"Haha, what a wonderful harvest. What about you [Wirt]? You sure you want to leave?— Oh, well. You'll join us someday."
—Enoch to Wirt in Hard Times at the Huskin' Bee.
Enoch (voiced by Chris Isaak) is a character who appears in "Hard Times at the Huskin' Bee," and cameos in "The Unknown".
The etymology of the name "Enoch" comes from one of the two men named Enoch who were in the Bible.
Appearance[]
Sketch by Nick Cross.
In Enoch's initial concept art and sketches there are usually two depictions. His cat appearance and his pumpkin appearance. In Nick Cross's initial character sketches we see Enoch with his pumpkin suit. All the sketches maintain his large pumpkin head and string torso. In Cross's other sketches we saw potential differences in the face of Enoch's pumpkin, a more cartoony smile, an aged pumpkin texture for the head suit, tighter pumpkin knot at the top, smaller eyes with eye openings and his nose appearing as cuts similar to the pumpkins of the pumpkin people, and an eerie hollow and rigid mouth line with no teeth. In Aaron Renier's concept art we see Enoch as a black cat and initially replacing the turkeys who pull carts in Pittsfield, as in this sketch, he is pulling a red and slightly modern plow. Later in Seo Kim's character design for Enoch and the skeletons of the pumpkin people are accepted. In her drawings we see Enoch carrying similar design features from Nick Cross, but Enoch's pumpkin is more uniform to the final design with the knot at the top of his pumpkin head and the base of the string torso at the bottom of the pumpkin head. The only difference in these sketches was the teeth of Enoch's smile, another uniform trait, but with a hollow opening to highlight his sharp jagged teeth and different nose shapes; some of the nose shapes were like Nick Cross's, hollow cut-outs or two indentations. His eyes are also the large eyes with pupils seen in the final design.
In the final design Enoch maintains his torso and pumpkin head, but his round smile is not hollow, it becomes almost painted on and showing two rows of human teeth. His eyes are also painted on and large with two large plain pupils, and his nose adopted traits from prior designs, with a carrot/arrow nose. His ribbon-clad torso is also still hung from the rafters of the barn, but is able to stand by itself and is used as a maypole during the pumpkin people's celebration. Enoch's cat design did not go through many changes, other than the details of his pupils.
Personality[]
Although at first he seems to be frightening and overly-protective of his town, he seems to have a friendly, laid-back personality as he jokes with Wirt and Greg about their conviction of murder.
History[]
In "Hard Times Huskin' Bee", Wirt and Greg stumble across Pottsfield during harvest time, Greg accidentally steps on a pumpkin. Greg and Wirt join the citizens who are wearing pumpkin costumes and try to ask one of them for a ride home. After hearing the brothers want to leave Pottsfield after trampling their crops and interrupting their private engagement, they are charged with trespassing, destruction of property and disturbing of the peace. The brothers are sentenced to “A few hours of manual labor.” After gathering numerous crops for the harvest, the pumpkin citizens have them dig holes. When Wirt finds a skeleton in Greg's hole, he assumes they will be executed and that they were digging their own graves. Wirt tries to stall them while Beatrice picks the locks on their chains, only to see that skeleton rise out from the hole and don pumpkin clothing, revealing to the trio that the citizens are actually skeletons and were literally "digging the life of the party," and Enoch happily deems the event to be "a wonderful harvest" and allows Wirt, Greg and Beatrice to leave, saying they'll join Pottsfield some day.
Enoch makes a cameo in the Season finale with the rest of the pumpkin citizens lying on the ground and reveals that he is actually a black cat inside a pumpkin-like suit.
Enoch as a cat is seen riding the pumpkin cart, pulled by two turkeys in the introduction. He is also seen as a cat dancing with the Pottsfield people during the dance in the end of the series. However, as soon as he is shown as a giant pumpkin person, he is no longer seen as a cat again.
Enoch is never seen speaking as a cat. When he speaks, he is always in his pumpkin costume.
Powers & Abilities[]
Enoch, unlike most animals, has the power of human speech.
Enoch has also demonstrated the ability of necromancy, an example of reanimating. He is most likely the cause of Pottsfield's undead citizens; this is shown when Larry and Edward did not come back to life until Enoch himself arrived. He can also animate inanimate objects, such as his pumpkin suit. He can speak through it, and can cause it to move around, use its arms, and can control the different threads the body is made of.
Trivia[]
- Voice actor Chris Isaak, who voices Enoch, also portrays Chester Desmond in the Twin Peaks movie, Fire Walk With Me.
- Over the Garden Wall may have been inspired by Twin Peaks.
- He is the leader of "The Pottsfield Chamber of Commerce".
- His pumpkin head is so large that it's about the height of Wirt.
- The character was originally created because Patrick Mchale wanted Chris Isaak to have a character to voice after his work on Tome of the Unknown.
Gallery
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References[]
[1] https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/over-the-garden-wall/episode-2-season-1/chapter-2-hard-times-at-the-huskin-bee/699818/
[2] https://jasonfunderburker.tumblr.com/post/102058130772/concept-art-for-chapter-2-hard-times-at-the
[3] https://jasonfunderburker.tumblr.com/post/94788469016/concept-art-by-aaron-renier
[4] https://ncrossanimation.tumblr.com/post/103017216472/some-early-enoch-sketches-i-did-for-chapter-2-of