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Made at the end of the first age of Disney animation, "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" consists of two separate animated adaptations of classic stories. The Ichabod of the title is Ichabod Crane from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", and the Mr. Toad is J. Thaddeus Toad from the "Wind in the Willows". Each is short, running only about 35 minutes apiece, and is narrated by top of the line actors, Basil Rathbone doing the honors for "The Wind in the Willows", and Bing Crosby for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". I've not read either story so can't judge the adaptations accuracy, but it doesn't matter. Both stories are highly entertaining, and if you like the old school Disney animation, you won't be disappointed.

The next film alphabetically on Disney Plus is "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad" which is more interesting than truly successful. The Wartime effort left Disney short on resources and with many films and ideas too short to be cinematic releases, two of which were then glued together here and released as a feature. This is the first time I've ever seen these two films, as opportunities to see if have been scarce - They've almost never been on network TV and a VHS version didn't appear to be available when I was age appropriate.

Basil Rathbone narrates an animated and abridged version of Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in The Willows" in which the rich and excitable Mr Toad loses his ancestral home to a pack of Weasels and must count on the guile of his friends to help him retrieve it. Then Bing Crosby introduces Washington Irvine's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow". A schoolteacher moves to a New England town and falls for the town's most eligible maiden, but he has a rival for her affections, Brom, who comes up with an intriguing way to use a local legend to his advantage.

The animation for both stories is really good, as you might expect from this period of Disney. Crosby's narration is a little livelier than Rathbone's but he has more to do as the "Sleepy Hollow" half of the feature has very little other dialogue. I found that both stories struggled to hold my attention but of the two I enjoyed "The Wind in The Willows" a little more. Maybe it's just that I've seen more adaptations of that one and was more familiar with the narrative, but it actually worked as a story - whereas the Sleepy Hollow aspect is a romantic slapstick comedy that just suddenly switches on a dime when it introduces its most famous character.

It's interesting from a completist standpoint but ultimately there's a reason that it hasn't been dragged back into the light, prior to its residence on Disney Plus - it's just not that entertaining.

Finally Walt Disney Home Video has got their act together and released "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" in its entirety (the two stories have been available in separate forms for quite some time). I'll admit that the clunky title doesn't inspire much more enthusiasm than it did back in 1949 (the film tanked, from what I've heard), but I hope some people will give this a chance just based on the Disney name. "The Wind in the Willows", narrated by Basil Rathbone, is a delightfully comic adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's classic novel, keeping the proper British tone (children may not get some of the UK slang used) while still remaining a lot of fun. The highlight is the courtroom scene, featuring a bullying prosecutor (voiced by Disney animator/voice artist John McLeish, who also narrated the Goofy "How to" shorts) going toe-to-toe with a wonderfully insolent Toad (a great performance by Eric Blore). "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", based on a story (not a novel, as the film suggests) by Washington Irving, is even better, making the most of its American colonial setting with some especially interesting layouts and backgrounds. The humor found in the rivalry between schoolteacher Ichabod Crane and local roughneck Brom Bones for the hand of the manipulative tease ("coquette", in the film) Katrina von Tassel is some of Disney's best. The Halloween sequence leading up to the Headless Horseman's appearance is the most skillfully directed piece of animation I have ever seen outside of "Fantasia", conveying a magnificent sense of dread through both sound (the chilling echo of whistling and laughter, crickets chanting Ichabod's name, frogs croaking "headless horseman" over and over) and image (fireflies inside a tree trunk forming the eyes of a shrouded ghost, Ichabod's sweaty, nervous terror, the subtle cloud effect of hands closing over the moon). This is far more frightening than any horror film I have seen. All in all, a smart (listen to the narration and learn some new vocabulary words) film in every way. One final note: I have not seen this film in years (I saw it plenty of times on The Disney Channel during the 1980s), and I noticed the many scenes involving both alcohol and weapons, particularly in "The Wind and the Willows" segment. I accepted the scenes back then as a child and had no problem with them now, thanks to the general tone of the picture. Although the concept of Toad being restrained from blasting a bayonet-wielding weasel with a shotgun and seeing Toad and his friends running from various flying knives, swords, and axes sounds like something to stay away from, it is all harmless fun. Give it a chance.

I guess you describe this Walt Disney classic as a cartoon/cartoon. Two separate stories done to fill out one barely over an hour film. After 63 years it still has enough magic to entertain.

Why Disney reversed the order of The Adventures Of Ichabod and Mr. Toad I've not figured out since the Mr. Toad story comes first. Basil Rathbone narrates this part and Eric Blore is delightful as that rascally scamp J. Thaddeus Toad who has the finest estate on riverbank. But he's a spendthrift and really needs a keeper. Which his friends the badger, the rabbit and the mole supply.

Blore reached back to his own career in interpreting Toad and I think Disney and his staff of animators must have seen him in The Road To Zanzibar and his character of Bates the valet to The Lone Wolf in that series. In Zanzibar Blore has a brief but memorable part as an eccentric millionaire who sells Crosby and Hope and diamond mine, but he's also the family idiot and he has no mines to sell or rights to sell them. And seeing how his Toad character escapes from the law reminds me so much of Bates making fools of the law in helping Warren William outwit them.

Washington Irving's Legend Of Sleepy Hollow is the basis for Ichabod and Bing Crosby narrates and sings with Jud Conlon's Rhythmaires backing him up and occasionally providing a voice. Ichabod Crane the new schoolmaster is cutting in on Brom Bones and his wooing of the richest girl in town Katrina Von Tassel. We all know how Brom Bones got Ichabod out of town on a stormy Halloween night, but you have to see the fine animation that Disney did for this film to really appreciate it.

Bing gets three songs to sing in this film, Ichabod Crane, Katrina, and The Headless Horseman. The last is really memorable and a great song for kids of all ages on a Halloween night.

Remember folks, you can't reason with a headless man.

Having never seen 'Mr. Toad', I can only comment on the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow', having seen it many times as a child when 'Disney's Wonderful World' was running on the CBC. This has got to be some of the greatest work of Walt Disney. Washington Irving's original story is closely followed, unlike Tim Burton's 1999 version (still an awesome movie in its own right). The sequence involving Ichabod Crane's terrifying ride through the woods is undoubtedly the best, from the toads croaking 'Ichabod' to the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod through the woods - it's alternately funny and frightening. It always appeared at Halloween on the Disney show, and I can't remember ever missing it.