Over the Garden Wall

Over the Garden Wall is a cartoon series consisting of 10 episodes that follows two brothers, Greg and Wirt with a bluebird Beatrice, and a frog, as they try to find their way out of the woods and back home. The narrative of the cartoon depicts a victorian esk story portrayal of two brothers trying to find their way home, whilst they meet with wonderful and weird creatures along the way. The story of each episode in the series has a Grim Brothers fairytale like structure to both the design of the world and the characters, including the way they pronounced their dialogue. The dialogue being quite formal with the majority of characters that are introduced, pronouncing each syllable; this helps to create an ages atmosphere over the cartoon, linking with the character and world structure. The Grim Brothers influence can be seen through the small adventures that they undertake, such as the episode 'The Ringing of the Bell' where Greg and Wirt stumble across an old cottage, in which an old woman and maid reside. The brothers soon realise that the girl is being deceived as the old woman rings a bell in which the girl has to obey any command. After trying to rescue the young girl, the brothers see the girl for what she really is, a demon, who the old woman was trying to protect all along. This form of narrative strongly reminds me of the Grim Brothers with the twist in the story that makes you question who is good and who is evil.

The main target audience is the young generation with it being released weekly on Cartoon Network, however darker themes are portrayed through the show which seem to be aimed at an older audience much like Adventure Time. With this form of narrative compared to the rest of the show, the narrative reveals what the world and what the beast that follows and infects the world and its inhabitants actually are. This unveiling makes the rest of the adventures that the brothers undertook make more sense with the reality of the situation that they are in, how the main characters seem so different, almost alien compared to the rest of the characters that they interact with.

The character design is quite simple and drawn in such an illustrative style that it suits the younger target market that the program channel Cartoon Network aim for; The use of the dark narrative works well with the illustrative style that is mixed with a victorian fashion.

The personality of the older brother Wirt is portrayed through his facial expression and demeanour with a slouched posture and lowered shoulders to depict his gloomy and stubbon moods. The facial expressions are quite exaggerated with the movement of the mouth with decreasing in size or increasing to the point it fills most of his lower face, pupils extremely smaller to show shock etc. Wirt's body language highly effects the tone of mood that he is engulfed with, throughout the narrative he is quite anxious of the new characters that he meets, a hunched posture and closed off from people by keeping his arms wrapped around himself or taking a step back. Whereas Greg is always optimistic, which changes Wirt's attitude by taking a straight posture, becoming more confident seen in his dramatic movements with his arms or moving his hat, and walking with a slight bounce, a 'skip in his step' as he helps different characters. In some cases with his body language it is exaggerated through the use of his joints in his arms in which remind me slightly of adventure time through how they can wave compared to the movement in a more realistic arm.

The younger brother 'Greg' holds a happy outlook portrayed in both his body language and his facial expressions as he wonders to the next adventure with the world as they search for a way home. With Gregs attitude the solution to the episodes problems are unlikely solved with an action that he accidentally does. He often spins and dances, exaggerating the width of his steps and skipping slightly with his arms outstretched which works well with his happy facial expressions, creating a happy go lucky demeanour.