He goes back out into the garden, but the unicorn is gone, meanwhile his wife has snuck downstairs and is calling the police and a psychiatrist, telling them she is "absolutely sure they are going to need a straitjacket".

The project was going to combine animation and live action, and was provisionally titled Men, Women and Dogs, but funding for the feature proved to be elusive, and it was scrapped.

Hurtz chose The Unicorn in the Garden "because it featured human characters", and UPA was trying to "avoid the animal subjects" that were prevalent in Hollywood cartoons at the time.

[8] Mark Evans wrote in his book, Soundtrack: The Music of the Movies, that Raskin's score has a "decidedly neoclassic quality"; that he likes "canons, fugatos, and all types of polyphonic development".

For example, he says that the wife's "motifs tend to be brittle and unsympathetic", like she is portrayed in the cartoon, and in the scenes with the unicorn, a solo alto recorder is heard "in high register, playing a whimsical tune with a mock-martial air".

[8] Jon Newsom, Chief of Music Division at the Library of Congress, also agrees that Raskin's score makes a commentary on the characters.

[8] Newsom also noted that as the wife is taken away in a straitjacket by the police in the ending of the film, the "triumphant strains of Mendelssohn's Wedding March proclaim the husband's liberation".

[8] After viewing the film, Thurber wrote a letter to Raskin, stating: I am not a music maker, but I enjoyed your score, and remember with affection the recorder that spoke up when the unicorn appeared.

[12] American writer Gilbert Seldes said that "the best way to identify the quality of the product is to say that every time you see one of their animated cartoons, you are likely to recapture the sensation you had when you first saw Steamboat Willie".

[3] In 2012, it was released on a three disc DVD set as part of The Jolly Frolics Collection, which featured 38 UPA cartoons in total.

The cartoons were digitally remastered, and the box set included audio commentary by Leonard Maltin and Jerry Beck.