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Hi all, I'm Jay. I'm a children's librarian who has watched Over the Garden Wall every autumn since 2014, and decided on my fifth year of doing so to write about it. Click Read In Order to sort by oldest to newest, and check out Steven, Universally for my main page.
Chapter 6: Lullaby in Frogland
Let’s look back. Way back. Back before the dawn of animation, before the dawn of film, well before Ruby or Spears or Disney or Iwerks or either Fleischer Brother. Back to 1835, in a town named Florida in a state named Missouri when a boy named Samuel was born.
Like Ub Iwerks, Sam was raised in Missouri. And like Max Fleischer, Sam’s family took a financial hit when his father’s work stopped (this time due to a premature death rather than the decline of tailory), giving Sam a practical approach to employment. He left school at age eleven to become a printer’s apprentice, then moved to his older brother’s newspaper as a typesetter and occasional columnist, writing humorous articles and drawing cartoons. But unlike Beatrix Potter or the animators we’ve covered, visual art wasn’t in the cards for Sam.
He moved to the East Coast to work for other papers, bouncing between cities before returning to the midwest to embark on a career he’d dreamed of since he was old enough to dream: piloting a steamboat. He thrived on the water, and kept writing about his work along the river, but everything stopped when the Civil War closed off the Mississippi. So Sam headed west to work for the same brother who once ran the newspaper, now a politician in Nevada (I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this brother was for some reason named Orion). Sam tried mining, and it didn’t take, but he’d gotten pretty good at writing and set off for San Francisco to get back into his jocular brand of journalism.
It was here that he had his first success, a short story published in his paper called Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog. But, like a certain frog we’ve covered in this series, Sam wasn’t huge on permanent names. Within a month, the story was reprinted as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Jim Smiley’s name was changed to Jim Greeley. Until the book version came out, when it was changed back to Jim Smiley. And this whole time, within the story, it’s a mystery whether Jim’s real name is actually Leonidas (it turns out that it isn’t, but it mightbe). None of this should come as a surprise for Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the names of Josh, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, and most famously, Mark Twain.
“I knew you were special.”
Over the Garden Wallis, among other things, a story about the importance of solid communication. After five episodes spent building up our heroes as a group of friends, all it takes is one episode of terrible communication to throw it all away. The specific issues vary, despite leading to a similar result of not verbalizing their thoughts very well: Greg’s youth stops him from articulating his rapidly changing ideas, Wirt’s anxiety leaves him too timid to speak up or too rambling to be clear, Beatrice’s true intentions make her obfuscate the truth, and Jason Funderburker straight-up can’t talk. Or so we think.
This time he’s named for American statesmen George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, which fits the continuing vintage Americana vibe of the series—while I figure it’s a coincidence, it should be noted that Mark Twain’s Jumping Frog was named after American statesman Daniel Webster. Surrounded by other frogs that walk around and wear fancy garb, our frog is more anthropomorphic than ever, standing on his hind legs and dancing along with Greg. But it’s still a shock to hear him open his mouth and sing, a shock that soon cedes to the realization that the frog playing the piano at the beginning of the series is singing the Jack Jones song in the montage that follows.
Lullaby in Froglandis Jason Funderburker’s episode through and through, so much so that it’s the first time we hear of his namesake, Jason Funderberker. This is an episode where Wirt rejects Greg’s assertion that their frog is“our frog,” a plot point that’s paid off in their last conversation in the series. This is an episode where Greg wonders aloud if he can be a hero, sees the frog set off on a diverging path immediately afterwards, and accepts it, because he’s willing to sacrifice his happiness for the good of others. And it’s an episode where the frog returns after a harrowing betrayal, showing that even when all seems lost, there’s still room for hope. Over the Garden Wall (the song) might not sound like a traditional lullaby, but it soothes us into a cold night as the sun sets on the first half of Over the Garden Wall(the show).
Adelaide’s true nature is foreshadowed by Beatrice’s sudden hesitance to bring the brothers to the pasture after several episodes of nagging, but the twist is made tragic by Wirt finally letting his guard down enough to be happy. He sings a completed Adelaide Paradewith Greg and joins the dance before collapsing into the most earnest laughter I’ve ever heard in a cartoon. He’s a good enough friend to notice when Beatrice is“uncharacteristically wistful,” and takes a risk by playing the bassoon instead of just giving up. He’s still got growing to do—it’s one thing to blame Greg for getting them in trouble by throwing away the ferry fare and forcing them to sneak aboard, but another thing to literally shout“Take him, not me!” when confronted by the frog fuzz—so it’s clear that his journey isn’t over yet, but he doesn’t even get a full episode of peace before everything blows up.
The whole steamboat sequence flows between simple delights, like saluting the captain mid-chase, the revelation that the frogs love music more than they hate trespassers, and the repeated gags of three gentlemen frogs snatching up flying flies and a frog mother dropping her tadpoles. Everything just feels calm, even when antics are afoot. Wirt gets to save the day with his bassooning, Greg gets to feel rewarded in his knowledge that his frog is special, Jason gets to sing a song after being silent throughout the series, and Beatrice seems, for now, to come to a sort of peace about things after several clear attempts to sidetrack the boys. This is the only episode to feature two major stories instead of one, but the steamer segment is rich enough to feel like a full episode. If only we could’ve stopped here.
All roads lead to Twain when it comes to depictions of steamboats as a go-to American icon, which is why he preceded this discussion of Lullaby in Frogland: I’m not claiming Mickey Mouse wouldn’t have been successful if his first cartoon was about something else, but I’m certainly claiming that we wouldn’t have gotten Steamboat Willieas it was if Ub Iwerks hadn’t grown up in a Missouri whose lore was shaped by Twain’s tales of the river.But while the author is the root of the episode’s many influences, I think the most fascinating branch that we borrow from isThe Princess and the Frog.
2009 was a great year for animation, seeing the release of Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Secret of Kells, the surprisingly greatCloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and the first ten minutes of Up (also the rest of Up, if I’m feeling generous). The first two on that list are my favorite of the year, twin stop-motion masterpieces that I’m always in the mood to watch, but The Princess and the Frogis a brilliant last gasp from Disney’s 2D animation studio. It isn’t the final traditionally animated film they made (that would be 2011′s Winnie the Pooh), nor the final fully sincere princess movie they made (that would be 2010′s Tangled), but it marks the beginning of the end for both trends: for better and worse, modern Disney animation feels the need to loudly subvert old tropes and wouldn’t be caught dead in two dimensions.
Lullaby in Frogland’sconnection to The Princess and the Frogis certainly visible on the surface level: both feature a long sequence starring frogs on a steamboat where a lead character must pretend to be another animal and play a woodwind instrument to get out of a jam, and both involve our heroes seeking help from a wise woman far from civilization (even if only one of these women is actually helpful). But it’s the somber nostalgia factor that binds these stories closer than anything, the knowledge that this is the end of the road for this type of tale. The ferry’s gotta land somewhere, and the cold is setting in as the frogs begin hibernating for the winter, but there’s still more story to tell.
The second story of Lullaby in Froglandis scored throughout by a haunting string and piano rendition of Adelaide Parade, and Adelaide herself is immediately captivating. John Cleese returns for the second episode in a row, but as both of these episodes aired the same night, it feels like a consistent through-line: in the first half, he’s an eccentric who might be a deranged maniac but is actually harmless, and now he’s a witch who might be harmless but is actually a deranged maniac.
Adelaide gets a compelling amount of detail for someone who’s barely in the show. We don’t get any explanation about her fatal weakness to…fresh air? Coldness in general? Either way, like the Wicked Witch of the West’s lethal reaction to water, it’s absurd that someone like her has managed to live this long. She never says what she needs a child servant for, why she has scissors that seem custom-made for Beatrice’s specific curse, or what her spider-like deal with yarn and wool is (she has a black widow hourglass on her back, but also reminds me of the Greek Fates with her emphasis on thread). We never find out how she’s connected to the Beast, whose theme bleeds into her music as she proclaims, without much prompting, that she follows his commands; her goal of using children as zombie slaves seems counter to his goal of turning them into trees to fuel his soul lantern. But this blend of unexplained characteristics and seemingly inconsistent motives only makes her more enthralling to me, because she feels like the major villain of another story who just happens to intersect with ours.
What makes Adelaide even morecompelling on rewatch is that her scissors, despite their gruesome method for curing the curse, do end up working. Which means she didmean to help Beatrice out as part of the deal. At no point does Adelaide lie, and given Beatrice knows she’s bad news as she lures the brothers in, it becomes clear that for all her villainy, Adelaide is an honest witch. I’m always down for baddies that tell the truth, but it’s of particular interest when we compare her to the Beast, whose whole deal is lying.
The only liar in this episode is Beatrice, even if shewanted to set things straight without hurting anyone; she values her friendship with the boys so much now that she’d rather make herself a servant to Adelaide than just tell them she’s dangerous and reveal that she lied. By the time she’s willing to tell the truth, it’s too late, and not even saving Greg and Wirt by killing Adelaide is enough for Wirt to forgive her. Considering he knows in The Unknownthat the scissors he uses to escape the yarn can save her family, he was also listening in on the end of the conversation before entering the house, which means he must have heard that she was willing to sacrifice herself, but that doesn’t matter either. Beatrice gave the boys hope, and no matter how badly she tried to stop it, the encounter with Adelaide transforms Wirt. Where he was once nervous and unsure, and was then briefly optimistic, he’s now sullen and untrusting.
But again, in comes Jason Funderburker, croaking and hopping on all fours once more to bring some light to the darkening series. He doesn’t do much for Wirt, but allows Greg to quickly get over whatever trauma he had about getting webbed up in yarn; he’s remarkably quiet about it, but it’s important to remember that he was betrayed, too. Whether he doesn’t understand exactly what happened or is just quicker to forgive, Greg is fine with Beatrice, allowing us to focus harder on Wirt’s reaction from now on.
It’s all rain and winter for Wirt until the end of his adventure. But the show isn’t content to leave him even slightly forlorn: when it gets too dark, he has a frog to swallow a lantern to light the way, and when it gets too cold, he has a brother to cover him in leaves, andwhen he falls, he has Beatrice to help pull him back up. Even the Woodsman tries to save him in his own way (talk about folks who are bad at communication). Bad things happen, and people make mistakes, but the bigger mistake is allowing that to close you off to others, or to never forgive friends that are genuinely sorry. Our heroes have taken the ferry to the other side, and now the story can shift to one about the folly of abandoning all hope.
Where have we come, and where shall we end?
- On top of Jason Funderberker, who’s set up as a major rival to make his eventual reveal one of the show’s best jokes, Wirt gives Beatrice a general summary of Into the Unknownthree episodes before we see it play out.
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Chapter 3: Schooltown Follies
Since there have been stories, there have been stories that anthropomorphize animals. Folks have imagined creatures behaving as humans in every corner of the world, in myths and fables and fairy tales from ancient cultures to today. So by the turn of the 20th century, when a mycologist known for painting incredibly detailed images of fungus decided to instead write and illustrate stories about animals in contemporary clothes, it wasn’t exactly a new idea. But perhaps that makes it more impressive: despite the multitude of animal books for children that have been published in the last hundred and fifty years, the work of Beatrix Potter still stands out.
She’s not alone, of course: no good conversation about humanized animals in Western kid lit can last long without mentioning Richard Scarry or Margaret Wise Brown or Arnold Lobel. And Peter Rabbit’s extended family is quite British, which puts it at odds with the nostalgic Americana of Over the Garden Wall: it’s not for nothing that our assortment of animals in Schooltown Folliesincludes a raccoon and an opossum. But the timeless quality of Potter’s work is still felt in this episode in two ways. First, while the show has a cartoony lens, the school animals are far more anatomically accurate than Beatrice or the frogs of Lullaby in Frogland, evoking Potter’s signature field guide style. And second,there’s a mischief to Potter’s animals that makes them feel more like real children than the cute but bland residents of Scarry’s Busytown, and mischief is the name of the game when Greg comes to schooltown.
Schooltown Folliesis full of clever tricks, but perhaps its most clever is introducing animals with human qualities (they wear clothes, play instruments, and walk on their hind legs) but not giving them voices. It’s generally great comedy fuel, showing the inherent ridiculousness of a school for sorta normal animals, but it more importantly allows the episode a silent movie feel, with plenty of physical humor enhanced by characters without dialogue. That style completes the episode’s subversion of Beatrix Potter’s oeuvre: she wrote stories about naughty animals learning that they should behave, but in this vaudeville version, the only way to save the day is by misbehaving.
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Chapter 5: Mad Love
So far, when going over brief histories of animators that have inspired Over the Garden Wall, I’ve written about pioneers like Ub Iwerks and the Fleischer Brothers (and maybe Walt Disney a little). Folks who were born well before cartoons on film were invented, and in some cases, before film itself was invented. By that metric, a story about two animators born in 1933 and 1938, both of whom were still alive when this post was first written, might not sound as impressive. But you don’t have to do something first to make a mark, and Joseph Clemons Ruby and Charles Kenneth Spears, two men from the first generation to grow up in the age of animation, mastered the art of converting the old into the new.
Ruby-Spears was founded in 1977, but came into its own in the 80s by producing the Alvin and the Chipmunk cartoon. Shows like this, based on preexisting material, were the studio’s bread and butter. Ever wanted to see a cartoon version of Mork and Mindy or Laverne and Shirley? A Mr. Tcartoon? A Punky Brewstercartoon? A Police Academycartoon? A Rambocartoon? A cartoon called Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos? Ruby-Spears had your back. Ruby-Spears brought video games like Q*bertand Froggerto television, and their penultimate production before shutting down in the 90s was the Mega Mancartoon. These shows varied in quality, to be sure, but just because something is derivative doesn’t mean it lacks value, as proven by the project that skyrocketed the careers of Joe Ruby and Ken Spears: while working for another duo, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Ruby and Spears took a dime-a-dozen ripoff assignment and instead created one of the most iconic cartoons of all time.
Ruby and Spears began in Hanna-Barbera’s sound department, but soon became writers on Space Ghost(most famous now for its Adult Swim parody decades later, a show derived from an old cartoon that was itself derived into shows like Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman). While waiting on a meeting with Barbera, an agent mentioned that the head of CBS’s daytime programming was interested in developing a teen rock band cartoon to capitalize on the success of teen rock band cartoonThe Archie Show, with the twist that thesekids solved mysteries. Ruby and Spears leapt at the opportunity, working with the studio’s veteran character designer Iwao Takamoto to create five teens who solved teen crimes to appeal to a teen audience: Geoff, Mike, Kelly, Linda, and W.W. (in all my research, I never found out what those initials stood for). Because the Archies had a huge gluttonous sheepdog named Hot Dog to be friends with the rail-thin gluttonous Jughead, the band starring in the newly-christened Mysteries Five had a huge gluttonous sheepdog named Too Much to be friends with the rail-thin gluttonous W.W.—but don’t worry, Too Much stood out by playing the bongos.
Ruby and Spears could’ve left it at that, cashing a quick buck off the success of The Archie Show, especially because they frankly did just that later in their careers at Hanna-Barbera with shows like Jabberjaw.But for now, despite the Archie-ripping first draft, they wanted something more, and soon expanded the gimmick beyond just solving mysteries: theseteens would solve spookymysteries. Mysteries Fivebecame Who’s S-S-Scared?, and to keep the horror from being too much for the kids, Too Much shifted from a sheepdog back to Takamoto’s first idea, a dopey Great Dane, one that was comically frightened of everything to subvert the image of a brave watchdog. Eventually the entire band concept was dropped, except for the part where the teens drove a tour van to visit new locations, and the redundant second male lead, Mike, died in the crossfire. The final step was changing the names of the heroes, because none of them were really working with this new version of the cartoon: Geoff became Fred, Kelly became Daphne, Linda became Velma, W.W. became Shaggy, and Too Much got a name inspired by Frank Sinatra’s scatting from Strangers in the Night: Skippety-Boo-Baw-Baw.
(I made one of those names up. Can you meddling kids crack the case?)
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Five Years Later
Hi y’all! Today marks the fifth anniversary of my first post in this project, and I wanted to thank everyone who’s read through it (again (again (again (again)))). This one is bananas, because I began this project to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Over the Garden Wall, and…yeah, here we are.
It’s a humbling thing to compare the past five years to the five years before. Between 2014 and 2019, I went from unemployed and directionless to a career librarian with a fancy degree, which I thought was pretty nifty! Worth reflecting on through the lens of this cool show, because it was there for me at a low point and remained as things improved and faltered and improved and faltered and improved.
Buuuuuuuut between 2019 and today, I met and married my wife, saw more of the world than I had in my entire life beforehand, and became a father. Which is all and all, to put it mildly, niftier!
This autumn will be the tenth one in a row that’s featured an Over the Garden Wall watch for me, the third for my partner, and the first for our little one. We might have to close kiddo’s eyes for the scary bits, but I’m so excited to keep the tradition alive. I hope the same joy for y'all!
Three Years Later
Hi y’all! Today marks the third anniversary of my first post in this project, and I wanted to thank everyone who’s read through it (again (again)). Man, what a year! Got married to my favorite person, we’re back in the East Coast, just started a new job, and this October said person and I will be watching Over the Garden Wall once again; it’ll be my eighth autumn with it, and her second, although she’s been wanting to rewatch all year because spoiler alert she’s a huge fan. Even roped in a few of her friends to catch Wirt Fever.
Not much to report on show update terms. Patrick McHale co-wrote the upcoming Guillermo del Toro stop motion Pinocchio movie where the story takes place in Fascist Italy, so that oughtta be weird! It has, as always, been a blast to get the occasional notification that folks are reading the archives throughout the year. COVID finally got me for a spell despite vaccinations, but it didn’t hit too hard and somehow my wife still dodged it, so I suppose my sentiment til next September is to keep safe and healthy and don’t take those things for granted! And as always, take care!
Two Years Later
Hi y’all! Today marks the second anniversary of my first post in this project, and I wanted to thank everyone who’s read through it(again). It’s also been about half a year since I wrapped up Steven, Universally over on the other blog, and hoo boy have those months been eventful. Got engaged, got a dog, and moved to a new city for the first time in my adult life, all while the pandemic still just sorta keeps happening. Makes a guy wonder what the third anniversary will be like.
The fiancée watched and loved Steven Universe (not a dealbreaker if she didn’t, she’s pretty terrific, but it’s a heck of a bonus) so I can’t wait to show her Over the Garden Wall as soon as things stop being stupid hot. As Florence Welch ostensibly says every September First, the dog days are over, so here’s to hot chocolate and sweaters in our near future. Take care, folks!
Chapter 7: The Ringing of the Bell
The history of animation that I’ve written about in these introductions can be more accurately described as the history ofAmericananimation. Which, sure, is humongous and revolutionary, but sticking to the States leaves out the first full-length animated film (1917′sEl Apóstol, courtesy of Argentina) and the oldest surviving animated film (1926′sThe Adventures of Prince Achmed, courtesy of Germany), as well as all the European predecessors to modern cartoons like the phenakistiscopeor the zoetrope. But even that expansion limits us to the West, and although night has fallen onOver the Garden Wall, it’s time to look to the rising sun.
World War I shaped every aspect of global politics in the 20th century, and Japan was no exception. The Imperial Navy, already battle-tested in the Russo-Japanese War, developed into an unmatched force in the East whose influence lingered well after the Great War’s conclusion in 1918. A small part of that legacy was shaped by a boy born during the war, around the same time Max Fleischer developed his rotoscope. This boy, Katsuji, was fascinated with flight from a young age, and in another era, this might have led to a wonderful career in nonviolent aviation. Instead, the company Katsuji created in adulthood manufactured parts for the Zero warplane, which infamously attacked Pearl Harbor and launched the United States into World War II.
But this isn’t the story of how war turned a beautiful dream of flight into something twisted. It’s about how peace allowed a beautiful dream of flight to flourish into one of the greatest legacies in the history of animation. Because while 1941 might have ended with Katsuji Miyazaki’s creation leaving devastation in its wake, the year began with the birth of his second son.
Hayao Miyazaki was an artist from a young age, excelling early with detailed depictions of fantastical air machines but needing practice when it came to drawing people (spoiler alert, the practice paid off). Heworked for cartoon giant Toei Animation out of college, where he met his lifelong partner in animation, Isao Takahata, and his lifelong partner in marriage, Akemi Ōta. He left Toei in 1971, but continued working with Takahata for a variety of studios, one of which allowed him to direct his first movie: TheCastle of Cagliostro, a Lupin IIImovie that to this day proves that Miyazaki never needed the original characters or outstanding animation quality with which he’d become synonymous to produce an outstanding film. You don’t need to know a single thing about Lupin III to appreciate The Castle of Cagliostro, which I know because I didn’t know a single thing about Lupin IIIwhen I had my mind blown by The Castle of Cagliostro.
Still, Miyazaki had ideas of his own, one of which he developed into a monthly manga about a warrior princess with heavy environmentalist themes. In 1984, he worked with Takahata (alongside a composer Takahata found named Mamoru Fujisawa, better known by his stage name Joe Hisaishi) to adapt this comic,Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, into a feature film. Something was clearly clicking, because the animators launched their own company with Hisaishi as an iconic collaborator: Studio Ghibli, named after a term for a hot desert wind that happened to also be the name of a WWII-era warplane.
The wind rose, and Studio Ghibli’s output soon became the stuff of legend: Miyazaki in particular has yet to make a film that isn’t spectacular. My personal favorite is Castle in the Sky, followed closely by that other movie about a warrior princess with heavy environmental themes, Princess Mononoke.But when it comes to influences on Over the Garden Wall, and particularly The Ringing of the Bell, it’s hard to see the story of characters lost in a strange world full of deception, with big-headed witches and hyper-specific rules for dealing with evil spirits, without thinking about the first Miyazaki movie I ever saw, back when I was young enough to be a little annoyed that I had to read subtitles: 2001′s instant classic, the startlingly magnificentSpirited Away.
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One Year Later
“Dancing in a swirl of golden memories.”
Hi y’all! Today marks the anniversary of my first post in this project, and I wanted to thank everyone who’s read through it; I’ve gotten smatterings of notifications from this blog throughout the year, and it’s so cool to see folks enjoy it long after its completion. Only one major edit has been made since, and recently: with the passing of Joe Ruby in August, the introduction to Mad Love has been updated to note that he’s sadly no longer with us. Other than that, not much to add on the news front for a long-finished miniseries.
I hope you’re all doing well in a time where the unknown is scarier than it has been in quite a while. I structured Going Over the Garden Wall around two moments in my twenties when job insecurity fueled some of the worst depression in my life, and considering around half of the year since last September has occurred during a plague, I’m sure way too many folks now know how that feels. Every case is different, so I won’t pretend to understand what each individual circumstance is like, but if you’re struggling in the long term without knowing what to expect over the horizon, know that I’m rooting for you!
Over the Garden Wall won’t fix all your problems, but it’s times like this that I’m glad stories like it exist. Things might not always work out as well in the real world as they do in a cartoon, but even though it’s hard, I hope that when life is mucking up your path that you remember to eat your dirt. It might not taste good, but once you’re through it, life does get better. Good luck out there, and let this librarian know if you need any book recommendations to tide you over!
Chapter 8: Babes in the Wood
In this last hurrah of explicit homages to animation of the past, the most obvious discussion point is Merrie Melodiesand its ilk: Babes in the Woodis essentially a full-episode reference to the bouncing musical shorts of yore, where everything can sing’n’dance and the villain is a blustery bozo who’s defeated with a sight gag. If we expand to children’s entertainment in general, as we did with Greg’s Beatrix Potter episode, then The Wizard of Ozis our logical next step: the song welcoming him to Cloud City owes everything to Dorothy’s introduction to Munchkinland, complete with the fact that our hero has just entered a dream.
And look, there’s nothing wrong with talking about the obvious. But as we near the end, I think it’s a little more interesting to instead explore the very beginning. So let’s go back to a newspaper cartoonist in New York—the one who inspired fellow New York newspaper cartoonist John Randolph Bray to become an animator, which in turn led fellowNew York newspaper cartoonist Max Fleischer to become an animator, because it turns out that just like the birth of superhero comics a few decades later, the birth of American animation hinged on print artists who dreamed big in the city that never sleeps.
A boy named Zenas was born in Michigan onSeptember 26, 1871. Or maybe he was born there in 1869. Or maybe he was born in Canada in 1867. He said one thing, and a biographer said another, and census data says another, and I wasn’t there. It’s similarly unclear when or why he started going by his middle name, but by the time he took his first job at age 21 (or 19 or 17) as a billboard and poster artist in Chicago, he was calling himself Winsor McCay. They sure did know how to name‘em in the 19th century.
McCaybegan his newspaper career as a freelancer, but moved to New York in 1903 to work for the New York Herald, where he wrote a variety of comics before hitting it big with LittleSammy Sneeze. McCay’s art was always brilliant, but his gag work was formulaic to a fault: the joke for Sammy Sneeze was always the same, he would sneeze and ruin everything right before the last panel. That devotion to formula would continue in his second big comic Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, where a fantastical events would occur for ever-changing characters before the lead woke up in the last panel, revealing it was a dream.
That second formula was the basis of McCay’s masterpiece. Already a successful cartoonist in the two short years since he’d moved to New York, his fame skyrocketed with Little Nemo in Slumberland, which used the same“wake up at the end” formula but with recurring characters and a running story. He toyed with the medium like none had before, playing with panel arrangement and innovating the portrayal of motion in comics, and his art skills only improved with this full-color strip. His success led to the vaudeville circuit, where he turned the act of drawing into a performance, and this combination of stage entertainment and his continuing comic work led him to seek new ways to dazzle the crowds.
By 1910, the earliest animated shorts had already started to emerge, and McCay was inspired by pioneers like James Stuart Blackton and Émile Cohl to try animating the characters of Little Nemo. Under Blackton’s direction, McCay singlehandedly drew around four thousandfully colored frames to produce his first animated cartoon, presented at the tail end of a filmed short about said cartoon in 1911. As mentioned, animated shorts were already a thing. But none of them looked anything like this. (If you’re concerned that there might be racist caricatures in it, don’t worry, there definitely are, McCay had a lot of strengths but overcoming garbage prejudices was not one of them).
The sheer quality of his work, continuing with the legendary Gertie the Dinosaur, directly led to the invention of the rotoscope as a means to mass-produce cartoons of similar finesse. The influence of Winsor McCay over animation as we know it is hard to overstate (and let’s stress again that this was his side gig, and he was just as influential over comic art): as crazy as it sounds, it’s safe to say thatOver the Garden Wall would not exist if not for a story about the whimsical adventures of a little boy who traveled across a land of dreams from his bed.
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Chapter 2: Hard Times at the Huskin’ Bee
Ubbe Ert Iwwerks is not, despite the way it sounds when you say it in a dark room, an ancient and irreversible curse. It was the name of a boy born in Missouri in 1901, the sort of terminally Germanic name that makes“Ub Iwerks” maybe not sound so bad by comparison, so that’s what he went by when he started making cartoons.
Ub was just eighteen when he met a boy his age from Chicago at the Kansas City art studio where they both worked, and they became fast friends. They soon moved jobs together, becoming commercial illustrators at the Kansas City Slide Newspaper Company, but as technology advanced, the opportunity to make drawings come alive seemed too small for ads. Ub’s friend decided to jump into this new medium, and Ub followed suit, becoming the chief animator for Laugh-O-Gram Cartoons when he was twenty-one.
Laugh-O-Gram didn’t last very long, so Ub followed his colleague to Los Angeles to develop a series starring a live-action girl and a cartoon cat called the Alice Comedies. It was a moderate success, enough that Ub was tapped to design a character for Universal Studios to star in a new series of shorts. He created a cartoon rabbit that Universal loved, but big business being big business, the studio hired away most of the staff behind these cartoons, leaving Ub and his friend-turned-colleague-turned-boss high and dry. Determined to never paint another cel with a character he didn’t own the rights of, Ub’s boss roughly sketched out a new critter that Ub perfected and animated in a series of new cartoons.
(To be clear: by“animated,” I don’t mean he just directed animation or drew storyboards. Ub literally hand-animated the whole darn things, churning out cartoons at almost full-studio speed pretty much by himself.)
Anyway, the first such short his studio released, but the third produced, was called Steamboat Willie.And while it helped put Ub’s boss Walt and their character Mickey on the map, Ub would never see the same level of success. Because a big part of the story that I haven’t mentioned yet is that Walt, for all his incredible creative vision, wasn’t a tool so much as a toolbox.
Ub Iwerks would soon animate the very first Silly Symphony in 1929, The Skeleton Dance, featuring a growing group of skeletons emerging from a graveyard to, well, dance. Less famous is its 1937 sequel, animated by Iwerks after leaving Disney’s toxic work environment seven years earlier. Skeleton Frolicshows just how quickly the medium was evolving, featuring full color and far smoother animation. Ub would keep honing his art for the rest of his life, outliving his old friend by a few years but remaining a background figure in history despite his gigantic role in the founding of the most prominent entertainment empire in the world.
So while it’s laughable to imagine that a trained animator like Pat McHale would be unfamiliar with the iconicSkeleton Dance, it’s less of a given that Skeleton Frolicfloats too high in his reference pool. I honestly don’t know either way for sure, but while Skeleton Danceis the classic, only its sequel features a moment where a skull is replaced with a pumpkin.
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