Rejoice! It's officially 'Over the Garden Wall' season

The mostly forgotten, half-spooky, half-hilarious Halloween miniseries that my family loves ...

My kids love fall.

As young as they are (6, 8 and 11, respectively) they generate a level of excitement for the change of seasons that I typically associate with much older people. Aside from the start of school, they dig everything about it, welcoming the demise of warm weather and the chance to get cozy with some hot cocoa.

Then of course there is Halloween, which rivals Christmas and birthdays as one of the most anticipated days of the year on the Kid Excitement Calendar.

A year or two ago, after a recommendation from our great friend Sarah Aswell, we also started a new family tradition to greet the shortening of days: Every year we watch the animated miniseries "Over the Garden Wall."

This year our 11-year-old insisted we start it promptly on Oct. 1 because she wasn't willing to wait any longer.

There were no objections. "Over the Garden Wall" is a goddamn masterpiece. We parents look forward to it as much as the kids do.

Created by Patrick McHale and Katie Krentz for Cartoon Network in 2014, its 10 bite-sized episodes (each about 15 minutes or so in length) feature the voices of Elijah Wood, Collin Dean, Shirley Jones, Christopher Lloyd, Melanie Lynskey, John Cleese and Tim Curry (among others).

Despite the relatively star-studded cast and a mostly positive critical reception—it won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program in 2015—it seemingly failed to capture a wide TV audience during its run and then was mostly forgotten by all but a loving cult following.

For this inexplicable commercial failure, I can only blame people. People can't be trusted to know what's good.

The show follows two brothers—Wirt and Gregory—lost in a strange and enchanted forest as they face a series of half-spooky, half-funny adventures while trying to find their way home.

Wirt, the older of the two, struggles to be the leader. He frets over every decision he’s forced to make, unable to summon the courage to take a stand for what he wants. He’s paralyzed with fear, for example, at the thought of letting the girl he likes listen to the mix tape he made for her. “There’s poetry and clarinet on there,” he laments to Greg at one point. “Poetry! And clarinet!”

Greg, the kid brother sidekick, is irrepressible and oblivious, chiefly concerned with finding a name for the pet frog he totes with him everywhere. He occasionally pulls out a rock painted with a smiley face and dispenses a random “rock fact.”

Warning: Rock facts are all lies.

The brothers meet-up with an unlikely traveling companion in Beatrice, a girl who along with her whole family, has been turned into a bluebird. Wirt dons a dunce cap and a Civil War-era cape. Greg wears an upside down teapot on his head. The reason for these outfits remains unexplained for nearly the entire series.

It's a wandering picaresque—one of my favorite kinds of stories!—yet feels expertly contained within its own unique world. If you google it today, you'll find "Over the Garden Wall" tagged as: "Fun, Delightful and Magical," and that's about right.

I might add "Kinda Brilliant" to that list.

First and foremost, "Over the Garden Wall" is hilarious—as funny as any early Simpsons episode. It's absurd in a way that reminds me of other animated shows like "Gravity Falls" (which you should also watch, if you haven't) but its exquisite world-building is like nothing I’ve seen before.

It's simultaneously a whimsical fairy tale and a coming-of-age buddy comedy. The animation and setting evoke a vintage, old-timey Americana that is incredibly my shit. Episodes have titles like, “The Old Grist Mill,” “Songs of the Dark Lantern” and “Lullaby in Frogland.”

Nothing in "Over the Garden Wall" feels extraneous. As haphazard as it sometimes seems, it’s also incredibly controlled. Every goofy line and non-sequitur joke feels deliberate, but unexpected. Back in 2014, Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it possessed "a kind of artisanal quality." This description makes me laugh (that's such a TV reviewer thing to say!) but also nod along because, yeah, he's not wrong.

On their journey, Wirt, Greg and Beatrice encounter characters like a potentially sinister woodsman, a deranged old man living alone in a haunted mansion, a lovelorn school teacher, a steamboat full of nattily attired frogs, a largely unseen boss-level monster known only as The Beast and, of course, Jason Funderberker.

You're going to have to watch the show if you want to know about Jason Funderberker.

Also, there are songs. Did I mention the songs? Yeah, "Over the Garden Wall" is sort of a musical. Wait, don't stop reading! The songs are great. Like the show itself, the kitschy but amazing soundtrack by The Blasting Company has become a favorite in our house.

Come fall, our kids are as likely to request we put on "Ms. Langtree's Lament,” "Potatoes and Molasses" or "The Highwayman" as they are Taylor Swift or one of the early 2000s metal songs my 6-year-old loves to rock out to on the kitchen floor.

Sometimes I worry about that kid.

I think most families have their own language—inside jokes that over time have become meaningful within the group, even if they are confusing and ridiculous to anyone else.

Our kids frequently drop out-of-the-blue one-liners from “Over the Garden Wall” into conversation now. Hang around long enough and you'll hear them say:

"Oh beans! Where is that frog o' mine?"

or

"We're here to burgle your turts."

or

"Fred is a talking horse, he can do whatever he wants."

"I want to steal!"

None of which you will understand until you watch "Over the Garden Wall."

The show was recently removed from Netflix and HBO Max (those bastards!) but you can still rent or buy it from Amazon Prime. It's also probably on YouTube but, come on people, normalize paying for the art you consume.

This year we bought it and added it our permanent collection for $9.99.

Best 10 bucks we ever spent.