The Wind in the Willows [Rankin/Bass]: Into the Archive

The Wind in the Willows is a 1987 American animated musical television film directed by Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass, co-founders of Rankin/Bass Productions in New York, New York. It is an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows. Set in a pastoral version of England, the film focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters (Moley, Ratty, Mr. Toad, and Mr. Badger) and contains themes of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie. The film features the voices of Charles Nelson Reilly, Roddy McDowall, José Ferrer, and Eddie Bracken. The screenplay was written by Romeo Muller, a long-time Rankin/Bass writer whose work included Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Frosty the Snowman (1969), The Hobbit (1977), and The Flight of Dragons (1982), among others. The film's animation was outsourced to James C.Y. Wang's Cuckoo's Nest Studios (also known as Wang Film Productions) in Taipei, Taiwan.

This was the last project produced by Rankin/Bass. The film was finished in 1983 and released on video in the UK in November of that year, but its US television premiere was delayed several times, before finally airing July 5, 1987 on ABC. - Wikipedia

As Wikipedia goes on to note, Rankin/Bass had used Wind in the Willows characters (designed by the great Paul Coker, Jr.) in the 1970 show "The Reluctant Dragon and Mr. Toad", which I remember watching in the 1^st Grade. In this 1987 adaptation, Charles Nelson Reilly makes a strangely apt choice for Toad because of his characteristic two-syllable throaty chuckle.