The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Donald Levit started his review out by noting, “In A.A. Milne’s 1929 stage adaptation, the Englishman’s famous 1908 book remains a Christmas staple in his country, and -- with a Halloween tie-in -- the Knickerbocker’s famous 1819 short story ushered in respectability for his country’s writers. Their forced yoking in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is, nevertheless, among the least-known and –shown of animated features from Disney’s classic period.”

Some argue that the protagonist is loveable in each in despite of excusable shortcomings and that both go on exciting rides. Levit mentioned, “But Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” are far more disparate than kin and likely were joined because, at sixty-eight minutes together, each alone was too long for a “cartoon” and too short to run as a feature.” Mentioning three directors, six (re)writers, and an animation department of two-and-a-half dozen, the 1949 film is part of the Museum of Modern Art Tim Burton (a one-time Disney animator) multimedia extravaganza, which includes all of his films and several others that influenced him: specifically, “his own Sleepy Hollow…was clearly inspired by this film’s priggish, nervous Ichabod Crane.”

Levit noted, “With no transition link between them, Disney introduces each part with a then-not uncommon library visit to pull down the corresponding volume whose title page opens the story.” Basil Rathbone narrates the English first section in low profile, with animal and human characters voiced by the not famous – more effective than current celebrity narrators – while Bing Crosby narrates and sings the second, American section.

The first half is more restricted to Milne’s Toad of Toad Hall than the complete children’s classic in that it skimps the original’s emphasis on rural Riverbank existence. Instead, it details the journey of selfless true friends Mole, Rat, and Angus McBadger (Colin Campbell, Claude Allister, and Campbell Grant) as they try to pull in their careless J. Thaddeus Toad, Esq. (Eric Blore), and preserve the grand Toad Hall where all of the neighborhood feels so proud.

Levit said, “Duns beating on the door, McBadger summons the other two in the face of insurmountable bills, while Toad goes from one “mania” to the next.” The main obsession is the yellow gypsy wagon driven by accomplice Cockney's horse Cyril Proudtrotter, voiced by J. Pat O’Malley, but one look at men in dusters behind a steering wheel quickly changes that. Toad avoids his friends and offers Mr. Winky, voiced by Oliver Wallace, his estate in exchange for a red car driven by the barman’s gang of weasel thugs. Charged for stealing the car, Toad escapes from prison at Christmas and, with Molie, Rattie, and Badger, needs to recover the Hall deed.

Levit said, “The audience of adults laughed and cheered at these adventures marvelously imagined and animated with a hint of danger, a lot of (non-wisecracking) humor, and a fleet of paper airplanes pointing ahead to the incorrigible squire’s next plaything.”

Levit continued, “Set in the fuzzy past “during the reign of the Dutch governors,” the following tale of the ungainly, self-centered new schoolteacher is, despite fun at his expense, less light-hearted, its witching hour ride as scary as anything else in the studio’s oeuvre (which includes some dire stuff).” Ichabod’s gluttony and greed are hidden from the public as he tries to win over the wealthy rosy-cheeked Katrina van Tassel, while she uses his slick prissy attention to infatuate strongman Brom Bones. Sheer luck protects “Icky” from the rival’s punches but not from the haunted Hessian Headless Horseman feared in his nervous brain.

Levit said, “No one gets hurt, and if rumor is right the pedagogue gets out of this scrape to find another rich wife. He is less cuddly than Toad, even if both adventurers are true to their instincts and somehow land on their feet.”

Stories for a less drenched and cynical age, “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” deserves more than it has received. As with its carefree protagonists, its day will come, or should.

I remember seeing commercials for this film when I was a kid. It was probably a re-release on home video, but I remember hearing about this. I just saw this earlier this year and I loved the two stories. You should see this one, especially the Ichabod story, which fits the Halloween time. Check it out on Disney+ and see what you have been missing out on.

Tomorrow I will start a franchise of films I started seeing one of the films, but my brother said I should see them, in “Disney Month 2023.” Sorry for posting this late. I fell asleep because I was so tired from work.