Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Back in 2016, I shared a review on the 1947 Disney film ‘Fun and Fancy Free’. It was an anthology film containing two segments, including ‘Bongo’ and ‘Mickey and the Beanstalk’. Here I am sharing a quick review on another Disney anthology film from 1949.

‘The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad’ is fascinating for me to share my thoughts on. This film contains two segments, including ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. I saw the two stores on separate VHS tapes when growing up in the 1990s.

They weren’t part as one film when I saw them as a kid. So, it was quite fascinating to revisit these stories on a DVD my Dad purchased a while ago and find that they once formed a complete anthology film. Initially, I didn’t quite get why they were combined in one film.

But upon my revisits of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, they’re apparently narrated by two different narrators. The link between them is that the first story comes from the UK and the second story comes from the USA, which is intriguing.

‘The Wind in the Willows’ is narrated by Basil Rathbone. For those of you who don’t know, Basil Rathbone played Sherlock Holmes in the film series from 1939 to 1946. It was nice to find him narrating ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and he does it with such great enthusiasm.

‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is narrated by Bing Crosby. Yes! The guy well-known for acting and singing in films like ‘Holiday Inn’ is the narrator of ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. To think my first encounter with Bing Crosby was in a Disney animated short story. 😀

Watching ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ back-to-back has been enlightening. ‘The Wind in the Willows’ is more a full-cast story, especially with the characters being voiced by different actors whilst Basil Rathbone narrates the story itself.

With ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, it’s more a musical story (much in the same vein as when Dinah Shore narrated ‘Bongo’ as a musical story in ‘Fun and Fancy Free’). Bing Crosby is narrating and mostly voicing the male characters whilst ladies voice the ladies.

In ‘The Wind in the Willows’, there’s a Christmas and New Year element to it at some point in the story whilst ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is more suited for Halloween. I wonder if ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ should have been shown first before ‘The Wind in the Willows’.

Disney’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’ was my introduction to the story by Kenneth Grahame. Its story is about J. Thaddeus Toad, owner of Toad Hall, who gets into trouble when he desires to have a motorcar. 😐 Toad gets in trouble with the police and he ends up in prison.

With the help of his friends Ratty, Moley and MacBadger, they seek to clear his name. It means having to break into Toad Hall and steal the deed from its new owner Winky, who’s joined by a criminal bunch of weasels. There’s plenty of thrills and fun in this short story.

The cast of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ includes J. Thaddeus Toad, voiced by Eric Blore (who’s been in films with Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers like ‘Swing Time’ and ‘The Gay Divorcee’). There’s Cyril Proudbottom, Toad’s jolly horse friend, voiced by J. Pat O’Malley.

There’s Ratty, voiced by Claud Alister, Moley, voiced by Colin Campbell and there’s Angus MacBadger, voiced by Campbell Grant. Funnily, characters like Ratty, Moley and Toad would reappear in future Disney productions like ‘Mickey’s Christmas Carol’, which I’ve enjoyed.

‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ was also my introduction to Ichabod Crane, with the story originally written by Washington Irving. I can’t say ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is a story I’m very familiar with compared to ‘The Wind in the Willows’, but it’s invigorating to watch.

In the story, Ichabod Crane becomes the new schoolmaster of the tiny New England town of Sleepy Hollow. He falls for the town’s beauty, Katrina Van Tassel, and the town bully Brom Bones seeks ways to stop Ichabod from winning Katrina’s affections in this story. 😐

For a while, the story is mostly comedic, particularly in setting up Ichabod’s character and him falling for Katrina, accompanied by Bing Crosby’s narration and singing. But by the time we get to the story’s conclusion, it’s where things become so frightening indeed.

On his journey home from a Halloween party, Ichabod on his horse gets chased by the Headless Horseman who throws a fiery pumpkin at him. It’s left open-ended on what happened to Ichabod after his encounter with the Headless Horseman. It’s very unnerving.

Some might argue he might have survived, others might argue he was ‘spirited away’ by the Headless Horseman. My parents seem to believe it was Brom Bones disguised as the Headless Horseman trying to scare Icabod off, but I’m not entirely sure how valid that is.

I like the songs in the film, including ‘The Merrily Song’ sung in ‘The Wind in the Willows’. In ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, there are the three songs – ‘Ichabod Crane’, ‘Katrina’ and ‘The Headless Horseman’. They’re all sung by Bing Crosby and Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires.

‘The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad’ has been very enjoyable to check out on DVD as well as on Disney+ recently. I’m sure you’ll enjoy checking out the two stories in the film, with the narration by Basil Rathbone as well as narration and singing by Bing Crosby.

I don’t know whether you’d prefer to see ‘The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad’ at Halloween or Christmas time. Either way, you won’t be disappointed with either story. Mind you, I prefer ‘The Wind in the Willows’ story more over ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’.

The bonus material on the DVD includes ‘Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride Game’, the ‘Lonesome Ghosts’ bonus short film, starring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, ‘The Merrily Song’ Sing-Along Edition and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ interactive storybook. All are very enjoyable. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂