Over the Hedge is a 2006 computer animated family action comedy film based on the characters from United Media comic strip of the same name. Directed by Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick, and produced by Bonnie Arnold, it was released in the United States on May 19, 2006.

The film was produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed through Paramount Pictures. The film features the voices of Bruce Willis, Avril Lavigne, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, William Shatner, Wanda Sykes, and Nick Nolte. Over the Hedge is the first DreamWorks Animation movie to be distributed by Paramount Pictures.

After RJ, a starving raccoon, fails to get snacks from a vending machine, he becomes so desperate that he tries to raid a large food cache belonging to Vincent, a hibernating black bear. However, while trying to leave, he wakes Vincent and loses both the food and the red wagon that it's on when a truck runs it over. Hastily, he promises to replace everything by the time Vincent reawakens in a week.

Meanwhile, a group of forest animals, led by Verne the box turtle, emerge from hibernation to find their food cache nearly empty. They begin foraging but find a large hedge blocking their way. Verne investigates, discovering a human residential community which confuses and frightens him. RJ, who sees the entire commotion, convinces the other animals it's easier to raid the humans' garbage for food rather than forage for it, and they manage to get enough food to keep them from starving. Verne, however, remains wary, especially after homeowner Gladys Sharp discovers the animals in her yard, chases them out through the hedge, and hires VermTech exterminator Dwayne LaFontant to keep them out.

Over the Hedge is a syndicated comic strip written and drawn by Michael Fry and T. Lewis. It tells the story of a raccoon, turtle, a squirrel, and their friends who come to terms with their woodlands being taken over by suburbia, trying to survive the increasing flow of humanity and technology while becoming enticed by it at the same time. The strip debuted in June 1995.

A raccoon con artist, RJ takes pride in being extremely lazy. He apparently envisions himself as an intellectual; however, his "facts" are obviously false. He loves to ransack human homes, as well as watch them and their televisions through the windows. While he enjoys commenting on human life, most of his statements are false as well, although he has studied humans and knows their ways of getting food, and even has slightly imprinted on them. He was shown to care for Clara even before she was born, (after he learned that babies can hear some things outside of the mother from Verne) by reading The Hunchback of Notre' Dame' and singing a horrible version of Stairway to Heaven. He is sometimes shown without a brain, using his brain cavity to store his "hanky", and breath mints. He is shown to have the ability to expand to fit a massive amount of food, and is known as "that horrible raccoon kid" on Halloween. It was revealed in one strip that he is an immortal god, and once confessed to Verne for "lighting the fuse" to the Big Bang, which he explained was because "The matches were right there, and the sign said "Don't light this fuse!!!", so...". He also said that the universe will have to reschedule the time when the Sun will burn out, as he has a tail rinse that day.

Wanda Sykes (born March 7, 1964) is an American writer, stand-up comedian, actress, and voice artist. She earned the 1999 Emmy Award for her writing on The Chris Rock Show. In 2004 Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She is well known for her role as Barbara Baran on The New Adventures of Old Christine and for her appearances on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm.

In November 2009, The Wanda Sykes Show, her own late-night talkshow, premiered on Fox, airing Saturday nights, until it was cancelled in April 2010. Sykes has also had a successful career in film, appearing in Monster-in-Law, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Evan Almighty, and License to Wed, and voiced characters in Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Brother Bear 2, Rio, and Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Sykes was born in Portsmouth, Virginia and raised in the Washington, D.C., area. Her mother, Marion Louise (née Peoples), worked as a banker, and her father, Harry Ellsworth Sykes, was a US Army colonel employed at the Pentagon. Sykes attended Arundel High School in Gambrills, Maryland, and went on to graduate from Hampton University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing. After college, her first job was as a procurement officer with the National Security Agency (NSA), where she worked for five years.

Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is a German-born American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles. He is well known for the role of John McClane in the Die Hard series, which were mostly critical and uniformly financial successes. He has also appeared in over sixty films, including box office successes like Pulp Fiction (1994), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), Armageddon (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Sin City (2005), Over the Hedge (2006) and Red (2010).

Motion pictures featuring Willis have grossed US$2.64 billion to 3.05 billion at North American box offices, making him the ninth highest-grossing actor in a leading role and twelfth highest including supporting roles. He is a two-time Emmy Award–winning, Golden Globe Award–winning and four-time Saturn Award–nominated actor. Willis was married to actress Demi Moore and they had three daughters before their divorce in 2000, following thirteen years of marriage. He is currently married to model Emma Heming, with whom he has one daughter.

Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte (born February 8, 1941) is an American actor. His career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s, when his commercial success made him one of the better known stars of that decade. His films include 48 Hrs. (1982), Cape Fear (1991), Afterglow (1997), Affliction (1997), The Good Thief (2003), and Warrior (2011). He has been nominated for three Academy Awards, twice for Best Actor and once for Best Supporting Actor.

Nolte was born Nicholas King Nolte in Omaha, Nebraska on February 8, 1941. His mother, Helen (née King), was a department store buyer, and his father, Franklin Arthur Nolte, was a farmer's son who worked in irrigation pump sales, and who was an All-American football player at Iowa State University in 1934. Nolte's paternal grandfather was of German descent. Nolte's maternal grandfather, Matthew Leander King, invented the hollow-tile silo and was prominent in early aviation. His maternal grandmother ran the student union at Iowa State University. He has an older sister, Nancy, who was an executive for the Red Cross.