Standard disclaimer is now applied. If you buy or rent this, you are giving money to the beast that wants to kill us. If that is a deal killer than read no further.*
Which is a pity because Walt Disney was not any kind of SJW. After his mass firing of Communists during WWII, he was viewed as somewhat of a pariah in Hollywood. It is connected to the history of the A story in this duet.
After the massive success of Snow White, Disney had two major bombs, Pinocchio and Fantasia. The Wind in the Willows (a children’s classic in Great Britain,) had been in development but when the Animator’s Strike (AKA the attempted Communist takeover of Disney) started everything was put on hold.
Disney Studios was about to fold, much to the delight of the Communist-run Screenwriter’s Guild. However, Disney was saved by the U.S. Army and WWII. Money came pouring in from a government contract, which kept Walt afloat long enough to go through his studio with a gutting knife. He fired about half of his company.
When Walt had a chance to look over the development of the Wind in the Willows, he didn’t like what he saw. He didn’t think it was up to the standards of a theatrical release. However, quite a bit of money had been put into it and people value the most what costs them the most. Walt decided to go with just one story in the Wind in the Willows, Mister Toad’s Wild Ride. This was to be paired with a pretty good short that was far along in production, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. These conjoined twins were released as The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad. Each one was prefaced by a narrator from their respective country of origin. The quite British, Basil Rathbone for Mister Toad and the very American Bing Crosby for the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
The deference to Great Britain (or any foreign country) was a little unusual for an American company particularly one run by a gruff Mid-Westerner. However, Disney had had a problem with post-war Britain. Attlee’s government had favored a Tiger Economy, money made in Great Britain had to stay in Great Britain. Which meant that Walt owned a lot of money there that he couldn’t import. So he made lemonade of that lemon by starting a cheap production company in Britain that had to meet Disney standards. Disney ended up with a very strong relationship with the British film that lasted for decades.
As a result, Disney actually did get Mister Toad’s Wild Ride right. There is a very English country feel to it that American’s never get right.
The backstory for the Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a bit duller by comparison. Washington Irving blah-blah-blah. Any reader of my blog is well-read enough to know everything about that back story. And it doesn’t matter. Gen-Xers were the last generation of kids to be utterly terrified by the ride of the Headless Horseman.
As for the animated production, it too was supposed to be a full-length feature but it ran into a story problem that has always plagued screen adaptations of this property. There just isn’t enough story to make a movie out of it. Consequently, every other production tends to pack a lot of filler into it and never really works well.
Walt Disney was right to keep the story as close to the essentials as possible. What makes Sleepy Hollow so enjoyable is the subtilties. The film opens with Bing Crosby narrating as a book is selected from a library shelf. Bing mentions a bunch of other American tall tale legends that used to be known to any school child in this country and are undoubtedly illegal at this point.
One of the interesting things to note is just how much the general public view of these characters has changed with time. Current view: Ichabod Crane was an intelligent and sensitive nice guy and the hero of the story. Brom Bones was the town bully. Poor Katrina was a romantic object with no real agency of her own and would have been better off with caring Ichabod than the brutish Brom Bones. Most of the more recent versions of this story, correct the ending so that Brom is disposed of one way or another and Ichabod gets The Girl.
Original view: Brom was the rural county hero. Ichabod was the weakling city slicker and low-grade conman. Katrina…Blooming Katrina as she was called in the story, was a girl in her late teens who rather wanted a bit of attention.
“The ease with which Brom cleared the field of rivals both piqued and provoked the fair Katrina. And she often wished some champion would appear and take the field openly against the boisterous Brom.”
She wanted Brom to have to try harder.
In the story, it’s clear that Ichabod’s motives were more mercenary than romantic. The Disney version muddies these waters a little bit.
What I find interesting is the reason why these perceptions of the story have changed so much. It comes down to the rise of Alpha male resentment and Gamma identification with Ichabod Crane. He was never meant to be a hero or ultimately a victim. If he had gotten the girl this frontier town would have suffered quite a bit with him as their local headman. He would have driven off pretty much everyone that disagreed with him on anything and made Katrina utterly miserable almost immediately.
Yet, in Ichabod, that Gammas recognize one of their own.
Abraham Bones on the other hand is clearly the natural born enemy of all Gamma Males. The Alpha, the strong good looking leader of men. And worse, this one was a bit a practical joker.
It says a lot about where both we and Disney are today that Brom Bones was used as the inspiration for…
BONUS: One of the producers of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was Walt Disney’s right-hand man Ub Iwerks. While the two were close for most of their lives there had been a temporary falling out in the nineteen-thirties. It was during this period that Iwerks produced his own version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
I’m surprised Disney Inc hasn’t blamed Ub Iwerks for Song of the South yet.
* If you provide links to pirate sites in the comments I will have to delete it. WordPress is cracking down. Sub-footnote: It’s not that hard to find in used DVD bins around spring cleaning time. Disney doesn’t see a dime of that money.
The Dark Herald 
Wild. Did not know about the animator strike and its significance. It’s very telling, particularly why Disney must have been such a prize for the commies.
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The more I hear about Disney, the more I admire him for trying to keep his company clear of the rot. Too bad there was just too much of it in the long run.
I always looked at Ichabod, not as a Gamma, but as a Sigma, as Vox Day would say. He was just too popular with the ladies to be a gamma. He was self-interested and pretty much did his own thing. He was also far more interested in acquiring money and free food from the ladies, than he was interested in romancing them. There’s no gamma alive who wouldn’t have put poon-chasing as his their priority.
With the Holiday Season coming up, I recommend you look at some Rankin Bass movies. There’s one called “Jack Frost” (not to be confused with the Michael Keaton movie,) that has a similar dynamic to Ichabod Crane, with Jack Frost becoming human and trying to win the love of a mortal woman, only for her to choose the handsome, muscular town Alpha instead of him. Worth watching.
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I’m trying to decide if Rankin/Bass’ Mad Monster Party(?) rates a Cataline Re-Vues. It’s a little obscure.
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I watched it awhile back. Basically a monster mashup with some dated humor that’s sure to get the feminists riled up. I hear it being talked about here and there, so I don’t think it’s all that obscure.
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the one redeeming feature of the Burton movie is that it shows that Cristopher Walken can chew the curtains of a scene even without lines!
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The book definitely doesn’t paint Ichabod in a good light. Low-grade conman is a good description.
IMDB TV has the Hallmark 1999 version of the movie. They play Ichabod close to the book’s description. Brom gets good treatment as a young man who wants to make his own way in the world. Katrina rejects Ichabod at the end. The women all love Ichabod and his flattery.
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