The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is probably the only movie to have a theme park ride based on events only implied in the film; Toad's wild ride happens during an exceptionally brilliant transition.

It is doubtful that anyone has seen Ichabod and Mr. Toad the way it was originally intended to be seen – as a feature-length film in a theatre. I have. Disney has marketed the film very successfully in many ways over the years, running it on television as separate stories and so on. Perhaps that is why some of us, without really knowing why, are compelled to take "Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride" when we go to Disneyland.

But how many of us are familiar enough with this film to approach the ride at Disneyland with a far-off look in our eyes while muttering the word "motorcar" in a vaguely English accent? When I intone this word while standing in the always considerable lines for the ride, I get a bunch of blank stares in return.

The DVD release of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is certainly the best solution to this problem. It says so right there on the package: "The original theatrical version." I have to admit that I am a sucker for the Disney animated features, but I am also a stickler for some of the "tech" issues surrounding these films when they hit home video. I am pleased to report that Ichabod and Mr. Toad looks and sounds wonderful. It is still in monaural sound as it was when it was released to theatres in 1949.

It is commonly suggested that Ichabod and Mr. Toad was produced during a difficult time in the Disney Studio’s history. Theatre attendance was dropping, which made the theatre operators book fewer short cartoons from Disney. They hadn’t had a hit feature since before the war and the costs of producing the animated features was going up all the time – especially since the animators had finally been able to unionize and become members of the IATSE. It is also suggested that Walt himself was increasingly indifferent to the whole enterprise of making animated features, setting his sights on the future objectives of Television and Disneyland.

But the need to keep the production pipeline working and producing product that could be rented out to theatres resulted in "omnibus" films containing several stories in each. Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), and Melody Time (1948) are all in this style, and all have been released on DVD by the way.

These films are all very interesting to see because, since Walt had his mind on other things, and because the shorter segments of each of the stories didn’t have to carry an entire feature, everybody got a chance to lighten up and get a little goofier with things. Ichabod and Mr. Toad however, is actually the most conservative and normal of the "omnibus" films. It is instantly familiar in tone. The live action footage with the camera slowly gliding up to the Technicolor saturated library shelves. Its closing in on that one book which will magically slide out and open on the title page. The English Countryside setting of the first story, and so on. All this serves as a prelude to the most famous sequence in the film – the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

These two stories actually play rather well together, despite their differences in approach. This is intentional, of course. The first one, the story of Toad and his obsession with the motorcar, is told with a narrator and has the animal and human characters speaking. Then, in the second piece, the story of Ichabod Crane, there are no talking animals, so they pull an old trick: the story is told through a narrator. Animators say that it’s much more difficult to make animated human beings come to life on screen. So the trick is to figure out a way so that you don’t have to do it. In this case, all the human characters are silent. They only "speak" through the singing of either the narrator Bing Crosby or the female singing trio of The Rhyhmaires.

In the first film, an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 story The Wind in the Willows, the Narrator – Basil Rathbone in this case, introduces us to the minor characters first, which is another old trick. Set the tone of things by introducing the less colorful characters, and then bring on the hero Mr. Toad, for contrast.

So the lesser characters, McBadger, Rat and Mole are all in a frightful state, because the Lord of the local manor house, J. Thaddeus Toad of Toad Hall is such a wild man, that the finances of Toad Hall are in ruins. McBadger is trying to deal with all of Toad Hall’s creditors. Rat and Mole go out to try to find Toad, who is introduced as this small amphibian driving a horse-drawn wagon. He is singing the well-known "Nowhere in Particular" song.

There is a slight exchange of dialogue between Rat, Mole and Toad, which establishes the idea that life for Toad is just a whole bunch of fun. No wonder kids go for this character. The Disney Toad is moreover, incredibly cute, what with the way they are able to suggest all sorts of disdain into the way Toad curls his snout. Voiced by the wonderful Eric Blore (who is often seen playing butlers in light Hollywood fare of the 30s and 40s), Toad wears spats, a waistcoat, jacket and a bowtie. In this first scene, the pants he is wearing seem to be long johns. When Toad’s body is flying up in the air while attempting to control the horse Cyril, you can see the trap door and buttons commonly drawn on the behinds of cartoon characters when they are wearing this item.

While Rat lectures Toad about one thing or another, Toad does this thing that I love. He clasps his hands together, then resting them atop his head, puts his palms down over his "ears." The sound of Rat’s lecture is lowered and muffled on the soundtrack. When Toad lifts his palms for a moment, the sound is upped and sharpened accordingly. He flaps his palms up and down to hear this phenomenon, with the silliest look on his face, one of pure enjoyment.

Suddenly, a motorcar comes into view as two men drive along the road. The motorcar is introduced very nonchalantly — it is Toad’s reaction that is given the emphasis and laughs as he is overcome by his "Mania." Rat and Mole have to drag Toad away and lock him in his room until the motorcar mania passes. Toad escapes however, then there is this great transition that everyone should write down in their "Great Transition Ideas" Notebook. There is a long shot of Toad in his nightie tip-toeing through the moonlit night as he approaches a small bridge. Basil the Narrator tells us, "Toad was completely mad – he was determined to get a motorcar — even if he had to beg, borrow or. . ." Then cut to a newspaper whirling up onto close-up with an accompanying blare from the horn section. The headline yells: "TOAD ARRESTED!"

Then Toad is put on trial for stealing the motorcar. There is a mean, nasty, sharp, angular, dismissive Prosecuting Attorney. There’s no getting away from it, you lawyers; the image is shaped in the human mind by Disney pretty early: Lawyers only do nasty things, such as yelling at poor Toad and his friends.

Cyril the horse takes the stand and relates how Toad saw this motorcar being driven by a whole squadron of Weasels being parked in front of a pub. Toad goes inside, and asks the publican Winkie if he knows who owns the car – will they take cash for it? The Weasels stole the car, so they think this is a wonderful deal. The moves of the Weasels as they hide under the table or as they seat Toad in place at the head of the table are wonderfully done. The Weasels, Cyril tells the court, traded the motorcar for Toad Hall! Toad didn’t steal it; he bought it!

Toad conducts his own defense, calling Winkie to the stand. As Toad introduces Winkie to the court as a man of unimpeachable stature, the Judge leans over to shake his hand. The Winkie character gives him the slyest of nods that is just priceless . . .

But Winkie double crosses Toad, who is on the point of walking out the door of the court. He tells the court that Toad wanted Winkie to buy the stolen motorcar. There follows one of those short sequences that they pull every now and again in animation, but never in live action films. Toad begins to panic, the Bailiffs slam the doors, there is pandemonium in the court as the Judge bangs his gavel, Winkie is smugly standing in the witness box, Toad is dragged away, there are newspaper headlines. All if this is accomplished in very short shots, each of which is skewing out of control, and slightly faster, if I am not mistaken.

Straining for the maximum sympathy for Toad, the scene switches to a snowy white Christmas. We focus on the forbidding tower of the prison at the edge of town. Somehow, Toad gets to wear his regular outfit in prison. Only now, his gray pants have a tear in them. Rathbone’s narration is just so pitiful as he explains Toad’s remorse and his determination to become "A New Toad."

But Cyril shows up disguised as Toad’s granny in order to help him escape through means of a similar granny costume. He sequence of Toad’s escape from prison has some beautiful design and very convincing fog effects. I always sit there in awe of these effects; I know that they are done with multiple passes through the camera, but just how many . . .

Toad commandeers a train, and the police are right on his trail. The whole thing is done with great bounciness as the train lurches this way and that as Toad makes his getaway. The train the police are riding and firing from is also bouncing in a very lively way. I suppose that a similar sense of excitement and action can be induced in live action by lots of cutting and hand-held, shaky shots. But here, everything is swaying in this wonderful way – it helps keep the scene light, even though the police are shooting at the hero!

Toad presents himself at the home of Rat and Mole. McBadger shows up, and they all decide that Toad is innocent, because it is revealed that Winkie is the leader of the Weasels! Toad Hall is overrun with Weasels! Our party sneaks into Toad Hall through a tunnel. Once inside, they find Winkie sleeping on a couch surrounded by a multitude of sleeping Weasels. The deed to Toad Hall is sticking out of Winkie’s vest. MacBadger, Toad and Rat lower Mole from an upstairs balcony by a rope made of bedclothes. Just at the point of maximum tension, there is a very funny moment when those above misjudge the distance, and Mole just plops on Winkie’s stomach! Everybody awakes, and there is a reasonably nicely choreographed run, chase, collide, pursue, we’re outnumbered, kind of sequence which culminates in the various parties grabbing for the piece of paper which is the deed.

Toad has a truly inspired bit in that he folds the deed up into a paper airplane, and sends it flying through the room. Then he makes a whole bunch more, so that the Weasels don’t know what they are looking for anymore. There is also a merry chase business at a revolving panel that could be the source of a similar bit in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

After this climax, the story ends rather quickly, and I can see why they did things the way they did, because the Toad story is a darn sight longer and more detailed than the Ichabod story.

This is an adaptation of Washington Irving’s short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" which was first published in The Sketch Book from 1819. Here, the hero, Ichabod Crane, is introduced by showing his shadow as it struts across the fields. He’s shown walking with his considerable nose stuck in a book. I suppose this is why I like this character, since I do the same thing. They give him a piece of business that is quite accurate. The first time you see his face is when he pulls it out of the book, then he scans the countryside, then satisfied that he isn’t about to trip and fall, he sticks his head back into the book.

Der Bingle sings a song about Ichabod, and it is a much more modern number than what you usually get in a Disney feature, what with The Rhythemaires doing backup. Perhaps by hiring Bing (who was a huge star at the time), they were trying to be a little more "with it."

Ichabod however, doesn’t really look like Bing Crosby. The animators will usually use the person who is doing the voice as a source of inspiration for how to design and get facial expressions for a character. But since Bing is narrating and supplying all the voices, this seems to have been dispensed with this time.

So Ichabod falls in love with Katrina van Tassle, who is the apple of the eye of the town hunk, Brom Bones. But Ichabod is shown as a graceful, clever fellow. We have the set-up where the good nature of Ichabod is pitted against the brawn of the local stud for the hand of the local "babe."

There is a wonderful sequence where Ichabod is imagining his love, Katrina. During this reverie, he imagines Katrina’s father, a wealthy burgher, sitting in all his fine clothes and jewelry. As Bing tells us that Ichabod ruminates on the fact that the father won’t live forever, there is a lap dissolve to just the man’s jewelry hanging in space, then a slightly fatter Ichabod dissolves into all this jewelry. He grins at us, thereby revealing a golden tooth. It’s great.

So there is a long series of scenes where Ichabod manages to be physically graceful, and this is very winning to Katrina, but very annoying to Brom Bones. This part of the film is impossible to describe, because it is all visuals and actions. It is very much like a silent movie. The Narrator tells us things that are going on, but the action of the characters amplifies on these words, and is actually more revealing of the characters. This is not considered to be anything special, but I treasure this technique.

Brom Bones notices that Ichabod’s flaw is that he is superstitious. At a Halloween party, Brom tells the story of the legend of the Headless Horseman, and this has an effect on Ichabod as he rides his plough horse home in the middle of the night. The atmosphere is suitably dark and mysterious. The horse clops along slowly, and the motion of the horse as Ichabod sits atop it, becoming more and more frightened is either a masterpiece of animation or was something that they did every day. You really feel the weight of Ichabod on that horse.

The sounds of the forest suggest ghosts and goblins to Ichabod’s imagination. They pull something that they did in Snow White: it is revealed that the sound of the Headless Horseman’s approaching horse is just a bunch of cattails striking a hollow log in the wind. It’s nothing. This is, of course, the perfect time to lower the boom. It’s the Headless Horseman! (They let Snow White off the hook.)

The Headless Horseman is rendered in great style with rim light, a mighty steed and long cape. It is a wonder to behold. The whole chase really doesn’t take up all that much screen time, and they don’t drag it out. Ichabod manages to cross the covered bridge which is the boundary of the Horseman’s domain, and the Horseman throws a flaming Jack ‘O Lantern through the bridge at Ichabod.

That seemed to do the trick. Brom Bones gets to marry the beautiful Katrina, and Ichabod is shown serving Thanksgiving turkey to his family, which he has started elsewhere.

That doesn’t sound like much, does it? But the story is the excuse for the style of the thing. The narration of the characters motivations and the business onscreen gobble up lots of time without really advancing the story. Disney’s people where very good at this. It reached its zenith with Cinderella, where there is just a ton of really enjoyable material that has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

The DVD of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad comes with a couple of cartoons. One is Susie, the Little Blue Coupe (1952), and the other is Mickey, Donald and Goofy in sort of an early rendering of Ghostbusters called Lonesome Ghosts (1937). In this cartoon, Goofy actually says, "I ain’t a-scared a no ghosts." Harold Ramis, who was born in 1944, must have seen this as a lad.

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