The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a 1949 American animated anthology film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures.

After a series of production delays, the project was cut down to a short film and eventually merged with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (which was also originally conceived as a full-length feature) in 1947.

One summer day, MacBadger asks Toad's best friends, Water Rat and Mole, to persuade him to give up his latest mania of recklessly driving around the countryside in a gypsy cart pulled by his horse Cyril Proudbottom, which is accumulating financial liability in damaged property.

Due to his odd appearance and effeminate mannerisms, Ichabod is constantly pranked by the local bully, Brom Bones, but forms good relationships with his students and the village's women.

Ichabod soon meets and falls in love with Katrina, the daughter of the richest farmer in the town, Baltus Van Tassel, and Brom's unofficial fiancée.

Brom tells that the Headless Horseman travels through the woods every year on Halloween, searching for a living head to replace the one he lost, and the only way to escape from him is to cross a covered bridge, at which point he will vanish.

[4] James Bodrero, Denison, Stevens, and McLeish provided the voices of the weasels,[4] a gang of small-time crooks and Winky's henchmen.

[16] Roy O. Disney acquired the rights to the novel during his European acquisition spree of properties for potential features in April 1938, but Walt was not interested, finding the story "awfully corny".

[17][18] After reading the book, story artist James Bodrero convinced him to put The Wind in the Willows into production, which was originally intended to be a single-narrative feature.

[30] After reviewing the animation footage a few weeks later, Walt Disney decided to shelve the project, feeling that "the quality was too far below the standard necessary to be successful on the market."

The Wind in the Willows resumed production in October 1943, with Bodrero and Grant reattached and joined by Perce Pearce and Paul Gerard Smith.

[35][36] After finishing his military service in World War II, Frank Thomas returned to the Disney studio in April 1946 and was assigned to direct additional footage (alongside James Algar) in hopes of salvaging the project.

[15] The Wind in the Willows was shelved again following layoffs in August 1946, with Bodrero and Grant leaving the studio, while Thomas went on to work on Johnny Appleseed segment for Melody Time.

[15][38][39] By October of that year, the film was put back into production, with Ward Kimball, Jack Kinney, Homer Brightman, and Harry Reeves brought in to work out the pace and add more gags to the story.

[15][40] In early 1947, Disney started production on an animated version of Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), which was to be co-directed by Kinney and Clyde Geronimi.

[43] By November 1947, Disney decided to pair both productions into a singular package film, titled Two Fabulous Characters, as neither part was long enough to be a full-length feature.

[48] Story artist Campbell Grant provided the voice of Angus MacBadger for an early Leica reel and recorded the final dialogue for the character in 1946.

[8][18] Oliver Wallace (the film's music director) was cast as Mr. Winky, although several sources alternatively cite Alec Harford as the voice of the character.

[53] It was paired with an edited version of Disney's The Reluctant Dragon[53] due to the fact that both cartoons are based on stories by author Kenneth Grahame.

[54] The Ichabod segment of the film had its television premiere during the following season of TV's Disneyland, on October 26, 1955, under the title The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

[55] Notably, for this airing of Sleepy Hollow and subsequent reruns, a new 14-minute animated prologue was added, recounting the life of Washington Irving, the story's author.

Once it was split into two segments for airing on the Disneyland television series, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was not available for viewing in its original form for many years thereafter, but was instead screened as two individual items.

[60] This same version of The Wind in the Willows was issued on DVD for the first time in 2009, as part of the fifth volume of the Walt Disney Animation Collection: Classic Short Films series.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was released on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD and in a two-film collection with Fun and Fancy Free on August 12, 2014.

[64] A. H. Weiler of The New York Times praised the film, saying that "Mr. Disney, abetted by his staff, such perfect narrators as Bing Crosby and Basil Rathbone, and a pair of durable literary works, has fashioned a conclave of cartoon creatures, which, by and large, have the winsome qualities and charm of such noted creations as Mickey Mouse, Dumbo, et al."[65] Herman Schoenfeld of Variety felt the film "ranks among the best full-length cartoons turned out by the Walt Disney studios."

The Irving legend, however, is treated with splashes of color and broad strokes of humor and violence that will appeal in a fundamental way to all age groups.

"[66] A review in Life magazine felt Disney's adaptation of The Wind in the Willows "leaves out the poetry and most of the subtlety, but it still has enough action for the children and wit enough for everybody.

"[69] M. Faust of Common Sense Media gave the film five complete stars writing, "Two classic stories told in the best Disney style.

The Headless Horseman is also featured in a pre-parade ride during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.

[74][75][76] The Wind in the Willows is also more prevalently represented in later Disney media, with occasional appearances made by Toad, Moley, Ratty, MacBadger and the Weasels, notably in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983).