Gone with the Wind and the Willows

In 1941, after the release of Bambi, Disney had plans on adapting three British novels into animated films. They were Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows. The first two were accomplished in the early 50's. Sadly the same wouldn't be said for the last one.

Because of the war, Walt decided to add the idea of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow forming the package film: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). This forced a lot of changes in some of the storyboard in order to shorten it.

The result forced little time to provide the characters personality such as Mole, Rat and Mac Badger.

The same would be said for it's primary star, Mr. Toad; however he became more iconic with his constant thrill-seeking and mania over vehicles which developed into a running-gag.

Source of storyboards from: Michael Sporn Animation

It would have been interesting to see how the story of Mr. Toad became a full-length movie.


Ichabod and Mr. Toad belong to Disney