The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

[osprey_archer]

We have reached the last of Disney’s anthology films! I thought Melody Time was the last, but it turns out that The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is actually two separate short films, which actually makes a lot more sense than trying to mash up “The Headless Horseman” and The Wind in the Willows into one story so maybe I should have guessed beforehand.

Silly complaint time, but the title mentions Ichabod Crane first and Mr. Toad second, but in the movie itself the order is reversed and this really bothers me because it seems so untidy. Why would Disney title it like that???

Generally, though, I enjoyed both shorts. I would not recommend the Mr. Toad short for anyone who is deeply attached to The Wind in the Willows because it is only distantly related to that book, but if you go into it accepting that it’s a completely different thing that happens to share a few names, there’s some entertaining mayhem going on.

And the Ichabod Crane short actually hews pretty close to Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” with the added amusing quality that Ichabod’s rival for Katrina van Tassel’s affections is basically a proto-Gaston. Bluff! Hearty! Annoyingly manly! But certainly more cunning than Gaston: he goes after his rival with a ghost story rather than a pitchfork, which while more indirect is also far more effective.

Comments

[brigdh]

Oh, man, I was obsessed with this version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow when I was little. I was too young to actually remember this, but apparently I would watch it over and over again, and I thought Ichabod looked like (or possibly actually was!) my grandfather. Which means I'm not actually sure how much of the story I absorbed at the time, but when I've rewatched it more recently, it is a lot of fun!

[osprey_archer]

I always love the weird interpretations small children come up with. When I was a wee little thing I watched An American Tail over and over, and goodness alone knows what I got out of it at that age, but I really loved it.