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Revision as of 13:17, 6 July 2007

Planned rewrite

Reminding myself what I'm planning:

• I feel there should be an article on Middle-earth in popular culture, and I feel that the existing information would be useful in writing that article.
• References to books and papers on the impact Tolkien's works have had on popular culture, such as Brian Rosebury's book which includes a chapter ""The Cultural Phenomenon." In this chapter Rosebury examines the "afterlife" of Tolkien's works and attempts to bring Tolkien criticism up to the present moment by considering the "cultural afterlife" of The Lord of the Rings in popular culture."
• Work from the existing article and pare it down and rebuild it with references.
• Also, this article is actually part of a series of three articles on "after Tolkien". See Template:After Tolkien navbox.
• The onus is on me (or whoever writes or rewrites the article) to find the references and sources first.
• Restore and then move to my userspace, and then delete the redirect.
• I would then carry out a rewrite, adding sources, and then move it back to mainspace when I thought it was ready. I would notify you when I move it back, and if you or anyone thinks I've moved it back too early, or it is still unsuitable, then they could open a new AfD.
• Most of the material won't prove very useful.
• Some more sources: this book and this research project. There are also several news articles such as this one and there is also the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, which has several entries devoted to the reception of Tolkien's works in various countries, and in particular an article on Tolkien's cultural impact on the USA in the 1960s.
• Quite clearly, there is enough in various sources for an article. The question then becomes how to illustrate the article with examples? Which ones should be chosen and which should be omitted? That would be something that would be discussed on the talk page of the article. Some of the ones I think worth mentioning are The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers, The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, Misty Mountain Hop, and Nightfall in Middle-Earth. The more trivial, one-liners, would be excised from the article.

The above is some notes on what can be done and what needs doing. Carcharoth 02:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Excised examples

Movies, television, and radio

• In an episode of the sitcom Friends, Ross and Chandler speak about a university friend, called "Gandalf (-the Party Wizard)." When Joey asks why they call him Gandalf, they reply, "Didn't you read The Lord of the Rings in high school?" to which Joey responds, "No, I had sex in high school."
• In addition to spoofing elements of The Lord of the Rings, South Park has a nurse with a conjoined twin fetus on her head called Nurse Gollum.
• In the movie Spy Kids: Island of Lost Dreams, Junie picks up a necklace. When he needs to return to its pedestal, he says 'My Precious' in a voice like Gollum's.
• The TV show Babylon 5 (1993-1998) includes occasional homages to The Lord of the Rings, as well as epic themes drawn from similar mythological roots. See Babylon 5 influences for a more detailed exploration.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy episode Here Thar Be Dwarves, Billy finds his way to the Dwarves stronghold Boringya. There Dwarves leader "Beardbottom" tells him about the on-going Dwarves' war with Elves over the monopoly on the cookie industry, and asks him for an aid in the big final assault on an Elves Cookie Factory. A flashback about the origins of the war is a nod to the Council of Elrond, where the races are shown dividing up a monopol on the fast-food industry.
• In an episode of The Venture Bros one of The Monarch's henchmen had a Aragorn toy sword.
• The TV show Gilmore Girls often has references to The Lord of the Rings in various episodes.
• In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 episode The King one of the warriors says Gandalf's line "You shall not pass!"
• In an episode of The Simpsons, the family goes to a dude ranch. While there they are taken on a picnic by Cookie, the ranch owner. After finishing Cookie calls "Cleany" to come clean up. Cleany's movements and mannerisms are modeled precisely after Gollum and he refers to the garbage as his "precious." Cleany was voiced by Andy Serkis.
• In Disney's sequel to The Emperor's New Groove, Kronk's New Groove, Yzma causes people in a retirement home to become addicted to a "youth potion" that is actually green water. When Kronk buys out the retirement home, Rudy (the old man that Emperor Kuzco had thrown out the window in the first movie) comes and begs for a spot. When Kronk takes out the "potion," Rudy jumps up and takes it out of his hand and then bends his back, rubbing the potion. Imitating Gollum, he then said, "My precious...Kronk just wants it all for himself!"
• In an episode of Family Guy, Stewie is at the park. When he sees another kid at the jungle gym Stewie pushes the kid on the ground and says "Cry, cry like Sauron when he lost his contacts." The scene then shifts to a cutaway showing the Eye of Sauron frantically searching for his lost contact.
• On another episode of Family Guy, there is a scene that also parodies the movie Poltergeist as well as The Lord of the Rings. Chris is thrown from his bedroom window into the clutches of a living tree. The scene eventually parodies the epic confrontation between Gandalf and the Balrog as seen in The Lord of the Rings when Herbert the Creepy Old Paedophile shows up to save Chris. Herbert recites the film trilogy Gandalf's line, "You shall not pass!".
• In the episode "Whoever Did This" of The Sopranos, two children play with bows and arrows while quoting lines from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. As a result, one of the children (the son of capo Ralphie Cifareto) is fatally wounded by an arrow to the chest.
• In the episode "Two Birds of a Feather" of Magnum, P.I., a scene showing Magnum and his friends during the Vietnam War, his team uses the codename "Frodo" while trying to contact "Gandalf" to get air support.
• The episode "D & DD" of the animated series Dexter's Laboratory spoofs Dungeons and Dragons in general (even mentioning a warrior called "Gygax"), but inserts references to Middle-earth. Dexter is forced to play as "Hodo the Furry-footed Burrower", a hobbit/halfling whose name is possibly a combination of "Hobbit" and "Frodo".
• Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report has made several references to both The Lord of the Rings, and Middle-earth on his show. He has referenced the Eye of Mordor, Sauron, Mount Doom, Balrogs, Melkor, Maiar, and Valar
• In the movie Clerks II, A lead character Randal has an argument with supporting character Elias and a customer over the quality of the Star Wars trilogies and The Lord of the Rings. Randal equates the Lord of The Rings movies as being three movies about walking. The first movie is demonstrated by Randal taking an exaggerated step while blank-faced; the second by tripping and looking back and down mid-walk; the third consisting of the same walk, culminating in a gesture to remove the ring from the finger and toss it downward. Before the film was made, director Kevin Smith had done the exact same thing during an appearance on The Tonight Show.
• In the movie Bring It On Again one of the girls calls another girl a Hobbit.
• Talk show host Rush Limbaugh once described himself as a black smoke from Mordor (as if hindering the Democratic party).
• In the Stargate Atlantis episode "Critical Mass", Dr. Bill Lee uses the lighting of the beacons of Gondor to explain his idea of relaying a message to Atlantis.
• In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Partying is Such Sweet Soiree", when Mac goes on a sugar-high rampage, he pets sugar-related objects and says, "My precious..." imitating Gollum.

Also, in another episode, the foster home is being 'besieged' in a scene that parodies the siege of Helm's Deep.

• In the cartoon Squirrel Boy, a Nazgûl comes to the family's house and summons them to 'the Lord of the sing's' in one episode.
• In the W.I.T.C.H. episode "G is for Garbage", when Irma and Blunk go to Blunk's hideout, Blunk says, "My precious..." while loving his trash, and he even sounds like Gollum.
• In the flim Brick the character called The Pin extols the quality of Tolkien's writing to Brendan.
• In the TV series "Bones", FBI Agent Seeley Booth countered Temperance Brennan's suspicions of voodoo: "and then we just toss the ring into the molten river, and blah blah blah" ("The Man in the Morgue").
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was mocked by Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy in an audio commentary for Nelson's RiffTrax service. However, Nelson has publicly stated that unlike most of the films featured on the service, he actually likes the film.
• In the Sex and the City episode "Splat!", Carrie is asked to bring a date to a party for a work colleague, Enid (Candice Bergen). Carrie insists that the date, played by Wallace Shawn is very sweet, to which Enid responds furiously "He's a Hobbit!"
• In an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, called Beast and Barbarians, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are parodied: Mandy acquires a ring from a Gollum-like creature by solving a riddle ("What's black and blue and red all over?" "That would be you if I don't get that ring pronto!"), with that ring she gains power over an evil army.

Computer and video games

• In the MMORPG RuneScape, there is an inn called "The Dancing Donkey", which is a spoof of the Prancing Pony.
• In the Adventure game Dreamfall, the character of Crow mentions that he was 'sidekick of the year', he then says he lost next year to 'some fat short guy, all he did was carry someone up a mountain', alluding to Sam carrying Frodo.
• In Neopets, an item that can be caught in Underwater Fishing is the Two Ring, spoofing the One Ring.
• In Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, the weapon known as "Elven Bow" has the description "A heroic elf used this to return a lost ring."
• In World of WarCraft, one can fish a ring called "The 1 Ring" from various locations. When read, the description says: "Not quite good as the 2 Ring."

Music

• The Beatles' song "She Said, She Said" includes a passing reference to The Lord of the Rings, and writer John Lennon was known to have been a fan of them. During the song's fade-out, Lennon can be heard singing a series of seemingly nonsensical sounds; these phrases are either a Lennon pre-taped vocal played backwards, or Lennon imitating the sound of a reverse-tape voice. At the start of the fade-out Lennon can clearly be heard chanting the words "Ash Nazg", the first two words of the invocation engraved on the Ring of Power.
• More Led Zeppelin stuff: "The Battle of Evermore" (1971) is an actual allegory from the "Battle of the Pelennor Fields" from The Return of the King; the line in "Stairway to Heaven" 'the feeling I get when I look to the west' signifies the longing for the Elven undying lands which are 'to the west' which many characters in Tolkien's work experience; while "Over the Hills and Far Away" (1973) refers to "The Hobbit".
• Genesis' song "Stagnation" (from Trespass, 1970) was about Gollum. The most direct references being "And I will wait for ever, beside the silent mirror. And fish for bitter minnows amongst the weeds and slimy water." and "To take all the dust and the dirt from my throat, To wash out the filth that is deep in my guts."
• Rush has a song called "Rivendell" (1975) on their Fly by Night album.
• Styx has a song called "Lords of the Ring" on their Pieces of Eight album (1978).
• Sally Oldfield has a group of songs called "Songs of the Quendi" on her Water Bearer album (1978, Bronze Records Ltd.).
• The Austrian musician Gandalf (Heinz Stobl) chose his name with reference to the hobbits' wizard friend. He has composed several pieces of music which deal with themes and characters originating from The Lord of the Rings, some of which can be found on his second album, Visions (1981).
• The French singer Jacques Higelin is inspired by Tom Bombadil in his song Tom Bombadilom, released on the album Tombé du ciel in 1988.
• Johan de Meij’s first symphony The Lord of the Rings (details):

  The movements are:

1. GANDALF (The Wizard)
2. LOTHLORIEN (The Elvenwood)
3. GOLLUM (Sméagol)
4. JOURNEY IN THE DARK
   1. The Mines of Moria
   2. The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm
5. HOBBITS

• Some songs by the celtic metal band Cruachan, such as "The Fall of Gondolin" (1992), have been inspired by The Lord of the Rings.
• The Finnish musicians Nightwish have a song called "Elvenpath" on their album Angels Fall First (1997) which features a Lord of the Rings sample. They also have references to Tolkien's works in their song Wishmaster, released on the album of the same name, in 2001, including Elbereth and Lorien. They also recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for their album Once released in 2004.
• The group Nickel Creek has a song called "The House of Tom Bombadil" (Nickel Creek, 2000).
• The Brobdingnagian Bards have named one of their tracks "Tolkien" (2001), and the remix "The Lord of the Rings".
• The Spanish metal band Lórien, named after the forest Lothlórien in the novel, released an album in 2002 entitled Secrets of the Eldar with such songs as "The Voice of Saruman".
• Alan Horvath started writing the songs for The 'Rings Project (2004) in 1972.
• Australian band Soundestiny released the album 'Shadow Rising' in 2004; this was inspired by The Lord of The Rings, but made no actual mentions of Tolkien character-names or place-names. The CD is Part One of a projected Two-album 'RingLord' concept, the second album being 'Winds of Change' intended for release in 2006.
• Many metal bands, especially black metal bands have taken their band name from The Lord of the Rings. Typically the names of evil places and characters are taken. Examples are Burzum (formerly known as Uruk-Hai), Morgoth (formerly known as Minas Morgul), Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Mordor, Sauron. There are also various metal bands owing their names to Tolkien's fictional languages, such as Aglarond (Mexico), Akallabêth (Sweden), Amon Amarth (Sweden), Almáriel (Russia), Amon Din (Serbia), Anarion (Australia), Arda (Austria), Avatar (Belgium), Azaghal (Finland), Azrael (Spain), Cirith Gorgor (Netherlands), Cirith Ungol (US), Dol Amroth (Greece), Izengard (India), Fangorn (Germany), Mithril (Dominican Republic) and many more.
• The Swedish New Frontier band Machinae Supremacy uses a blend of two samples, one from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring that features Australian actor Hugo Weaving, the other from The Matrix (which has the same actor in it), as the introduction to their song 'Hybrid' (the same song also features sounds from a SidStation, a synthesizer that re-creates original C64 sounds).
• The symphonic rock band Marillion was named after The Silmarillion
• British stoner rock band Orange Goblin has tracks on their album Frequencies From Planet Ten named "Lothlorien" and "Saruman's Wish", after the Elven forest and the evil wizard in The Lord of the Rings.
• Post-hardcore band The Fall of Troy have a song on their eponymous debut album titled "March of the Ents"
• Speed Metal band Running Wild has a song entitled "Mordor".
• There was an early heavy metal band in Lousiana named Shadowfax after Gandalf's steed in The Lord of the Rings.
• Prog-rock keyboard player Rick Wakeman has an album entitled "Songs of Middle Earth: Inspired by The Lord of the Rings - which is a re-issue of previously recorded material."
• The progressive rock band Pink Floyd has a song called "The Gnome," which is about the race of hobbits.
• The new age artist David Arkenstone has an album entitled Music Inspired by Middle Earth. Also, the name "Arkenstone" was taken from The Hobbit.
• Steve Peregrin Took (born Stephen Ross Porter) of British rock band T. Rex took his name from the hobbit Peregrin Took (better known as Pippin) in The Lord of the Rings.
• Progressive rock band Camel recorded the track "Nimrodel / The Procession / The White Rider" with obvious references to The Lord of the Rings, for their album "Mirage".
• Funk Metal weirdos Nuclear Rabbit's track 'The Pimp the Bitch and the Magic Beans' is based around the encounter between Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit and contains numerous lines from the book.
• The song Mein Schatz (My Treasure or more likely My Precious) by German metal band OOMPH! is an obvious Lord of the Rings reference. It is sung from the point of view of Gollum and features the chorus: "Mein Schatz, es ist mein Schatz / nimm den Ring von Finger / denn ich will den zurück / Mein Schatz, es ist main Schatz". This translates to "My precious, it is my precious / take the ring from the finger / because I want the ring back / My precious, it is my precious".

1. RiffTrax.com: The Fellowship of the Ring announcement