true. Yes, uh, performed by Colin Dean
and the Unknown Children's Square and then yeah, Greg kind of steps back to
it. Ladies and gentlemen, the Unknown Children's choir, Tiny Seed, aren't
they wonderful? Aren't they wonderful? Folks? Now I am going to die?
And the frog looks so sad and cold with his little crossed legs when
he's leaning up against the tree. With the art book says that the frog's
expressions are supposed to be the key into how Greg is feeling. Yeah,
I think I think that stays pretty consistent throughout, but here, especially in
a similar manner to Cami and Street Fighter Watch Street Fighter. For Mystery Shack
Look Back, we called Kylie Minogue John Claude Van Dam's emotional interpreter because his
acting is so bad we don't know what we're supposed to feel when he performs
until Kylie reacted to it right. And in this case, Greg has an
excuse on account if he's being transformed into a tree. That was the case
for j C in that fing probably also getting kind of a kind of an
Et and Elliott vibe of like, yeah, I can picture the frog frog
like pasty white, washed up on a riverbank, like dying, like et
frogs are just like yeah, well or et is just like frogs. They're
slimy, they sound like a chainsmoker, that kind of thing. They get
everywhere, they get everywhere, they get everywhere. So we get to see
the beast very briefly. We get to see the beast's true form. It's
real bad. Don't like looking at it. I don't either. It's to
avoke trip to phobia. But it's only like, not all of him is
on frame at once. We got a quick glimpse each like section of him
has only a frame. He's made of a bunch of crying faces. Yeah,
which makes sense. If he himself is made of the Ata wood,
then he's made of lost souls, wayward souls, in fact, wayward souls.
Yeah. They came to him, him eat them, and then him
eat them Ella eat them souls, and that's not good. And and the
woodsman didn't know he was helping the beast eat them souls. No, if
he had known, he never would have agreed to their whole arrangement. Oh
yes, the background that I really like is in the art book. It's
on page one sixty eight. Yes, yes, And I love that the
Woodsman like exits, you know, stage left to have a boss battle with
the beast that we don't see, just so that Work can come in and
have a private conversation with Greg. Yeah. Oh, and we get Greg's
like this really really fascinating insight. I think it too, like Greg's whole
character this whole time, because he reveals in the previous episode we saw that
he got the rock facts rock from young Man Daniel's garden, but here he
reveals that he actually stole it, that he is a stealer and that is
a rock fact, and like the realization that he's been carrying that guilt with
him like the whole time, and that everything that Wurtz said has only been
like implanting that further and further in his head, that like, this is
all your fault. You have done something terrible and now it has killed us.
Yeah, is heartbreaking, just like the way a child brain puts those
pieces together even though they don't make sense right. And it's tragic for Word
as well, because he's only just now realized the error of how he's been
interacting with with Greg this whole time. And here's Greg saying, yeah,
you were right all along. You know, I am a screw up and
I should just be left here. And the word of the first episode might
have just left the word of episode one might have just left him there.
Yeah, and now and now it's it's all he wants to do is bring
his brother home, and this is the one time that he can't because he's
turning into a tree and dying, which is you know, who can't relate
to that? Yeah? I can relate deeply though, to the kind of
to what I interpret from the whole Beast and Lantern situation. I started to
see it as a really apt like analogy or metaphor could be read for obsessive
compulsive disorder, where the Beast is essentially a representation of OCD because he has
convinced to the Woodsman that he needs to do this task repeatedly forever, or
else his daughter will die, his daughter's soul will be extinguished. He implants
these like terrible, terrible ideas into the Woodsman's head and says, you have
to do X, Y Z or else this will happen, which is a
course complete nonsense. But Work is the only one who realizes that from his
outside perspective, because he just says, wait, that's dumb, because the
whole, you know, the essence of OCD is that fulfilling your compulsion never
actually helps the thing you think it's helping. It only feeds the OCD more
it is the beast's soul in the lantern. You are only serving itself.
It's not actually doing what it says it's doing. Yeah, and even Wort
says, like, you just have some obsession with keeping this lantern. It's
almost like it's your soul. And he's like, what, no, no,
it's your soul. Shut up. Yeah, yeah, I love work
failing at his badass line it's like are you ready to see true darkness?
And where it's like are you? Are you? But then he does he
actually does get a pretty bad ass moment where he goes to blow out the
lantern and then just kind of goesh, yeah I thought so, and then
he just puts it down by the woodsman and is like, yeah, this
is your fight, not mine. That's that's genuinely like just satisfying moment for
him. And apparently the Woodsman's daughter was just still in the house. Apparently
you just forgot to look at his house, right, which I mean I
think I initially thought like, oh, that's such a cop out. It
should be like about accepting grief and stuff. But it's through the OCD lens.
It does make a lot of sense because a lot of times the thing
that you think is wrong isn't even actually wrong in the first place. Like
there's actually a no problem and you have completely invented it. She's like,
yo, Dad, where you bit? Yeah, you haven't been here in
like a few months. What's up? Well, I thought, yeah,
although didn't the cut did the comics give an explanation of that? Yeah,
she just no, that's it. He just didn't see her in the house.
Oh well, she probably was like out, so okay. So as
a kid, I was always like super paranoid that the rapture was gonna happen,
and it was a completely interrational thing. No, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, And so like my terror was anytime I could not get in contact
with my friends or my family like happened and you were left behind exactly.
So I feel like it's probably that kind of scenario, like she was literally
just out getting bred. He didn't know where or why why would you tell
a kid about that because Christianity's freaked. But yeah, no, I assume
that that's what it was. Like there was just like no note was left,
and so he just started spiraling too, my daughter is gone, like
because he has oct exactly and he well he also I feel like he's like,
well, I don't know, life EXPECTANCYE in this time period is like
what thirty, So she's probably dead. I mean, like in a hypothetical
situation, like it could have been that there was a storm that separated them
and he went to go look for her, and that was his entrance into
the unknown, was that he got like he had a near death experience looking
for his daughter. Right. We do know all this because there is a
comic about it. Yeah, my story better than just she was just in
the house and he forgot to look. Yeah, it was something like that.
I could I could go look real quick if y'all want. Yeah,
chrack, chrack, based where's my daughter? Did you check inside the house?
Oh no, I didn't. Sorry, whole things circumvented. Oh wait,
no, I mean he's she's in the lantern. No, No,
you're right, she was in the house. She was in the house.
Can't No, I like big boots and I cannot lie all right one sick
y'all. In the meantime, I will point out that when we venture into
the real world again, when we're back safe at the hospital, there is
a wide shot of the city and for seemingly no reason, it's the same
city as the town and the show Clarence, which was another cartoon network show.
Reason is that there was a lot of work put into this episode and
it's safe that they tried to reuse the background. Yeah, it's just fascinating
how like it is, because there's like, you know, there's a very
specific bowling Alley sign or it's like, you know, they're using a very
non generic looking city background, so you know, it's it's what It's kind
of like one of those Pixar theory things, where like Tixart will reuse assets
because movies are expensive and they have everything in like a CG backlot to pick
and reuse, and then people interpret that as a shared universe thing. But
I do think it would be really funny if something as like grim as Over
the Garden Wall existed in the same universe as Clarence, which is an incredibly
lighthearted show. Well, it doesn't exist in a separate world. So that
means if Clarence were to drown, I mean also separate time period, right,
because Clarence is a takes place in the modern day and this is apparently
the seventies or eighties or something. Yeah. So, yeah, she was
told to not go out because he was afraid she would get hurt. She
does make me wicked. Yeah, no, well he's yes, very paranoid
that something bad is gonna happen to her because of what happened to his wife.
Okay, so she goes out anyway, he goes looking for her and
runs into the beast. She did run into the beast prior to that,
so you'd think, oh, maybe the beast got her. But she comes
back and says, you were right about the beast, but I made it
home safe and sound, didn't I. So next time I go into the
woods at night, we don't have to be afraid of him, do you
see? We just and he is not at that so I think maybe you're
right about that OCD thing exactly. That whole line that she says about we
can go out and not be afraid is like that is the antidote, that
is the antithesis of what Ozdi tells you. But it also could be interpreted
since she did run into the beast and he cannot find her that maybe she
isn't in her house proper. Maybe she's being kept somewhere pocket dimension house.
Yeah, that looks like her house. Or maybe yeah, she ran into
the beasts. She got away, and he saw the beasts they were ships
passing in the night. Yeah. I like the the unknowning of of Greg
and Wurt In the end, Greg's good boy haircut is very good. Greg's
good boy haircut. Yeah, Like they clean him up and they give him
a brescious hair He looks so fancy and his pajamas and his grippy socks.
What what a sweet beans? And he's wearing a Sarah's top hat or the
frog is yeah, well, Jason Funderberger is Yeah, I only get the
name of the of of our frog, Jason Frog. No, no,
no, no, not your frog, hour not you Jason Funderberger, Jason
Vanderberger by frog. And I don't know if this is confirmed, but I
think I think I've seen in order to distinguish, I think I've seen Jason
Funderberger the frog's name spelled with like a different letter like a you and intead
of an E somewhere, instead of Jason Voderberger the pathetic man, it would
just be how Greg thinks it spelled. Okay, yeah, there you go.
We also get something that I find really interesting of like, you know,
the closing narration starts of like was it all a dream or whatever?
Something something, But when Greg is showing off the frog to everybody, he
shakes the frog and the bell that is still in the frog's tummy glows the
ringing of the bell, And I think that's really interesting because I love,
you know, anytime there's a little hint of like, okay, maybe it
did really happen, like it isn't just Wizard of Oz esque and you were
there and you were there, you weren't there Jason Vanderberger. Yeah, No,
it's it's hinted to have been real. I would say, right,
I mean, that's kind of hard to dispe Yeah. But then there's the
I don't know. I liked that there's not really a clear answer because there's
that, and there's also the tombstones from the previous episode with Quincy Endicott's name
on it, which is also pretty indisputable. I don't know, did we
have any theories back then gang as to what was going on? I was
just watching it with rapt attention, being like, what is what is happening
here? Yeah? But I had gotten into it two years after it premiered,
right, Yeah, I had seen it. I was pretty involved in
the Gravity Falls fandom on Tumblr, so I had seen it discussed a lot.
So I had seen Purgatory mentioned and kind of went into the series knowing
that was an interpretation of form. Nah. Yeah, I think that because
of how quickly the episodes were released, because it was a mini series,
there wasn't time for speculation. Yeah, it's very much in the moment of
Gravity Falls, where this was released all in a week, and Gravity Falls
was released, you know, painfully slowly. So then the speculation comes on
the Overall series. What is it about? What are the themes? Where
are they? The over the Garden Wall. Yeah, overall is a shortened
nickname for over the Garden Wall. My favorite thing of the world. Yeah,
overall. I love overalls, like wearing overalls. Yeah, yeah,
you've dressed Greg over the Garden, Greg over the gardenals. I need to
make some of those some just like overalls with over the Garden Wall characters.
Yeah, I think that's why these last two or maybe just the last episode
like fuels the speculation the most because that's, you know, people viewed it
as a pretty much a completed piece, whereas instead of going from week to
week, I'll say one of my favorite things is that if you do watch
the last episode and then go back and watch the first episode, as I
usually do with shows like I usually go back and watch the first episode after
I finished the last one. Yeah, it's a circle. Like everything that
happens in that first rhyme, Yeah, it kind of like it reflects back
on that first episode really beautifully. It's just right great because we see the
old mill again. He goes back to the house and tries to refuel the
lantern as we hear the reprise of Into the Unknown now with the full chorus.
We do see, yes, the the images from the first episode,
except more hopeful and optimistic this time. So instead of Quincy Endicott looking frightened
at a dim portrait of Marguerite Gray, a well lit portrait of Quincy Endicott
is admired by Marguerite Gray, all of them with man with bread, the
horse, Yeah, and then we see Langtree and Jimmy Brown at the circus.
It was me. We see Beatrice and her family turned back into humans
because had the scissors the whole time and didn't say because he was mad,
which makes sense. And we see them reunited with the dog. The dog,
the dog who is not the beast. The dog is not the best
your beautiful eyes Beatrice's dog or is now she stole it? And the mill
was Beatrice's family's house because in the first episode there's a lot of bluebird imagery
I believe in the in the house. Oh he stole her, that's whose
house he stole, I believe, So why do you do that? The
fixed back up? Thank you? And then of course one of the vignettes
in the first episode is Greg picking up the rock, Greg stealing the rock
from young man Daniel's yard, and the last image is Greg putting it back.
Yes, which is just I love this show. I love symmetry so
much. It's like poetry rhymes every stand. Hey, this podcast is kind
of over, isn't it over? In the garden wall? You know it's
really spooky, is podcasts ending? Yeah? This podcast is dead dead,
But anything we have to say before we go before we mosey on out of
here and clean up all these cobwebs and things and lock her up for the
season. Any final thoughts on Over the Garden Wall or podcast. I just
I just think that's one of the most perfect pieces of media just as a
whole. It's not long enough to have developed any flaws, which is beautiful.
Well, that's true. They do talk in the art book about we
never learn the mysteries of the Black Turtles, and they talk about how in
a lot of cultures there is this idea of doing an imperfect stitch on purpose
on a pass of clothing, and they describe the the lack of solution to
the black Turtle's mystery as that right, and that's why it's perfect. If
it had every question answered, it wouldn't be as exciting to think about to
this day. And I think same with gravity Falls. There are questions that
gravity Falls never answered intentionally to keep it alive, keep you talking, keep
you thinking about it forever mm hm, forever clever. If you yes,
you like tomatoes, if you like to talk to tomatoes, boom. If
you want to find more episodes of this podcast, go to our host network
Pipe dreampodcasts dot com, where you can find other shows like Escape from valt
Disney, How did This not get made? Come on Fuqua pods and pod
made you specially where they talk about veggie till talk to tomatoes t veggie tit.
Well, I don't know if they how tomatoes. They should get my
wife on it so they can talk to it to talk to tomatoes. That
is true, You're right, because they like to talk to tomat Yes,
well, you're on pipetreon podcast dot com. You can find a link to
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Slash Mystery Shack. I don't know if you know this, but I wasting
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we can continue to this podcast doesn't disappear one day. You can read
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go to sleep. David, you're not supposed to be listening to this.
David's as love, May you go the way of Bob Jpek. You can
check out our merg shore crowdmate dot com, slash collection slash Mystery Shack look
Back and what better gift than the gift of a Mystery Shack look backshirt.
That's true, It's true. Contact us at Mystery Shack look Back at gmail
dot com. Thank you to Simmon the dim BULBB two hyphen zero for our
intro instrumental And uh, I have something to plug. I mean we should
all say our twitters and such. You're right, so this is the last
episode of a Garden. I don't know that, well, maybe not Twitter
still exists. Yeah, I start us off, Charlie, what do you
have to plug? I have a new show now that now that this podcast
is over, I'm constantly scheming, constantly working, constantly rubbing your hands together,
sinisterly. I like to challenge myself and do something different than what I
did last So a lot of people know me for an improv show, after
which I made a comic do. I worked at a Renaissance fair, I
produced a play for MAGFest. Yeah. So, now that I'm done with
this podcast, I thought it was the time to bring back the abridged series.
They will Never Die. It's real and it'll never die. I created
a series kind of based on what I learned to find interesting about myself through
this podcast and other sources. During the pines Quest episode where I got to
dump about Zelda, it occurred to me that, oh, this is not
a past obsession for my childhood. This is something I'm still very much actively
passionate about. So I have a new show called Well Abridged Me Princess,
which can be found on well abridge meprincess dot tumblr dot com. It is
a comedy dub of the nineteen eighty nine Legend of Zelda cartoon, with me
as the voice of Link and Zelda Ella co writes it. Yeah, Shelby
voices rite. I'm really proud of it. I'm for once just focusing on
me and what I think I'd like to make instead of what I think would
get money or attention or articles written about it. Please check it out.
I'm really proud. Well, I guess I'll plug my Instagram at drone without
ref It's the same as Twitter, whatever Twitter becomes in this wild, messed
up universe of hours. And yeah, you can check out my art and
my animation and all that sort of good stuff there. You can also,
I did just do a guest spot on pod Major Special. You can check
that out as well, we've done guest spots on most of the Pipe Dream
podcast. At this point, I would say, all right, you could
check us out on Escape from Walt Disney. Come on for hooko pods and
how did this not get made? So yeah, basically all of them,
all the currently running ones. Yeah. Yes, So my handle on just
about every platform is at Shelby Sessler, just my name, my website Shelbysesler
dot com. And right now on YouTube, I'm working on a couple of
owl House related things, specifically a prequel series. I'm working with an artist
named moon Meg, and so those will be released on Shelbeanie voiceover Shelbeanie vo
on YouTube. Nice. So, signing up for the final time for the
foreseeable future, I'm shooking Showy, and I'm chilling Charlie at this point more
of a winter chill. Just had a chilling chilling. It has been my
extreme honor to have been l snare wolves. We brought it back. How
the gentle winds beacons through the leaves, uses honor colors, full dancing in
a swirl of golden memois, loveliest yes of wootsman. The time has come
once again. Indeed, the moon cloths fall above. It must be time
to thank the patroots for keeping the lantern fuel as I toil in the depths
of the forest. Our dearest, gratitude to Diddy Drift, Todd Diddy Buttons,
add on with joy, sit and an m easy snake, Oven friendly
local Geek, Hope, he Salinas, Jamie Belts, May, Oliver,
Pluto, Tuneo Series, Richard Scanling, Rowe Davis, Samantha Endley, Spencer,
Neil Campbell, Vnilin, Zuko Haiti, Purana, plant b Calusota,
David Cancel, Gwynn Prime, Calphen, Dossie Junior, bra Jesse, Marie
McDougall, Rhyme Favor, Mamportin de Wambortin, Elizabeth Newenfeld, Stephen Patrick,
Mulholland, Stooling, Jubilation, Axel and roll for Arcana. Be sure to
keep that lantern lit. Woodsman, pray you don't disappoint me, help me
carry my endless burden through the night. And Patreon not God slash mystery shack