The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad 1949
Well, well. Another first time viewing for this babbler. What a…ahem…wild ride… Ichabod and Mr. Toad was! I am not sorry for what I just did there. Really, I’m not.
There’s a lot I didn’t really know going into this film. Everything I knew was from the select few times I’ve been on the ride. I will follow that statement up by saying I do not enjoy the ride. It’s in my top 2 of rides at Disneyland I absolutely will not go on. (The second being Snow White’s Scary Adventures which is alarmingly terrifying considering it’s a Fantasyland ride. It is worth mentioning however, that the ride is currently under a long overdue refurbishment that will get some of the same updating treatment that the Alice ride got and sources I follow on Twitter seem to indicate they will water down the spooky factor. Anyway….)
Some questions I had going into this film were:
1. How will they depict Mr. Toad going to hell?
2. How am I going to brace myself for the monster thing that’s at the end of the ride?
3. What does Ichabod have to do with anything?
I discovered about a quarter of the way through the whole movie that the Ichabod thing was going to be a bigger enigma than I realized, considering I was significantly along in the story of Mr. Toad and there was no mention or indication of Ichabod being a factor at all. Not being able to stand it anymore, I busted out the Wikipedia article which explained to me the following, “The film consists of two segments—the first of which is based on the 1908 children's novel The Wind in the Willows by British author Kenneth Grahame, and the second is based on the 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", called Ichabod Crane in the film, by American author Washington Irving.”
WELL OKAY. So, this is literally a feature film of 2 different stories that have absolutely NOTHING to do with each other sandwiched into one thing. Question 3: answered!
On to the rest of the questions. It turns out that the 2 things I detest most about the ride, the scene going to hell and the monster at the end, ARE NOT IN THE MOVIE. Questions 1 and 2, basically answered. So, did I like sitting through the whole Mr. Toad portion of the movie on edge the whole time? No. But! That didn’t affect my enjoyment of it! I thought Mr. Toad was great! It was fun and silly and the characters were enjoyable. It didn’t take itself so seriously and was just a cute story illustrated through some classic Disney Animation.
TRANSITION TO…The Ichabod portion of the evening.
I’ll cut to the chase with this one. I HATED IT. Besides the fact that it dragged on, because you basically have to reset from one story ending and a new one beginning, the story of Ichabod is gross and…. say it with me…unfortunately a product of its time. Everyone in this story is a complete asshat. You literally have no one to root for. The titular characters only redeeming qualities are that he reads a lot, therefore being a teacher and can dance well. He spends the entire film being an opportunistic jerk, hopping from woman to woman, mother to mother of his students who have the best food so he can be fed, knowing all the while he’s some impressive so-n-so.
Once we establish that character trait about him, he literally leaves a picnic he’s on with a woman and her kid to dreamily follow the town hottie and daughter of the rich guy, Katrina, who is pitting Ichabod against the big brute in town, Brom Bones. He’s like Gaston: The Beta Version. Anyway, all of this culminates at the gal’s Halloween party which Brom uses as an opportunity to scare superstitious Ichabod into believing he’ll be hunted by the headless horseman on his way home. Ichabod is scared senseless, and then there’s a way-too-long sequence of him running away from a headless horseman. The ending is left open ended, not knowing what happened to Ichabod as the horseman caught up to him. All I can say is, good riddance.
I left this movie with 2 thoughts:
1) There is a reason we don’t hear about the Ichabod portion of this movie. It’s truly awful and aged horribly.
2) Why would these two stories get put together? Leonard Maltin explained in his book The Disney Films that these 2 stories “seem to complement each other quite well.” How?? I don’t see it. Toad is about a scallywag adventurer that needs to clear his name, save his reputation and get his home back. Ichabod is about a know it all douchebag seeking nothing but attention for his brilliance, a warm meal and to marry up.
Would I watch this again? No.
Even the half of it I liked? No, probably not.
Sorry, Toad. Ichabod screwed ya. Still not going on your creepy ass ride either!
