Over the Hedge

Over the Hedge
Comic Strip Header (2017)
Author(s)	Michael Fry T. Lewis
Website	gocomics.com/over_the_hedge
Current status/schedule	Running
Launch date	June 12, 1995
Syndicate(s)	United Feature Syndicate
Genre(s)	Humour Gag-a-day

Over the Hedge is an American

Cartoonists Michael Fry and T. Lewis began collaborating through an agent who represented both of them. At the time, Lewis was a children’s book illustrator, and Fry was a freelance writer. They originally conceived another comic strip called The Secret Life of Pigs, featuring two anthropomorphic pigs. This idea was rejected by editors, who thought that readers would not relate to the strip’s rural setting or the use of pigs as characters. In response, the two changed the lead characters to an ordinary raccoon and turtle, and in 1995, the strip was approved by United Feature Syndicate.

According to the Detroit Free Press, one factor in the strip’s initial success was the ending of Calvin and Hobbes in December 1995; when that strip ended, over 110 newspapers chose to run Over the Hedge as its replacement.^[2]

Main characters

• RJ — RJ is a raccoon
  Twinkies.^[3]
• Verne — Verne is a cautious, easy going, lactose abhorrent
  Ant Queen, and her ant subjects, forcing him to first wear one cereal box of Lucky Charms, and then one utilikilt
  .
• Hammy — A hyperactive squirrel, Hammy is the least intelligent, although also the most lovable character in the strip, spouting random comments at random moments. His comments usually state an unusually short lecture on a topic of little interest to the other characters. The character started the strip as "Hammy". He was later renamed as "Sammy", one
  continuity error that was assigned a fanciful explanation, when the film was in production, in May 2005.^[4] The character swapped places in December 2005, with his duplicate, also named "Hammy", from the other side of a mirror.^[5] RJ has addressed the character as "Hamilton".^[6]
• Clara — A human infant, who can speak to and understand the animals, with surprising intelligence. She gets along best with RJ, often adding insight to his plans.

An animated film adaptation, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures, was released on May 19, 2006 (June 30, 2006 in Britain). The film adaptation features RJ befriending a group of woodlanders (two of whom are Hammy and Verne) and introducing them to suburbia, with an ulterior motive of helping him replenish the food supply he stole from a bear named Vincent.

The film grossed $336 million worldwide.[7] Following DreamWorks acquisition by Comcast in 2016, the film's rights are now owned by Universal Pictures.

References