By GRAYSON THOBE
After a slew of Cartoon Network and other animated shows being stripped off of HBOMax (now just a brandless, sinless “Max”) last August, the streaming service has decided that enough time has passed since they last pissed off viewers and are removing Over the Garden Wall from their platform. If you’re not familiar, Over the Garden Wall is a 10-episode mini series following Wirt (Elijah Wood, yes that Elijah Wood) and Greg (Collin Dean, a child), half-brothers, who try to find their way out of an eerie forest with a talking bluebird, Beatrice (Melanie Lynskey, yes that Melanie Lynskey). Among the cast is also Christopher Lloyd, John Cleese, Bebe Neuwirth, Shirley Jones, and Tim Curry, which is a wild combination of people to bring into a room to voice a bunch of silly Halloweenie characters. Oh yes! Over the Garden Wall is a favorite to rewatch every autumn in honor of All Hollows Eve, which means it was the perfect time for it to be wiped out of print. (So to speak, since it’s been relegated to digispace.)
Once again, HBOMax has failed to discuss this fairly with the creators of this show, and didn’t even warn them–the Halloween mini series’ creator Patrick McHale tweeted, “It’s funny, I just saw this now,” when the news went live. Clearly this corporation has no respect for the artists creating media that they make available, and though they’re doing this to cut costs, it’s incredibly unprofessional. They seem to be trying to sneak animated shows out the back door, even by removing the episodes one at a time. But just like last year, fans noticed, and answered by storming to social media to express their outrage. I hope this is going to come around and kick them in the ass, but I don’t have much hope that it will, at least not for a while.
This whole issue leans into the troubling trend of treating art as easily replaceable, mass-produced “content.” Social media gives anyone the chance to create art and distribute it to the internet, making it accessible all the way across the world, which is great! Exciting, even. I’ve certainly taken advantage of posting my own writing, photos, videos, and silly one-liners. However, it really isn’t the same as the art created by professionals, because that includes a whole team of talented people, including editors, who really can make or break a finished product. Still, this amateur art can still be wonderful, and plenty of people spend plenty of time enjoying, rewatching, and sharing it with others (what has lately been referred to as “consuming” art). However, since this art is made by amateurs, the distributors of it can get away with paying these artists tiny portions of the profits, or nothing at all. That may be fine for literary journals, since most really only make enough to keep their project going, rather than turning a profit, but it’s safe to say Tiktok is making plenty of profit that ought to go to the creators keeping the app alive.
And if the artists creating content for social media in their apartments on their phones and laptops deserve to be paid, then the professionals who make art for a living definitely do. HBOMax has just found a convenient loophole.
Time to go pirate Over the Garden Wall, I guess. (Legally, a joke. Don’t burn DVDs of your favorite shows that only exist on flighty streaming services, that’d be messed up…)
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