Disney’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is an Underappreciated Halloween Classic

The 1949 Disney film is a lot more sinister than most people probably remember.

When I was growing up, one cartoon terrified me more than any other, and that was Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Originally the second half of a “package film” — Disney produced quite a few of these during the 1940s as a means of cutting costs, and this one also included a short adaptation of The Wind in the Willows — by the time I was growing up it was regularly shown on its own. In fact, it wasn’t until I was all grown up that I even realized that had originally been conjoined with the adaptation of the popular children’s book by Kenneth Grahame. Every time that it came on TV, I felt a sense of dread, because I knew what was coming.

For those who haven’t seen it, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is narrated by none other than the crooner extraordinaire Bing Crosby, whose mellifluous tones guide the viewer through this animated adaptation of Washington Irving’s classic tale about the gangly schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, who comes to the town of Sleepy Hollow and begins to develop a romance with the beautiful and wealthy Katrina van Tassel. Unfortunately for Ichabod, he’s confronted by Brom Bones, a blustering and muscular village youth who has his own…