A witty, quite entertaining Disney cartoon feature, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, based on classic stories, is co-directed by Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, and James Algar.
The film, which is short (only 69 minutes), consists of two parts. The first half is an adaptation of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” about a seventeenth century schoolteacher Ichabod Crane and his love for the beautiful Katrina. The girl’s vengeful ex-beau Brom Bones decides to scare Ichabod out of Sleepy Hollow by filling the impressionable teacher’s brain with stories about the ghostly Headless Horseman.
The second half of the feature is based on the “Toad of Toad Hall” stories from Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind and the Willows.” The aristocratic but childish Mr. Toad loves motorcars, but his affection takes him to jail, when he is accused of stealing a car. Determined to prove his innocence, Toad’s faithful friends then get Toad out of prison and succeed in exposing the actual crooks.
Bing Crosby, then at the height of his popularity, narrates and sings in Ichabod, which boats a great and scary climax, and the British character actor Basil Rathbone appears in the Mr. Toad segment.
The two literary sources have also been made into big-screen, live-action movies.
Cast of Voices
Narrator: Bing Crosby
Produced by Walt Disney
