Disney Movie Reviews #7: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (Part Two)

Ichabod Crane! Explicitly not titled "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," for some reason! I liked this one. At the same time, it's very strange.

Sleepy Hollow, a cheerful and charming New York town.

It's better than Mr. Toad in every respect, but it still shares some of the tonal clashes that plagued its forerunner. 90% of Ichabod's tale is just him bouncing around a quaint Mid-Atlantic countryside, hitting on chicks and eating a lot. Then the final 10% is SHEER TERROR.

Always a bad sign, a bindle.

Sleepy Hollow is an unassuming yet lovely little town nestled next to the Hudson River. Its people are simple, but pleasant, and the entire place exists in want of only one thing: a schoolteacher! So Ichabod Crane follows his vocation to their step. At first, this ostrich-inspired fellow seems like little more than a lazy, lettered anorexic. But that's wrong! He's actually a very skinny glutton.

Manhattan is just twenty miles down the river, but Disney wants you to think this is the middle of nowhere.

The town is nice to look at, and the populace is fairly interesting, in a gallery-of-American-archetypes way, but nothing about the place comes together in the way even Mr. Toad's neighborhood managed to evoke a sense of placeness. Even though we see its layout from above, Sleepy Hollow feels less like a lived-in town, and more like a series of backdrops for vignettes. Which is a shame, because the foreground stuff is really pretty good!

Brom Bones, ladies and gentleman. The complete package. Gaston, but with a keg instead of a chip on his shoulder.

Brom in particular leaps about town with the easy confidence of the big fish in the little pond. He's exciting and fun and generous, sure of himself without crossing the line into arrogance. He doesn't need his fun to come at anyone's expense. And see, that's the thing about this story:  Ichabod is just the opposite.

Ladies with pies ought beware the purported helpfulness of bone-gaunt gentlemen. Also, what's wrong with her face?

Although the whole town seems fooled, with all the eligible women throwing themselves at his feet (and their cooking at his mouth), it's clear to the viewer that Ichabod is essentially selfish. He has no interest in others beyond the good they can do for him, and outside of that, he keeps to himself. He quickly ingratiates himself with the local ladies, pretending to give them piano lessons, but it's pretty obvious he's in it for the vittles.

If you were wondering why he's so dreamy, it's because he's voiced by Bing Crosby.

As a schoolteacher, Ichabod leaves much to be desired, occasionally wandering away and only pretending to teach, or confiscating his students' lunches so he can have a mid-morning snack. He's the worst! Only the students come to know the terrible truth about him.

This emperor has no clothes, indeed.

But Mr. Crane has a weakness, and it is the charms of one Katrina Van Tassel, presumed heiress to her father's vast tassel empire. She's rich and hot, and has no personality to speak of, which gets full marks on the early American man's Chick Rubric.

Hey, her eyes are up...wait. What's wrong with her eyes?

Seeing Katrina in the park finally reveals to Ichabod that there's more to life than bilking desperate women out of pot roast and loaves of bread. At first, he's perplexed and put off by her aggressive flirting:

Then, he starts to realize he may have bitten off more than he can chew:

In the end, Ichabod realizes that she offers him something precious and irreplaceable. A life with Katrina would mean he would at last have access to that most beautiful resource, the stuff which nourishes the human spirit like none other. After all, what is the one thing money can't buy?

That's right:  more money.

These scenes are a little perplexing, because it's never quite clear what Katrina sees in Ichabod. She's got her pick of the fellas, unlike every other woman in town, who've got to content themselves with Katrina's leavings. And Brom spends every day falling all over himself to woo her. Nevertheless, she allows Ichabod to dream of a wonderful future with her.

He's beside himself with joy.

This leaves Brom a bit put out. He's used to being the big man on commons, and finds himself playing second fiddle to a nerd. So when there's a huge Halloween party at the van Tassels', Brom decides to take his revenge, in the form of telling Ichabod a very scary story!

BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!

Ichabod is completely terrified by Brom's story, and freaks out at every errant sound on the dark ride home. But he's so relieved to discover it's just his own superstitions alarming him.

Nothing supports a man like a solidly built horse.

But wait, there's more! You know the story, the Headless Horseman attacks, yada yada yada.

This horse has probably not received the same degree of sensitivity training as Ichabod's.

My goodness this is terrifying.

Horse bearing down on me, yes very scary. Man with sword, upsetting to say the least. Performing the above post-decapitation? Absolutely bonechilling.

The Horseman throws his head at Ichabod, and the scene fades to black. When we see it again, there are just bits of pumpkin, no Ichabod in view. Did he explode? Was he taken by the H.H. to hell? The townspeople don't really care. Brom marries Katrina and everyone is better off.

Almost everyone was better off.

But just in case you felt bad, the narration assures you that Ichabod did survive, and went on to spawn seven terrifying dopplegangers with an absolutely PRODIGIOUS lady. The end!

So, here's the deal:  the sonorous beauty of the narration, the good-natured Americana of the animation, and the ubiquity of the plot (which gives Disney the chance to take their time with the build-up) work together to give this one staying power greater than the sum of its parts. It's extremely silly, but in a harmless way. And Bing Crosby really is amazing! Compared to Mr. Toad, this is a work of absolute genius. Not so much compared to everything else -- it's essentially on the level of anything from "Make Mine Music."

Any other day, "simply enjoyable" would have been faint praise indeed for Disney. Today, though, in a package of the execrable "Mr. Toad," it's hard to see Ichabod as anything but a sign that the light still shone somewhere in the Disney workshops, late into the night.

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD

1949

RATING: D+

REASONING: It's hard to imagine a lower point for Disney storytelling than Mr. Toad, but Ichabod manages to spin the straw of American stories into something almost resembling gold.

Falling

I've always been interested in making my own computer games. Recently, I decided to really buckle down and force myself to learn the ins and outs of modern gamemaking tools, which are actually extremely simple to use once you learn the quirks!

Without further ado, I present my first experiment, Falling:

It's a 3-5 minute interactive visual experience. I made as a learning project, and used art from the following:

Character art from the game Flashback by Delphine Software.

Music by Kevin Macleod.
Light Thought var 2 Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

City image from the game Streets of Rage by Sega.

Moon image by fridaruiz.

Alley image by bomb998.

Everything else is by me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Download for Windows. Extract and run Falling.exe.

Download for Linux.

Disney Movie Reviews #7: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (Part One)

(not in order of appearance)

Oh, geez.

Okay, I'm going to level with you. I've taken a pretty high-level approach to these reviews so far, only letting my raw emotions come through in little bursts, doing my best to keep a generally neutral, objective tone. The point, after all, is to provide an unbiased look at where each movie fits into Disney's canon, in terms of creative energy and artistic success. And that should be pretty fun! Except...

For the most part, the movies we've done so far, I knew what I was getting into. With the exception of Make Mine Music, I'd seen them all before. Yes, there were some surprises in how I felt about some stories on re-watch, and I was completely unprepared for how good much of the animation would turn out to be. But generally, I knew I would be experiencing a quality product. And even though there were some hiccups, I felt Disney's financial woes in the 40's adequately explained those.

And I mean, of course a movie would have to be good to be generally beloved by people who'd seen it, and to earn its own ride at Disneyland/world! Right?

But no. That was a mistake. And the proof is in the tragically froggy pudding.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is two short films packaged together. They don't have anything to do with one another. I wasn't even sure I should review them. But then, I wanted to give them a shot, and understand what was behind the now-defunct Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. To keep things manageable, I'm going to aim this review at Mr. Toad (which comes first when viewing, despite the title), and a forthcoming one will cover Ichabod.

Mistakes were made.

I have a lot of trouble understanding this one in the context of previous Disney movies. This is our first protagonist who's in no way a child, who lives in his own right as an adult of means, and he's completely selfish. You might expect this to be a morality tale, a fable where he learns the error of his ways and comes to appreciate others.

Duck!!!!

But you'd be wrong. This is a story about a rich frog repeatedly jeopardizing his safety and fortune, as well as the lives and property of his neighbors, for a few yuks. His friends try to talk him down from it, but they can't get through to him. Here, he's careening around the countryside, terrorizing poor English countryfolk with a giant wagon hooked to his new friend Cyril Proudbottom. The best thing about Cyril is his entry on the Disney Wiki:

I do not agree with their assessment of his alignment.

In the aftermath of his reign of destruction, Toad abandons his friends, letting them deal with hundreds of fresh lawsuits caused by his running rampant over mailboxes, chicken coops, children &tc. Toad espies a fresh obsession in the form of a sweet new automobile, and decides he simply must have one.

Disneyland did a great job! The only thing they forgot was the air of STAGGERING SELF-CENTEREDNESS.

Toad tracks down the car's drivers, a bunch of weasels hanging out in a bar owned by the model citizen Mr. Winkie. The affable amphibian purchases the car on the spot, in exchange for nothing less than the deed to his ancestral manor house, Toad Hall. Later, it turns out the car had been stolen, so Toad is arrested.

Race is a completely invalid basis for predicting criminal behavior. Species is fine; weasels are awful.

There's an extended trial, jailbreak, and chase sequence, but I can't in good faith say that it amounts to very much, aside from a few goofy visual gags (and a horse in drag). Mr. Winkie testifies that Toad made no deal with him, and instead offered to sell him the stolen car. Off to jail Toad goes!

Finally, right where he belongs.

I have a certain standard which applies to all movies, and it is this: a bad movie is one where, if the hero is in danger, you find yourself rooting for him or her to die. Mr. Toad fails to rise above this standard.

In making his escape from prison, Toad steals a train. The police respond, to my view, appropriately.

Alas, Toad survives his jailbreak, finally making contact with his friends again. I hate to admit it, but in the matter of the car theft, Toad is indeed innocent. He and his friends therefore invade Toad Hall, now occupied by Mr. Winkie and his weasely company, so they can steal the deed back and prove that Toad purchased the stolen automobile from Mr. Winkie without knowing its criminal past. Does this make sense? Why are the criminals able to live in Toad Hall without anybody wondering what they're doing there? Well, most likely they're just relieved to have anybody but Toad as a neighbor. At least the weasels will just steal your stuff instead of running it over with a wagon.

Plus, these guys really know how to party!

There's a wacky shootout and the deed is reclaimed. Toad is restored to his rightful place in society, and immediately takes up aeroplane piloting, as is totally reasonable and not likely to result in any death or devastation.

Last premortem photo of J. Thaddeus Toad, Esq. & equine companion.

So that's Mr. Toad. If it seems I was too harsh on the little guy, bear in mind that his friends have more dialogue complaining about how awful he is than he himself speaks. Believe it or not, Disney toned down the selfishness. In the source material, it seems Toad went well beyond simple maniacal joyriding. The book relates how he'd crashed multiple cars, been hospitalized several times for it, and in fact he does steal the car that became the subject of the movie, no quibbles about his true innocence necessary. And while I'm truly glad that's not the movie we got, the animated Mr. Toad fares little better.

Story aside, the animation is fine, though it comes across a little cheaply in parts (though not as bad as the worst of Dumbo or Make Mine Music). Mr. Toad and his animal companions all have a great deal of charm to their movements. And in fact, I adore the way the weasels are animated, as though their entire bodies are looking at you sideways. For that matter, the humans look pretty good too.

The crown prosecutor is as delightfully malevolent as any you could hope to meet.

But nothing ever really rises above the level of charming, unless you have a particular penchant for sleepy English countrysides. And the slapstick is through the roof, which makes it hard to take any of the supposedly dramatic stuff too seriously, or feel as if the frequent fights and shootouts have much in the way of stakes. Everything's in such good fun, it's just a shame that's in service to such an unlikable and inconsiderate little toad of a toad.

There's not really any music worth mentioning, and in the end, the whole affair feels much like another easy cash-in on Disney's part (though, in their defense, the project was brought to them). But looking forward (and back), it's easy to understand why this is among the least-mentioned of Disney productions, and it firmly deserves a spot near the bottom of the canon in terms of quality. And I'm not alone in thinking this -- Disney put production on hold multiple times in order to try to bring the quality up and salvage the work.

Mole removal was more of an art than a science back then.

In the end, only packaging it with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was enough to get Mr. Toad out the door. The reception was much more positive than any impression I may have given so far would lead you to expect, and I think most of that has to do with the second part, because this first part does nothing but spin its wheels.