Trivia / Over the Garden Wall

• Acting for Two: In the Italian dub, Wirt and Greg are both voiced by comic artist and YouTuber, Simone "Sio" Albrigi.
• Approval of God: Patrick McHale notably geeked out about Garden Falls, a fancomic crossing his show over with Gravity Falls, linking to it on Twitter and tagging Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch. Wirt's voice actor Elijah Wood also expressed approval via exclamation points.
• Cast the Expert: A large portion of the cast are well known operatic or folk singers, almost all of whom get a chance to show off their musical talents.
• Children Voicing Children: Greg is voiced by Collin Dean, who was 9 when the show first aired.
• Completely Different Title:
  • The show's title in France is La Forêt de l'Étrange (The Forest of the Strange).
  • In Brazil it is known as "O Segredo Além do Jardim" (The Secret Beyond the Garden)
  • In Denmark the show is called "Det ukendtes skov." (The Forest of the Unknown)
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Auntie Whispers and Adelaide, both female characters, are voiced by male actors Tim Curry and John Cleese respectively. This doesn't carry over in the Latin American dub and other dubs.
  • In the Japanese, French and European Spanish dubs, Greg is voiced by a woman.
• The Danza: Fred the horse is voiced by Fred Stroller.
• Defictionalization: A real, officially-licensed version of Wirt's poetry and clarinet cassette tape for Sara had a limited release in 2015. For those unable to buy it, it's available on YouTube.
• Enforced Method Acting: While performing the scene of Wirt singing his terrible, improvised song, Patrick McHale and Collin Dean (Greg) sat in front of Elijah Wood and made fun of him to make him feel properly embarrassed.
• Fake American: Beatrice's actor Melanie Lynskey is from New Zealand.
• No Export for You:
  • A Blu-ray set was released in 2016, but only in Australia, and it's region-locked.
  • As of 2016, the series has yet to be dubbed in Israel.
• The Other Darrin: Between Tome of the Unknown and the series proper, Beatrice changed voice actor from Natasha Leggero to Melanie Lynskey and the narrator changed from Warren Burton to Jack Jones.
• Playing Against Type
  • Cloudcuckoolander Quincy Endicott is a far cry from John Cleese's typical brand of deadpan snarkers.
  • Auntie Whispers is significantly more soft-spoken than Tim Curry's typical characters.^note And she's Good All Along, to boot! Justified in that this was one of Curry's first roles following his near-fatal stroke, which obviously made it difficult for him to be as animated as he had been known to be.
• Release Date Change: The digital version of the soundtrack released by Mondo Tees was delayed several times before coming out in Summer 2017 (quite a while after the vinyl version).
• Saved from Development Hell: The show spent five years (2006-2011) between the initial pitch and producing a pilot.
• Shrug of God: Patrick McHale neither confirmed or denied the interpretation that the Unknown was purgatory, saying that it was only one interpretation.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The show was originally pitched in 2006 as Tome of the Unknown, but Cartoon Network was looking for made-for-TV movie pitches instead of a series at the time. Pat McHale didn't think the story could work like that, so he held off until around 2011, when he was once again approached with another pitching opportunity, leading to the short film pilot in 2013 and the subsequent mini-series pickup.
  • Eighteen episodes were conceived, but it was determined this would be an awkward number to produce, so it was cut down to ten. One of the cut plots was used for the interquel comic. A different interview makes mention of some of these other cut plots, some of which were first on the chopping block for being excessively dark (like one about a man who made dice from children's bones). Additionally, the sixth episode merged the plots of two separate episodes (meeting the frogs and encountering Adelaide).
  • This Tumblr post reveals some old concepts:
    • Initially, Wirt and Greg were riding a train but got suspicious that the train was leading them to Death, so they jumped off and ended up in a limbo world. The Beast would have been an entity who was simply doing his job getting the boys back on the train. Eventually, they decide to face their problems and return to the train, only to discover that the train led them back to Life.
    • It was briefly considered to have Wirt remain in the Unknown while Greg made it back.
    • Rather than having the brothers arrive in the Unknown during Halloween and get out moments later, they were first planned to get there during Halloween and get back by Christmas. And rather than this being revealed in a Whole Episode Flashback, their entrance would be the first episode.
  • Patrick McHale also wanted to make a series with Sara as a protagonist, but it didn't come about. He also considers her to be his favorite character.

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