I’ve been giving Halloween animation recommendations for years on the AD Podacast but for some reason I never really focused much on Sleepy Hollow from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Even though there is a segment of this special burned into my childhood memory because of just how terrifying it was for my young sensibilities. I thought it good to revisit this one and what makes it a particularly good re-watch for the Halloween season.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Revisited
Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has been getting a lot of attention on social media in the animation circles because of the Brom Bones and Tilda scenes. A heartfelt observation about a background character beaming with personality despite not being depicted as traditionally beautiful. It’s a very heartwarming interpretation of that scene. If your only intake of the Disney short is that interaction you would be forgiven for not knowing that it comes from one of Disney’s first real attempts at creating a Halloween horror short. This juxtaposition however is Sleepy Hollow’s strength.
Bing Crosby is definitely not something you would associate with horror or halloween. His music is definitely cozy and folksy. It certainly gives an autumnal feeling, and maybe that’s the reason this works so well as a Halloween special. Much like Over the Garden Wall Sleepy Hollow’s autumn season is not just in the background, it is the music, the visuals, the orange, brown and earth tone colors. It’s the entire vibe Disney conveys for this folksy tale. Barn dances and small towns, horse and hay rides, pumpkin patches; visuals of pioneering Americana are synonymous with the harvest season. But with this, comes a tradition just as iconic from the same areas. The small town ghost story.
The Headless Horseman: A Ghost Story
The original story of Sleepy Hollow is centered around the ghost story of the town. Brom Bone evokes the well known tale to scare the new-comer Ichabod Crane. The intention is clear as Brom is shown to be jealous of Crane’s advances. The audience can clearly see where this is going. The story of the Headless Horseman terrorizing the very road Ichabod will be using now adds to the tension. Our homely, autumnal, Bing Crosby-framed story now has an air of unease layered on top.
That unease would soon be followed up by some fearful visuals.
Mary Blair’s Vision of Terror
The Disney Animation team, even in its early years, was a well oiled machine and they liked to develop a visual style for their scenes to set a mood. For the important meeting between Ichabod and the Horseman they turned to artist Mary Blair. Blair had worked previously for Disney on concept art for the “Johnny Appleseed” segment from Melody Time (1948) and so she was tapped to design the fateful encounter. Marc Davis remarked “This woman was an extraordinary artist who spent most of her life misunderstood. All the men that were there, their design was based on perspective. Mary did things on marvelous flat planes.” 1
These concepts were translated almost directly to the screen. The red and black coloring strikes to something completely different from the comforting earth tones from before. Striking imagery and crashing zooms and the Horseman’s cackling laugh with a sting of organs, all throw the viewer into a different world of danger and panic. It puts you right into the shoes of Crane who is running for his life.
The chase scene is cut by comedic moments of course. But these moments only seem to enhance the more dangerous and fearful elements. It elevates the final shot of the Horseman throwing his Jack-O-Lantern head at Ichabod and right toward the audience camera. Watching this as a kid was a harrowing experience. Especially the ambiguous ending. Ichabod was simply gone. It left things open that he had been scared away, but the lingering idea that something terrible or super-natural had happened was always left up to the viewer. That, to me, was more terrifying than the panicking visuals from before.
Everything goes in to making the scene scary but the contrast of the comforting Disney style builds and solidifies the terror we feel. Making The Legend of Sleepy Hollow a classic that I am now set to return to each year around this time.
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