It is<\/em> that time of the year again, denizens. The most wonderful time of the year. All Hallow’s Eve will soon be upon us. I’ve said it before and I shall say it many, many more times: I love Halloween. I love ghost stories, vampires, the paranormal, werewolves, mummies, monsters…I love being scared. <\/p>\n

I suppose you could say that it’s been a life-long obsession. One of my earliest memories? Being introduced to the magical storytelling skills of one Mr. Washington Irving, through his classic tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow<\/em> (which, by the by, is available from the Amazon Kindle free library<\/a>…bet you can guess what I just downloaded, right?). <\/p>\n

My first encounter with this tale and that peculiar Master Ichabod Crane came to me in the best possible way: the animated way. I was around 7 years old and my parents rented a Disney double feature for me (on Betamax, yo), which included The Wind in the Willows<\/em> and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow<\/em>. Strangely, I don’t remember The Wind in the Willows<\/em> at all. But, oh, I do remember Ichabod’s encounter with the Headless Horseman. Animated in 1949 and narrated by Bing Crosby, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow<\/em> is classic animation done right…gorgeous and atmospheric and able to get under your skin in the best possible ways. Of course, being voiced by Ba-Ba-Ba-Bing, it’s gotta have a song or two as well…a couple of those inescapably catchy Disney tunes that inevitably become more insidious than the tale accompanying it. <\/p>\n

To this day, this is one of my all-time favorite Disney animations. It was also undeniably the inspiration for several aspects of one of my favorite full-length Disney animated movies, Beauty and the Beast.<\/em> Gaston himself might very well have stumbled right out of Sleepy Hollow and into that charming French village that was home to Belle and her father. <\/p>\n

I hadn’t thought about this cartoon in years, and it’s been even longer since I’d seen it. Imagine my surprise, then, to find it in its entirety on YouTube. I imagine it won’t be there for very long. Disney has eyes in the back of its mouse ears, if you know what I mean. While it’s here, though, I encourage you to tuck in for a viewing or two. Just make sure it’s late and the lights are down low…oh, and don’t forget: You can’t reason with a headless man…<\/p>\n

[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZhV4HDGJg5Y&w=480&h=360]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is that time of the year again, denizens. The most wonderful time of the year. All Hallow’s Eve will soon be upon us. I’ve said it before and I shall say it many, many more times: I love Halloween. I love ghost stories, vampires, the paranormal, werewolves, mummies, monsters…I love being scared. I suppose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[181,183,184,186],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9212"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}