i actually really enjoyed this short

whalebiology:

McLoughlin Bros. Inc. was an American publishing firm active between 1828 and 1920 in New York. During their century long rein in the business, they played a pivotal role in defining how children’s stories, games, and toys would be stylized at the time, with most of their projects revolving around the repackaging of classic stories (Mother Goose fables, nursery rhymes, etc) into suitable bedtime stories and elementary literature. In the episode Lullaby in Frogland (a reference to the widely celebrated jazz standard Lullaby in Birdland, made popular by Ella Fitzgerald) the toy steamboat humorously named McLaughlin Bros. is first seen being played with by who we can presume to be two of Beatrice’s brothers during the musical prologue to the series, and later the boat appears again as not a toy, but a full-sized ferry manned by bipedal frogs the size of human children. Many of the fantastic themes of Over the Garden Wall are given some form of explanation and closure, but others such as the mysterious riverboat are not so black and white.

The accompanying lyrics to the young boys seated by the river playing with their toy:

but where have we come
and where shall we end?
if dreams can’t come true
then why not pretend?

The ferry is one of the many strange passages in Wirt and Greg’s journey through the Unknown. The Beast’s ever-lurking presence makes sense, as he is a creature of shadows and personified self-doubt and he goes wherever his prey goes. He is in essence a part of them, but even others such as the Woodsman who do not share this space-defying existence always seem to be within a stone’s throw of the two brothers no matter how far they venture. Like all methods of travel in the Unknown the boat takes them far, far away and doesn’t at the same time. The ferry is an embodiment of American nostalgia, a relic of Mark Twain’s romantic storytelling, all while being shrouded in a fog of mystery that you’d might not even notice if you’d blinked at the wrong moment.

All of the boys’ journeying is mere wandering, and yet it has a quality of undeniable purpose to it. While ultimately the Unknown is theoretically endless and the only escape from the Beast comes from self-assurance within one’s own, that is not to say the journey does not play a pivotal role in reaching this understanding.