It’s a short 3 minutes and 18 seconds, but it’s anything but simple. For starters, claymation is damned difficulteven for a short like this. That makes it all the more impressive, because there’s a lush beauty and thoughtful care woven throughout the clip: it’s a beautiful piece of animation, full of detail and texture and verve and Wirt, Greg, Beatrice and Pot George Washington Jason Funderburker.
So where did this come from? The “10th anniversary” of Over the garden wall‘s first episode on November 3 is the occasion. But Garden wall Creator Patrick McHale told Inverse that is his work on Guillermo Del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio film definitely got the stop-motion bug in him. “I’ve always loved stop motion,” McHale said in the interview. “But when you see all those beautiful dolls Pinocchio it certainly made me want to get the OTGW characters in my hands and move their little arms and legs around!
Unfortunately, McHale says that’s the extent of the plans he has for the Over the garden wall universe, noting that he “wouldn’t want to mess with it” by expanding the franchise. So wherever this clip appears in the canonical story of Garden wall is the extent of the new Greg and Wirt we’ll get (at least until maybe the 20th anniversary brings a new animation project, maybe).
It’s no surprise that the short running time feels monumental, even ten years later. Even through a short montage of glimpses of Garden wall‘s many characters, the caring and the friendly, creepy come to the fore, wonderful and classic Americana. Drawing of the Hudson River Schoolthe art evokes the early twilight that affects so many of us after the switch to daylight saving time. It’s easy to return from the golden sunbath of stop-motion to the stream of episodes. This is the moment. It’s always time.
Over the garden wall is now streaming on Hulu.