Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (Old Disneyland ride)--Who was Mr. Toad, anyway?

Probably one of the oldest rides in Disneyland is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. But since most of the Fantasyland rides are based on well-known animated films made by Disney, I’m curious since Mr. Toad doesn’t ring a bell. From the ride you get the idea that he is some kind of country squire, or maybe a lawyer. It also appears that he had a whole world and story conceived around him. But I can’t for the life of me think of where he turns up as a character. Was this from a now forgotten movie or cartoon from the time when Disneyland was opened? Or is Mr. Toad just a supporting character in a more famous move that people know today?

Mr. Toad was the eccentric lead character in The Wind in the Willows.

See The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

Toad was the central character of Kenneth Grahame’s novel The Wind in the Willows.

BTW: *The Wind in the Willows was written by Kenneth Grahame.

Here’s a little more information from amazon:

[url=“http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/GraWind.html”]Here is the electronic text online.

You must go read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, one of the most fun children’s books around (in an upper middle class Victorian sort of way). It’s about the lives of various little animals living on a river. The one with the strongest character (most of it inconvenient) is Mr. Toad, a wealthy, impulsive ne’er-do-well living in his ancestral manor. He falls in love with motor cars and drives his friends Mole and Rat crazy with his obsession. A lousy driver, he smashes up many times before stealing a car and ending up in jail. He escapes by dressing up as a washerwoman and has a wild journey home hijacking a train and a barge. When he gets home he discovers his mansion has been taken over by stoats and weasels, and he and his friends have a battle to reclaim it.

Does the ride match up with this story?

Wow, how did all those replies appear? They weren’t there when I posted, honest.

Oh, bother! Here is the electronic text online.

Fun fact: In Disneyland Paris, Mr. Toad’s is a restaurant, not a ride. I’m not making that up.

Makes sense. I bet they serve frog legs.

The ride at Disney World is one of the best ones there (and certainly the most underrated). Basically, you ride all over the countryside, into a tavern, and all over, just barely missing. The end is just plain great (and somewhat surprising for Disney).

The car turns onto a railroad track. You see a train’s light heading for you, and there’s a crash. Then you’re in hell.

I heard a vicious rumor that they were going to tear down Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and put up something with Winnie the Pooh, because the kids don’t know who Mr. Toad is. Anyone else hear that rumor? (I heard it standing on line for Mr. Toad while on Spring break '98.) Needless to say, I would be very, very sad.

I don’t know about Disney World, but the Winnie the Pooh ride at Disneyland replaced the Country Bear Jamboree (about the same time as the movie came out, oddly enough), so Mr. T is safe in Anaheim.

Toad has already been replaced by Pooh in Walt Disney World (a couple of years ago). Still alive & well in Disneyland (Anaheim).

In the World’s Pooh ride, somewhere in there, there’s a picture of Mr. Toad giving the deed to Toad Hall over to Winnie the Pooh, as as a tribute to the beloved ride it replaced. Toad still lives in Anaheim, as you said.

but what about the rest of the A-team?

Shut up, fool!

It does, pretty much. You ride in a vehicle that’s based on an old Victorian (Edwardian?) automobile, and the cars all have names on their hoods like “Toady” or “Ratty”. What’s more the path the car takes through his “house” is wild and jerky, with sudden turns, backups, and “crashes”. I imagine that part of the original story is that he tries to get the other characters to go for drives with him in his car?

By the standards of a modern Disney ride it’s quite primitive, but still innocent clean fun.