5 Secrets Of 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' To Get You Ready For The Midnight Jamboree

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of those classics that we all remember watching as young children. It was about as spooky as we could all handle at the time, and as a requirement every Halloween season.

There weren't as many Halloween movies as there were Christmas movies, so it was nice to have something to watch.

The movie is an oldie but a goody, dating back to 1949. The animated movie was shorter than other Disney movies you remember, but there was a reason for that that we'll get to later. They managed to make this movie something that people still talk about to this day, even though it came out nearly 70 years ago!

But even though we all love the movie, there are still many interesting facts about how they made the classic into what it was. Check it out!

It's Bing Crosby's only Disney movie

While cartoons these days tend to attract all the biggest stars, Bing Crosby seemed to be less than interested in voicing cartoons. That is until he signed on for Sleepy Hollow, where he not only narrated, but also voiced Icabod Crane himself as well as Brom Bones!

The famous crooner also sang the spooky song "The Headless Horseman" for the flick, which is great because he's already the king of Christmas carols so it's great that he's got Halloween covered too!

Brom Bones inspired another famous character

The big, beefy character Brom Bones was used as the inspiration for none other than Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

Once you know that you can definitely see the comparisons, as they both have the same broad shape and big chins.

I wonder if Brom also uses antlers in all of his decorating?

The iconic song was almost sung by Tony the Tiger

That's right, the voice behind Tony the Tiger and many other famous cartoons was supposed to be the singer of the song "Headless Horseman."

Thurl Ravenscroft had signed on before Bing Crosby was cast, and they had actually already recorded his version of the song. It's really, really creepy.

You may also recognize his voice from "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

Like a few other classic songs, it almost got cut

It's hard to imagine the movie without the spooky song, but Disney thought that it was way too dark to be in the movie and almost cut it completely.

Other classic cartoon songs that were close to being cut include "Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and "Worthless" from The Brave Little Toaster.

It was supposed to be a full length movie

When they originally started planning the movie in 1946, Disney animators were told it would be a full length motion picture.

However, as they started working on it they realized there just wasn't enough of a story to stretch out into a long movie without having parts of the plot feel empty or excessive.

Instead, they paired the filmed with another movie they were having difficulty stretching out, combining them into a collection of shorts.

They called the new movie The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad. The first half of the movie was The Wind in the Willows, and Sleepy Hollow was the second part of the movie.

HT- Mental Floss /

Even though they made a live action version decades later, the cartoon will always be our favorite! Do you still watch it at Halloween?