Summaries

Synopsis

The wind in the Willows:

J. Thaddeus Toad is the owner of Toad Hall estate. Toad's adventures and positive mania for various fads have brought him to the brink of bankruptcy. As a last resort, Toad's friend Angus MacBadger volunteers as Toad's bookkeeper to help Toad keep his estate, which is a source of pride in the community.

Toad is prone to fads, such as the newfangled motor car. This desire for the very latest lands him in much trouble with the wrong crowd, and it is up to his friends, Mole, Rat, and Badger to save him from himself. Toad is causing immense damage to the countryside with his coach & horse & his estate Toad Hall is being squandered in this needless pursuit of adventure. Badger becomes accountant to his estate to try and save it. He asks Mole & Rat to stop Toad from destroying his own wealth.

Toad then sees a motor car for the first time and becomes entranced by the new car, having been taken over by motor mania. To keep Toad out of trouble and protect Toad Hall, Ratty and Moley lock him in his bed chambers. However, Toad breaks free and is later arrested, getting charged with car theft.

In court, his horse Cyril testifies that a bunch of weasels had stolen the car which Toad knew nothing about. Toad had entered a tavern where the car was parked and offered to buy the car from the gang. However, since Toad had no money, he instead offered to trade Toad Hall for the car. But the bartender Mr Winkle, the only witness, testifies that Toad tried to sell him the car & Toad is jailed. Toad is found guilty on the spot and sentenced to 20 years in the Tower of London. As the months passed by, Toad's friends make every effort to appeal his case, but to no avail.

Toad gets on a train engine & is pursued by police. He jumps off a bridge in a river but is almost drowned by his heavy ball & chain.He escapes & reaches Mole & Rat, but they refuse to help him until Badger comes in & says that he has been to Toad Hall & found that the Bartender was the leader of the weasels & so he believed that Toad was innocent.They decide to sneak into Toad Hall to steal the deed, but they are discovered & a huge fight ensues. The 4 barely escape with their skins, but they have the deed which the Bartender was carrying on his person. The deed proves Toad's innocence & his new rage is flight & the adventure continues.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

The film starts with Ichabod Crane arriving in Sleepy Hollow, New York, a small village outside Tarrytown that is renowned for its ghostly haunting, to be the town's new schoolmaster. Despite his odd behavior, appearance, and effeminate mannerisms, Ichabod soon wins the hearts of the village's women and forms good friendships with his students. Brom Bones, the roguish town hero and bully, does his best to pull some pranks on Ichabod. However, Ichabod is very good at ignoring these taunts and continues to act charmingly with the townspeople. One day, Ichabod meets and falls in love with a young Dutch woman named Katrina, the beautiful daughter of the wealthy Baltus van Tassel (and Brom's unofficial fiance). Despite being obsessed with Katrina's beauty, Ichabod mainly desires to take her family's money for himself. Brom, who has never been challenged before, proceeds to compete badly and unfairly with the schoolmaster, but Ichabod wins Katrina over at every opportunity. Intrigued by this, Katrina uses Ichabod to tease Brom, making him jealous and angry.

The two rivals are invited to the van Tassel Halloween party. Brom maniacally attempts to get Ichabod to dance with a new woman instead of Katrina, and later attempts to have him fall through a cellar door, but both attempts backfire. While both men dine, Brom catches Ichabod accidentally knocking a saltshaker over and nervously tossing salt over his shoulder. Discovering that Ichabod's weakness is superstition, he decides to sing the tale of the legendary Headless Horseman to scare him. The horseman supposedly travels the dark, spooky woods on Halloween each year, searching for a living head to replace the one which he has lost. The only way to escape the ghost is to cross a covered bridge. Katrina finds the song very amusing, while Ichabod, on the other hand, starts to fear for his life.

Riding home from the Halloween party, Ichabod becomes frightened of every sound he hears. His imagination begins to take over and heighten his fear and anxiety; as he passes through the Hollow, where the Headless Horseman is rumored to appear. While traveling through the old European cemetery, Ichabod believes he hears the sound of a unknown horse galloping toward him, but discovers the sound is being made by nearby cattails bumping on a log. He and his horse, tired old Gunpowder, begin to laugh, however, their laughter is cut short by the appearance of the real Headless Horseman. After being chased through the forest and nearly decapitated, Ichabod, remembering Brom's advice, rides across the covered bridge to stop the ghost's pursuit. But as he looks back to see his ghostly pursuer vanish, the horseman stops and throws a jack-o'-lantern and hits him with a crash.

The next morning, Ichabod's hat is found at the bridge next to the shattered jack-o-lantern, but the schoolmaster himself is nowhere to be found. Sometime later, Brom marries Katrina. Rumors begin to spread that Ichabod is still alive, married to a wealthy widow in a distant county with children who all looks like him. However, the people of Sleepy Hollow sadly insist that he has been killed by the horseman.

The film then ends with the last picture of the horseman laughing. He then becomes a figure of the animated book, which closes and returns to the shelf. As the camera moves away from the library shelves, the lights suddenly turn off.