The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

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The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Directed by	Jack Kinney Clyde Geronimi James Algar
Produced by	Walt Disney
Written by	Homer Brightman Winston Hibler Erdman Penner Harry Reeves Joe Rinaldi Ted Sears
Starring	Bing Crosby Eric Blore Basil Rathbone J. Pat O'Malley Colin Campbell John McLeish Campbell Grant Claud Allister Leslie Denison Edmond Stevens Oliver Wallace The Rhythmaires
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Release date(s)	October 5, 1949
Running time	68 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney Studios and released to theaters on October 5, 1949 by RKO Radio Pictures. It is the eleventh animated feature in the Disney animated features canon.

1 Segments
2 Production
- 2.1 Worldwide release dates
3 Subsequent usage and home video release
4 Merchandising
5 Voice cast
6 Directing Animators
7 External links

[edit] Segments

There are two segments in the film both based upon popular works of literature:

The adventures of Mr. Toad from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (narrated by Basil Rathbone). In this story, J. Thaddeus Toad, the proprietor of Toad Hall, is prone to fads, such as the newfangled motor car. As a result, this desire for the very latest lands him in much trouble with the wrong crowd, and it is up to his friends, Mole, Water Rat, and Angus MacBadger to save him from himself.
The story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (narrated by Bing Crosby). Ichabod Crane, a new schoolmaster, falls for the town beauty, Katrina Van Tassel, and the town bully Brom Bones decides that he is a little too successful and needs "convincing" that Katrina is not for him. (The character and visual design of Gaston in Disney's Beauty and the Beast is very close to that of Brom Bones.) Later this Sleepy Hollow portion of the film was separated from the companion Mr. Toad film, and screened, aired, marketed, and sold separately as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow beginning in 1958.

[edit] Production

During the 1940s, much of Disney's feature output was made up of so-called "package films". Beginning with Saludos Amigos in 1942, Disney ceased making feature films with a single narrative, due to the higher costs for such films, as well as the drain on the studios resources caused by World War II. Instead, Disney features would have two or more stories linked together through a variety of means. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was the last of these "package" films, and Disney returned to single narrative features with 1950's Cinderella.

[edit] Worldwide release dates

Interestingly, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was not released internationally, except in...

Mexico : October 10, 1951

[edit] Subsequent usage and home video release

For many years following its original release, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was not available for viewing in its original form. The two segments had been split up by Disney in the 1950s and were usually seen as individual items. When first released on home video, the Ichabod segment was released as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the Toad segment as The Wind in the Willows, taking their names from the original stories.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad received its first complete home video release in 1992, when it was released by Walt Disney Home Video on laserdisc. A subsequent complete release on VHS followed in 1999, with a DVD appearing in 2000.

[edit] Merchandising

In 2000 the Walt Disney Classics Collection, which is a collection of officially released Disney statue and pin merchandise (not to be confused with the other Walt Disney Classics Collection, which was a video series of Disney animated features in the 80s and early 90s), released 3,500 limited edition statue sets of the two main Sleepy Hollow characters Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. The figures were originally sold for $695 together as a set. The pair have since been retired from the collection and its value has risen dramatically each year.