Patrick Nolen McHale (born November 17, 1983) is an American animator, storyboard artist, screenwriter, director, and musician. He is well known for creating the animated television miniseries Over the Garden Wall.
After leaving Flapjack, he joined fellow CalArts alum and Flapjack storyboard artist Pendleton Ward to help develop Ward's Adventure Time short into an animated series, Adventure Time. Once the show was picked up, McHale stayed as the show's creative director through the show's second season. Then he moved to New York City with his wife and fellow filmmaker Jiwook Kim. He continued to freelance for the show in the capacity of writing some songs and providing input on story outlines until the middle of season five.
The short became the basis for a ten-part miniseriesOver the Garden Wall, which premiered over five consecutive nights in November 2014. Tome of the Unknown was streamed online in May 2015. McHale won a National Cartoonists Society Reuben award[4] as the creator of Over the Garden Wall, in the category for TV Animation.[5] The series won an Emmy Award for Best Animated Program.[6] In the same year, McHale's Over the Garden Wall won Best Animated Feature at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in Ottawa, Canada.[7] In 2016, McHale received an Eisner Award for Best Publication for Kids as the creator and a writer of the Over the Garden Wall comic book featuring the characters who first appeared in the television series.[6]
Other works
In early 2015, McHale self-published his first short novel, Bags, via Etsy.[8] In 2015, Frederator Studios announced that McHale would direct an 11-minute adaptation of Costume Quest.[9] On February 22, 2015, he released an original album via his Bandcamp page titled The End.[10]
In 2017, director Guillermo del Toro announced that McHale would co-write the script to del Toro's stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio.[11] In February 2021, Netflix announced that McHale would serve as scriptwriter for an animated film adaptation of the novel Redwall by Brian Jacques, an English author. By December 2022, McHale left the project due to changes at Netflix Animation.[12][13] In April 7, 2023, he released the album Those Wild Days in collaboration with J.R. Kaufman from the band The Blasting Company through Bandcamp.[14]
In June 14, 2024, it was announced that McHale returned to Cartoon Network Studios to be part of the development team for “The Adventure Time Movie” movie alongside Rebecca Sugar and Adam Muto.[15] Celebrating the tenth anniversary of Over the Garden Wall, McHale collaborated with Aardman Animation to create a stop motion short featuring characters from the show.[16] The short film was uploaded to YouTube on November 3, 2024 by Cartoon Network.[17] He co-wrote the short with Dan Ojari and Mikey Please.
