The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Release Date: October 5, 1949

Watch Date: October 31, 2023

“Two unforgettable children’s stories, ‘The Wind In The Willows’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’ come together in one fabulous adventure…and in its original theatrical format. First, hang on for a wild motorcar ride with J. Thaddeus Toad as he drives his friends Mole, Rat and Angus MacBadger into a worried frenzy. Then meet the spindly Ichabod Crane, who dreams of sweeping beautiful Katrina Van Tassel off her feet despite opposition from town bully Brom Bones, who also has his eye on Katrina. The comic rivalry introduces Ichabod to the legend of the Headless Horseman, resulting in a heart-thumping climax. Wonderfully narrated by Basil Rathbone and Bing Crosby, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad brims with high-spirited adventure, brilliant animation and captivating music.”

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    We managed a final Spooky Season movie!

    And what a movie it was!

    We decided, because Bob had never seen it, and it is a classic, to watch the original Disney Halloween film, ‘The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.’ And now, I call it the ‘original Disney Halloween film’ but that’s only because it’s always grouped together with Halloween films, and it was released in October and it has the Headless Horseman, which is an iconic old Disney villain. But it’s not really a Halloween movie, at all, and let me explain why.

    Firstly, and having nothing to do with Halloween, it does what most Disney anthologies don’t do, and ties the stories in together nicely. Here’s a classic children’s story from the Old World, and a classic children’s story from the New. The two stories chosen don’t have anything to do with one another, and you get the feeling that quite possibly they were just two shorts that Disney decided could be done as a feature length film, but, like I said, they made it work in a way that didn’t make me super annoyed, so there’s a positive.

    Secondly, and this time on the subject of Halloween, the Wind in the Willows is not a scary story. It doesn’t put you on edge, it doesn’t send chills up your spine, the main character doesn’t even manage to learn the lesson of the story. The ride at Disneyland, wherein I’m pretty sure you go to Hell – I’ve only ever been on it once, maybe twice? – is a lot more scary, and would fit in much better with the Halloween theme. This is jus ta wild toad who has a mania, which I guess for some people might be a scary proposition, especially if you grew up in a household that held someone like that? But I suspect for most people, it’s just an entertaining story.

    Now, and thirdly, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a ghost story. But it’s a ghost story in the classic sense of a ghost story, where there’s a lot of preamble and mood setting and not very much ghost. And that works really well in a literary sense, but not so well in a modern one, and definitely not when you’re trying to convince your husband that this is definitely a Halloween movie and no, you didn’t trick him into watching a film from the late 1940s just for the heck of it. The Headless Horseman, the only thing anyone remembers from this entire film, isn’t mentioned until the final third, and he doesn’t appear until the last five minutes. And the scene is worth it, The Headless Horseman appropriately intimidating, and the song about him is toe tapping, but it comes way too late for most people to say “Yes, this a movie about Halloween and definitely not about a toad with a mental illness and a debonair schoolteacher who likes to eat.”

    But it’s all good, because it, honestly, a good movie, it’s solid for the time frame it came out – and the fact that it was an anthology. It felt special to have watched it on October 31st, and while I doubt that Bob will ever insist we put it on again, that’s alright, because we’ve watched it, and now, when The Headless Horseman shows up on random Disney merch or in Disney specials, he’ll at least know what is happening. And educating Bob on classic Disney films is kind of part of the fun.

    This Spooky Season felt like a return to our marathon after we struggled for a few months, maybe we don’t like Marvel as much as we thought we did, or maybe the old Marvel movies are just that bad. There was a bit of Disney magic in the air, and fall is both our favorite seasons. We can only hope this trend continues as we settle in to November, and a month of Bob’s exclusive picks, and then into the holidays.