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 as of this writing, 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. T cartoon? A Punky Brewster cartoon? A Police Academy cartoon? A Rambo cartoon? A cartoon called Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos? Ruby-Spears had your back. Ruby-Spears brought video games like Q*bert and Frogger to television, and their penultimate production before shutting down in the 90s was the Mega Man cartoon. 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 cartoon The Archie Show, with the twist that these kids 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: these teens would solve spooky mysteries. Mysteries Five became 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?)

“Start searching for change.”

The middle two episodes of Over the Garden Wall begin in the middle of scenes, with our heroes already in the locations they’ll spend most of the story in. The trail we’ve followed for the past four episodes takes a backseat to areas where we can nestle in and talk, developing our characters’ relationships to their fullest so they can fall apart before Episode 7 continues the journey.

Mad Love in particular thrusts us right into a rambling conversation dominated by an instantly recognizable John Cleese as Quincy Endicott, a wealth British vision of what Greg would be if he got older but never grew up. He disregards the food on his plate and the concept of successive sentences following a coherent thread, then interrupts himself to dance on the table, and Greg is in. Beatrice and Wirt have a more serious aside about the ethics of ripping off the tea magnate, with Beatrice favoring crimes and Wirt favoring honesty. Fred the Horse gives us the earliest-ever best line of the episode, answering Wirt’s assertion that he has free will with a pitch-perfect “I wanna steal.” There are five main characters we’ll follow in Mad Love, and within a minute they’re succinctly established so we can spend the rest of our episode exploring. Wandering at a relaxed pace is all well and good, but we got some work to do now.

This isn’t my first time writing about a Scooby-Doo episode of a cartoon that I love, but even more than Gem Hunt, this is a hell of a Scooby-Doo episode. We’ve got five leads (check), and just happened to add a new character whose name is Fred (check) and is a large cowardly talking quadruped (check), and they’re hunting a ghost (check) who’s actually a living person (check) over a property dispute (check), and in doing so they split up (check) and find a secret passage (check). Zoinks! Over the Garden Wall is a celebration of animation, and while we might not think of Scooby-Doo when we think of gorgeous animation (or, let’s be real, quality content), it’s a cartoon franchise that’s been influential on kids for fifty years despite its cheap production value and repetitive formula. It’s such a mainstay that it’s sometimes hard to remember how weird Scooby-Doo is (to the point where its greatest iteration by far, the amazing Mystery Incorporated, mines comedy gold by stepping back to explore what a society that allows these dumb plots to perpetually occur would actually look like). It’s animated Americana kitsch focused on mystery and horror written for kids, which makes it a top tier candidate for a full-episode reference in a show like Over the Garden Wall.

The biggest twist on the formula that Mad Love provides is that one of our mystery solvers is being robbed by some of the others, and the gang splits up not to look for more clues, but to distract Endicott from their looting. This may provide plenty of fuel for comedy, but assigning a separate mission to Wirt and Beatrice allows them to finally start to work past their differences while Greg, Endicott, and Fred take charge of the episode’s plot.

After four episodes of sniping whenever they converse, Beatrice and Wirt begin Mad Love at the same place we’ve always been. But even though it’s never mentioned, we’re now at a spot where Wirt has performed an uncharacteristically heroic act to rescue Beatrice, which may have cooled things down enough for her to open up the way she does here. It’s great that the shift is still gradual, and she’s still at a place where her version of a horror episode is spending quality time with him, but we need them to grow closer to make the encounter with Adelaide hit us where it hurts.

This is the episode where we learn Beatrice was once a human, a fact mentioned so off-handedly that Wirt hangs a lampshade on it. She’s ornery about it, which is par for the course, but after he pesters her to give more details and she tells her story in an outburst, Wirt reveals a new side of himself: as her theme plays on a lonely piano, he transforms into a good friend. Wirt has been varying degrees of selfish and hapless in every episode so far, but now that he knows the truth about Beatrice he’s able to put aside his bad attitude to earnestly sympathize with her. It’s not treated like anything special, but their entire relationship pivots around this conversation: we can’t have his jocularity in the upcoming boat ride or the bitterness that follows her betrayal without the genuine bond they create right here.

Beatrice softens as well, but not quite as much, lightly razzing him for thinking his crush on a girl is a secret as dark as her cursing her family. But speaking as a former teen, crushes that you don’t know how to act on suck, and it’s gotta be even worse for a kid as neurotic as Wirt. As we’ll later see, there’s every indication that this crush is mutual from an outside perspective, but Wirt is his own worst enemy, so dramatic and stuck in his head that of course he sees his feelings as a deep and powerful secret. I love that he scrambles for more secrets when Beatrice isn’t satisfied, adding that he plays clarinet and recites poetry by himself, not just because it’s funny but because it shows that he feels the need to tell her something as huge as the thing she told him. And then he goes on a spiel about architectural sensibilities, allowing for more razzing because Wirt’s still a weird guy and Beatrice still likes teasing him, but there’s a delightful new warmth to their back-and-forth. Greg might earn the necessary coins at the end of the episode, but it’s Beatrice and Wirt that find change.

Sweetness aside, Elijah Wood and Melanie Lynskey also have a shared talent for incredulity, and both get to show it off here: Lynskey as Wirt talks about French Rococo, and Wood as Beatrice and Fred plan their heist. This is still a humorous episode, which brings us to Greg’s ghost hunt (which, again, includes John friggin’ Cleese): Greg fits his usual role as comic relief, but takes the lead of a full plotline instead of sticking to the sidelines.



Greg’s fierce determination was first made prominent in Schooltown Follies, and now it’s back in full force as he pushes Endicott and Fred past their doubt and fears based not on facts, or even faith, but the sheer desire to see a ghost. He’s the only member of the team who’s sincerely sweet to Endicott, so free of ulterior motives that he throws away the reward the others had been seeking, but he can still be an insensitive kid who bulldozes past the concerns of others to get what he wants. There’s far more good than bad here, but I love that this show can portray Greg as a great kid without painting his innocence as a universal positive.

In a clever trick, Endicott’s inability to focus transforms from eccentricity to a potential sign of insanity, a feat that Cleese naturally nails. Fun fact: Monty Python’s Flying Circus was first recorded on September 7, 1969 (just a week before the series premiere of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! aired on September 13) and this post that you’re reading was published on September 29, 2019. Which means that John Cleese has been practicing “man with a serious British voice doing silly things” for over fifty years, and he’s gotten pretty good at it! The dark history that’s suggested to be behind Endicott’s fortune is played for laughs, and just like Scooby-Doo, the possible horror our heroes are facing ends up not being as serious as we thought, because he hasn’t gone mad at all. The ghost is just a business rival voiced by Bebe Neuwirth doing a French accent, because casting directors Linda Lamontagne and Kristi Reed can apparently get whoever they want to do whatever they want.

But still, if I could bring a single one-off character along for the greater journey of the series, it would be Fred. True, he’s actually a two-off character, but Mad Love is where we get the lion’s share of his personality, and he’s an absolute hoot. Comedian Fred Stoller does the horse with his name more as a character in a stand-up bit than a character in an ongoing story, but the bit is so entertaining that I honestly doubt would get old if he had a few more episodes with us. Fred simultaneously plays the part of amateur detective and amateur criminal, two roles which require a certain degree of subtlety, but he’s about as subtle as a horse running around a mansion would actually be, loudly “whispering” that he’s off to find more things to steal and shouting his suspicions that Endicott has lost his mind. I’m glad he’s an honest horse these days, but I’d have loved to see more of him.

So yeah, a story about Wirt and Beatrice becoming friends and a story about Greg and two new friends solving a mystery (a mystery that Wirt actually solves, but hey, Greg helps!). It’s a pretty fun one throughout. Which makes the sudden turn at the end, when Greg discards the pennies that he won for his trouble, stand in stark contrast against the mood of the preceding episode. Heck, it stands in stark contrast against Greg’s mood from the entire series: this is the only time we ever see him look sullen, even though it’s played as another bit (“I’ve got no sense”). Our favorite frog reveals himself with a croak after quietly hiding under Greg’s kettle for literally the entire episode, and we end by seeing that no matter how good things have gone until this point, there’s clearly something in the water.

Where have we come, and where shall we end?