it definitely was an audio/dialect problem. i had issues understanding every other word they were saying for the most part and even had to put on CC myself

First off, the whole animal/human thing certainly was there in the original story, Kenneth Grahame created rather an interesting world I only wish I had lived in the way animals simply live a sentient life on par with humans. The way it was set up in the story though, the animals, namely those of the Riverbank, chose to live away from humanity anyway (which the book referred to as “The Outside World”, a world that Toad knew too well in his greedy impulsive spending).

Toad Hall and the Riverbank is the main setting of the stories though we also learn of The Wild Wood where weasels, stoats and ferrets roam it’s haunted trails, and in the middle of it, resided the home of Badger, who isn’t the Thrifty Scot as the Disney film would lead us to believe, rather, something of a paternal grandfather for the entire place, and in the case of Toad, a secondary father who tries to keep him in line time after time (in the book, he even knew Toad’s father and much about Toad Hall than Toad ever knew).

Mole (or Moley) is probably the best character I admire in the original story as he gets the most development of all the characters as the tale progresses. The book actually begins with him being alone in his home, trying to whitewash his walls and getting so fed up with it, he digs his way up to the surface and explores a world he has never been to before. It’s at the foot of the river when he meets his first friend, the Water Rat (or Ratty) and the two hit it off from there. Everything else follows and Mole learns a great many things and even becomes confident to help the others out when Toad Hall was seized by the Wild Wood rodents.

The Disney Studio certainly made quite a lot of changes as they threw out most of the story in favor of telling a much shorter tale and concentrating on Toad’s mania for motorcars and giving the weasels this bigger role alongside the addition of the human proprietor, Winky. As a kid, this was the first version of the story I knew too well from having watched it on tape a number of times (being an early Disney VHS release back in ’83).

The opening of the film itself with the use of the library of books being the setting for both stories to be told is a rather unique and adequate device. The fact that both stories came from either side of the ‘pond’ and were narrated by those respective people made it all the more appropriate for each story’s setting and tone (Bing for Ichabod and Basil for Mr. Toad) Ironically I recall one TV show in the early 50’s that used the same idea for it’s opening credits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5qSRjjX6SU

Sometime later when The Disney Channel started, “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” would be a common staple of it’s early days of screening a few of these “packaged features” along with Melody Time and Make Mine Music. There was even a stop-motion version of Wind in the Willows that use to air on there as both a movie and a follow-up TV series (produced by Cosgrove-Hall). There have been other adaptations of Wind in the Willows that have came out over time, especially in the 80’s and 90’s (Disney’s version would be the first and sole adaptation for over 30 years). This blog does a good job dissecting and analyzing the strengths and weakness of each one, either animated or live-action.
http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2010/09/wind-in-willows-introductions.html

I thought both stories/films were great in their own right, though I probably sided more with Mr. Toad myself for the whimsical characters and unique foreign setting. At times I wish there was more to Mr. Toad than the one book (though there have been unofficial sequels and follow-ups that have been published in recent years). The best chapters often sighted in the original book (which has nothing to do with Toad at all) are “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” and “Wayfarers All”. These two chapters tend to stick out the most for Grahame’s daring, yet brief glimpse into spirituality and other surreal concepts unseen in children’s literature before.

I never had a problem understanding these guys when I watched just the Mr. Toad film as a kid in the 80’s, though I had it on tape and could watch it over and over.

I have not seen Ichabod and Mr. Toad collectively since we still had a cassette player, and they only have Mr. Toad on Netflix so this is going to be my review on Mr. Toad only. I am currently in the middle of reading The Wind in the Willows so I decided to watch it yesterday and I must say I do not like it one bit! They completely changed everyone’s personality, they took out everything that made the book great and I don’t really like the way they anthropomorphized the animals. When I was a little kid I could not tell what animals Mole and Badger were and even as a little kid I found Toad annoying! I think the only thing I liked about it was Winkie and maybe Cyril.

I don’t have a problem understanding accents either, but like Mason said, it probably had something to do with the poor audio in addition to a thick accent.

Regarding how Morgan felt about the accents, I personally don’t have a problem with understanding accents, but I do realize that sometimes when I speak English in my Guyanese accent, people have a hard time understanding what I say, so I understand how you felt about the accents in the film.

One thing that I always do when I watch movies is that I always watch them with the subtitles/captions on as I like knowing the exact lines that the characters are saying, even if it’s an English-language film.

As I’ve said in my email (thanks for reading it, btw), I much prefer the ‘Mr. Toad’ sequence and would have loved to see a full-length animated Disney version of this. I love the characters, especially the traits of Toad (despite they not being good traits). I love the Britishness of it all (huge Anglophile here)! I love the court scene, not often you see law and courts being shown in animated films (one reason I’m excited about ‘Zootopia’). And it’s just a fun film altogether especially the climactic deed-retrieving scene. Oh, and I love Winkie!

I never really liked ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ segment as it bored me as a kid and I didn’t really enjoy Bing Crosby narrating the whole story. I’d have preferred if the characters had voice actors themselves, but that’s just me.

It’s always cool to hear Joshua K’s reviews. It’d be cool if you can get him on the podcast one day.