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Template:After Tolkien navbox The Middle-earth fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien have had a profound and wide-ranging impact on popular culture. This is especially true for The Lord of the Rings, ever since its publication in the 1950s, but especially throughout the 1960s and 1970s, where young people embraced it as a countercultural saga, and its influence has been vastly extended in the present day, thanks to the live-action film trilogy by Peter Jackson. Many of the following references are directly inspired by the latter films rather than the book.

References

Movies, television, and radio

• The South Park episode "The Return of the Fellowship of the Rings to the Two Towers" is a parody of the movie version of The Lord of the Rings.
• An episode of Robot Chicken had a parody of The Surreal Life that had The Lord of the Rings done with celebrities including Ron Jeremy.
• In a more recent episode of The Simpsons Bart and Lisa defend a box fort from a rampaging army of brown shirt delivery men. The whole sequence draws many parallels with the battle to defend Gondor in the return of the King. The writers even go as far as to include a flying fell beast, similar to that riden by the Nazgûl. Throughout this whole sequence, the chorus section of "The Fields of Pelennor" of The Return of the King soundtrack can be heard.
• In the show Odd Job Jack, episode 2.02 (Lord of the Three Ring Binder) spoofs The Lord of the Rings, with Jack as Frodo (and Déagol, when Jack was in his College years).
• In the Fairly Oddparents, nine Nazgûl are shown outside Timmy's door to be his 'new babysitters.'
• An episode of MADtv did a parody of Lord of the Rings known as "Lords of the Bling" where Bill Cosby played Gandalf and said, "We have to take the ring to Mordor, by the MotoPhoto!" Frodo was now Froho.
• In the anime Yakitate!! Japan the 68th episode parodies the films with the cast donning similar rolls as they travel around the world they were transported to.

Music

• Leonard Nimoy's music: "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" (1968) is based on The Hobbit.
• Tom Rapp set most of the verse of the One Ring ("Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky...") to music as "Ring Thing" in Pearls Before Swine's second album, Balaklava (1968).
• Led Zeppelin's music: "Ramble On" (1969) refers to Gollum and Sauron in Mordor, "Misty Mountain Hop" (1971) is named after Tolkien's Misty Mountains.
• Swedish keyboard player Bo Hansson recorded an entire concept album titled The Lord of the Rings in 1972, which was performed mostly on electronic keyboard instruments.
• Australian jazz musician and composer John Sangster undertook an ambitious three-volume jazz interpretation of the trilogy in the late 1970s, using most of the best Australian jazz musicians of the time as session players
• Johan de Meij’s first symphony The Lord of the Rings is based on the trilogy. The symphony consists of five separate movements, each illustrating a personage or an important episode from the series. The symphony was written in the period between March 1984 and December 1987, and had its première in Brussels on 15th March 1988.
• The German power metal band Blind Guardian has a song called "Lord of the Rings" on the album Tales from the Twilight World (1991). On their Somewhere far beyond (1992) there is a song called In the Forest - The Hobbit. They also released an album based on The Silmarillon called Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998), including songs like The Curse of Fëanor, and Into The Storm, retelling the struggle Middle-earth endured when the Two Trees were destroyed. Some of their other works also contain references to Tolkien's creations.
• All songs by the Finnish metal band Battlelore are based on Middle Earth.
• Almost all songs by Austrian black metal bands Summoning and Rivendell are based on Middle Earth.
• Enya recorded the song "Lothlórien" in 1991 and also performed the songs "May It Be" and "Aníron" for the soundtrack of Peter Jackson's film of The Fellowship of the Ring.
• The progressive rock group Glass Hammer has numerous Tolkien-influenced songs, including "Nimrodel", and a CD entitled Journey of the Dúnadan (1993) which is a loose interpretation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and a CD entitled The Middle-earth Album (2001) which contains several songs recorded "live at the Prancing Pony in Bree".
• The Tolkien Ensemble composed original music to all songs and poems in The Lord of the Rings, publishing 4 CDs in total over a period of 8 years, as well as a compilation album in 2006, ordering their songs as they appear in the books. Their work is approved by the Tolkien Estate.
• The music CD "Journey of the Ring" (2005) features an hour of music inspired by Tolkien's novel. The music follows the story chapter by chapter. Called "the unofficial sound track to the books" by fans. http://www.cdbaby.com/all/peters

Literature

• S.M. Stirling's characters in Dies the Fire and its sequels include a young woman who is obsessed with the works of Tolkien, and ends up founding a military group known as the "Dunedain Rangers." The villain of the trilogy also refers to the trilogy, using Sauron's emblem of the Lidless Eye as the flag of the new nation he founds.
• Terry Pratchett's novel Witches Abroad features an encounter with a Gollum-like creature, which jumps on to the main character's boat and proclaims "It'ssss my birthday." Granny Weatherwax then hits the creature with an oar, before quipping "'Orrible little bugger."
• There are various references to The Lord of the Rings, e.g. to the Ents, in The Talisman (1984), a novel by Stephen King and Peter Straub. There are also references to The Lord of the Rings in several of Stephen King's other novels (e.g. Insomnia, The Stand, etc.). This is most notable in his fantasy series The Dark Tower, which is based on the Robert Browning poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, but severely influenced by Lord of the Rings.
• The modern-era hero in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (1999) views himself as a dwarf, his grandfather the cryptanalyst as an elf, an ex-Navy Seal as one of the race of Men, and refers to his nemesis (a psychotic lawyer) as "Gollum". He recognizes Enoch the Red as a wizard and, true to form, Enoch appears in the Baroque Cycle as well.
• In Matthew Reilly's novel Seven Ancient Wonders a character uses imagery from The Lord of the Rings to warn her comrades that their base has been taken over, telling them that their return is like Gimli's return to Moria.
• Robert Jordan has an inn called "The Nine Rings" in The Great Hunt, and when Rand reads the sign in front of the inn, the book states, 'Rand swung down with a smile and tied Red to one of the hitching posts out front. "The Nine Rings" had been one of his favorite adventure stories when he was a boy; he supposed it still was.'
• In the Harry Potter series, several people are named after places or people in The Lord of the Rings, examples are a portrait in the Headmaster's Office, called Everard Proudfoot, a boy by the name of Neville Longbottom and an author named Bathilda Bagshot, in which Bagshot Row is the place where Bag End is located.

Games

Computer and video games

Other games

• Several games have been based directly on The Lord of the Rings and related works, including, amongst many, SPI's War of the Ring (1977), Iron Crown Enterprises' (ICE's) Middle-earth Role Playing game (MERP, 1982-1999) and Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG, 1995-1999), the Lord of the Rings series of board games by Reiner Knizia (2000 onward), a variant of Risk (2002) as well as The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game (2001) made by Decipher.

• In 2003, Stern Pinball released Lord of the Rings.

• The Lord of the Rings books were one of the main original inspirations for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, and hence continue to be a major influence on the entire field of role-playing and computer games having fantasy epic themes.

• The Wargames Research Group set of fantasy miniatures rules, Hordes of the Things (HotT), was first published in 1991.

• Some of the Games Workshop's Warhammer factions relate to those found in Tolkien's writings.

• In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, one of the human male's jokes is a joking description of The Lord of The Rings, except the One Ring is replaced by a bracelet and instead of Hobbits the main character is a gnome.

• Early iterations of the Japanese RPG series Final Fantasy are inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and thus, indirectly, by The Lord of the Rings. More directly, the games usually contain mithril armor and items (as early upgrades) that the player's party can buy or win.

Satire and parody based on The Lord of the Rings

• An internet-based Flash animation community produced Lord of the Clocks, a short animated parody.
• An independent film company in South Carolina released this treatment as a college humor project.
• A soft core porn comedy entitled "Lord of the G-Strings".
• The Harvard Lampoon satire Bored of the Rings, and its prequel The Soddit.
• A little-known BBC Radio series, Hordes of the Things (1980) attempted to parody heroic fantasy in the style of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• A German resynchronization of the Fellowship's first twenty minutes, called Lord of the Weed - Sinnlos in Mittelerde ("Senseless in Middle-earth"), portrays the characters as highly drug addicted.
• Quickbeam and Bombadil, the Lords of the Rhymes, mix Tolkien's fantasy world with hip-hop.
• Two New York City based authors, Jessica and Chris, parody Tolkien's work in combination with Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Once More With Hobbits.
• Several former members of Mystery Science Theater 3000 created Edward the Less which parodies the trilogy.
• MST3K's Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy also recorded an audio commentary track mocking Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring for Nelson's RiffTrax service. Unlike the other films featured on the service, it is a film that Nelson actually considered to be good.
• The first chapter of The Woad To Wuin by Peter David is entitled "Lord of the Thing".
• The Lord Of The... whatever, a "transcribed electronic text version", written by the Tolkien fans of the rec.arts.books.tolkien newsgroup as a reply to those who ask where can they download an electronic copy of the book. It has lots of fan in-jokes, like whether Balrogs have wings or not, a long-standing debate in the Tolkien fandom; as well as many references to Communism and the overthrow of the rich.
• Flight of the Conchords claim that their parody Frodo was rejected as a theme song for Peter Jackson's movies. Incidentally, Bret McKenzie (one half of the band) played an elf in the Fellowship, and his character (now known as Figwit) has become an unusual web celebrity, attracting fan sites and even a hate site.
• The Ring Thing, a Swiss parody of Peter Jackson's films. However it has received mixed reviews.
• MAD Magazine's Lord of the Rings parodies The Feeble Shtick of Ka-Ching!, The Two+ Hours, and Rehash of the Thing.
• MADtv spoofed the series with The Lords of the Bling, with various actors/actresses portraying characters as Gandalf, Frodo, Legolas, etc.
• Kingdom O' Magic, by Fergus McNeill. He became famous during the eighties for games such as Bored of the Rings (influenced by, but not adapted from, the Harvard Lampoon book) and The Boggit.
• Why can't they just lose the ring in the sink?, humour columnist Dave Barry's satire.
• Dead Ringers, BBC Radio/TV satirical comedy show regularly features Lord of the Rings-themed sketches, usually with the characters of Gandalf, Saruman and Frodo.
• Bobo, a very popular Serbian voice-over video on scene from the first film, which features Boromir and Frodo as gay lovers. It spawned many other voice-overs.
• British Comedy duo French & Saunders have also satired and spoofed in detail Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring in a BBC 2002 Easter Special entitled "The Egg".
• A parody entitled teh l0rd of teh Ringz0r has done the rounds of bulletin boards systems. Based on the Counter-Strike indebted "1337 speak" it retells scenes, primarily from the Peter Jackson films, in the style of a '1337 hax0r' or online gamer.
• A Spanish voice-over video of Gollum debating about which is the best football (soccer) video game.
• One Man Lord of the Rings A one man show by Charles Ross, reciting and parodying the three films in an hour.
• In another episode of The Simpsons, Principal Skinner announced to Springfield Elementary School that they are going to have a school medieval festival. Class bully Nelson excitedly asks, "You mean like The Lord of the Rings?!", and Skinner replies, "No! Nothing like The Lord of the Rings!" Note that readers dispute whether or not Middle-earth is medieval; the medieval look of the film trilogy is due to concept designer and book illustrator John Howe.
• REC Studios' Fellowship of the Ring A parody starring four people portraying multiple characters each and condensing the first third of the story to under a quarter of an hour.
• MTV produced the Lord of the Piercing, a parody with Sarah Michelle Gellar about the Council of Elrond, in which Frodo uses the One Ring in a piercing. The 4 minute episode comes as a hidden extra in the first DVD of the 4-disc set of The Fellowship of the Ring.
• Fellowship! - The Musical Parody of "The Fellowship of the Ring", a musical stage production featuring nine performers each playing multiple characters.
• A Russified version of the film trilogy exists, featuring a voice-over translation of all 3 films. The author of the opus is a lieutenant of police by the name of Dmitri Puchkov; unsurprisingly, his "translation" re-imagines the story as one of cops and robbers, oligarchs and the FSB (ex-KGB) chasing each other through the land of Honduras (the name of that particular country has in Russian peculiar connotations of being "a very silly place off the edge of the world"). The Ring's significance is now not its inherent evil but its status as stolen property sought by its rightful (and horribly demented and criminal) owner, who raises in his native Mordovia vast Nazi-like armies (complete with German accents, courtesy of the "translator") to reclaim it. The translation infuses the films with countless Russian pop culture jokes and allusions to Soviet anecdotes, movies, books and historical personages: for example, Legolas and Gimli speak in Estonian and Georgian accents respectively; Théoden becomes Boris Yeltsin and his affliction the consequence of alcoholism; and Gandalf is а Major in the Honduras police force. "Goblin" also put together a brand new parody soundtrack for the movies, featuring dozens of songs ranging from modern pop like Tatu, Leningad and Rammstein to old Soviet Communist anthems, with some songs by revered artists like Vladimir Vysotsky and Viktor Tsoj sprinkled in. There are also some video jokes, such as the practically seamless addition of sunglasses to Lord Elrond (who, in this version, was Agent Smith in disguise) and the brief pan to gigantic statues of the South Park children done in white marble in Denethor's halls. Commonly known as "Goblin's Translation", the parody established its author as a household name in Russia.
• Rove McManus and Peter Helliar had a short sketch on Rove Live of them dressed up as Frodo and Sam, calling each other's names out.
• A critique of the World Trade Organization parodying The Lord of the Rings entitled The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring of Free Trade is downloadable from San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia
• In the MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, there is an adventure in the Itznotyerzitz Mine that has many references to the Mine from The Fellowship of the Ring, such as "Speak "Friend," and enter" changed to "Speak,Frat Boy, and enter."
• The Sprite Comic Neglected Mario Characters contains an adventure entitled "The Lord of the Wings," which is loosely based on the plot of The Lord of the Rings. Here, the rings are replaced with buffalo wings.
• The All Saved Freak Band has an album called "For Christians, Elves, and Lovers," memorializing Tolkien's death. They have one song called "Mordor."
• On albinoblacksheep.com there is a Lord of the Rings rap title "The Towers are da Playas" including Orcs and Gollum. It is made using Flash.
• Big Idea's VeggieTales released a video entitled "Lord of the Beans" with plot, music and character similarities to The Lord of the Rings.
• Poorly translated (Engrish) captions on Asian bootlegs led to articles on Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers.
• A two-week spoof in the Monty cartoon strip, where Monty seeks the "Lord of the Thing."
• Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders created a parody of The Lord of the Rings on their sketch show French & Saunders. They named the sketch The French and The Saunders.
• A site online has recreated a good bit of the Fellowship of the Ring, with promises of more to come, using Peeps and various other props. Lord of the Peeps
• A Chilean parody named El Señor de los Ladrillos (Lord of the Bricks in English) uses Chilean pop culture and news references to parody the first half of the Fellowship of the Ring book.
• In Roger Van Der Weide's Sonic Movie Madness series, Team Sonic's story is based on Lord of the Rings

v t e The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien Constructing The Lord of the Rings
About	Volumes The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King Stories "The Shadow of the Past" "The Council of Elrond" "The Scouring of the Shire" "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" Translating List of translations Swedish Reception Impact Literary Fandom Fan fiction Oxonmoot Tolkienmoot Works inspired Tolkien's impact on fantasy
Analysis	Elements Artwork Company of the Ring Family trees Heraldry Languages Black Speech Elvish Quenya Sindarin Khuzdul Maps Poetry A Elbereth Gilthoniel Namárië Song of Eärendil The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late The Road Goes Ever On A Walking Song Proverbs Themes Addiction to power Ancestry as guide to character Architecture Christianity Death and immortality Decline and fall Dreams and visions Economy England Environmentalism Evil Forests Hell Heroism Luck and fate Magic Mental illness Moral dilemma Music Naming of weapons Northern courage Paganism Plants Psychological journeys Quests Race Sexuality Sound and language Time Trees Women Influences Antiquarianism Beowulf Celtic Classical world First World War Norse Medieval Modern sources Modernism A mythology for England Philology Shakespeare Techniques Anachronism Character pairing Editorial framing Frame stories Pseudotranslation Impression of depth Narrative structure Interlacing Storytelling Prose style Ambiguity Epic Pooh
Peoples	Maiar Balrogs Sauron Wizards Gandalf Radagast Saruman Free peoples Dwarves Balin Gimli Elves Galadriel Glorfindel Half-elven Arwen Elrond Legolas Thranduil Ents Treebeard Hobbits Bilbo Frodo Merry Pippin Sam Men Beornings Drúedain Dúnedain Aragorn of Gondor Boromir Denethor Faramir of Rohan Éomer Éowyn Théoden Wormtongue Monsters Barrow-wight Gollum Nazgûl Witch-king of Angmar Old Man Willow Orcs Shelob Trolls Wargs Watcher in the Water Other Eagles Goldberry Tom Bombadil
World	Geography Eriador Bree Old Forest Rivendell The Shire Bag End Gondor Harad Lothlórien Mirkwood Moria Mordor Rohan Isengard Battles Helm's Deep Pelennor Fields Morannon Things Mithril Oliphaunts Palantírs Phial of Galadriel Rings of Power One Ring List of weapons and armour
Related works	The Hobbit The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Errantry Fastitocalon The Sea-Bell The Road Goes Ever On Bilbo's Last Song The Silmarillion Unfinished Tales The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien The History of Middle-earth The Children of Húrin The History of The Hobbit Beren and Lúthien The Fall of Gondolin The Nature of Middle-earth
Adaptations and derivative works Books Bored of the Rings (1969) The Last Ringbearer (1999) Muddle Earth (2003) Illustrations A Map of Middle-earth Pauline Baynes Barbara Remington John Howe Alan Lee Margrethe II of Denmark Ted Nasmith Theatre Fellowship! (2005) Lord of the Rings (2006) Music Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings (1972) Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings (1988) Led Zeppelin "Ramble On" (1969) "Misty Mountain Hop" (1971) "The Battle of Evermore" (1971) Radio The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1955) The Lord of the Rings (NPR, 1979) Hordes of the Things (1980) The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1981) Der Herr der Ringe (1992) Film Animated The Lord of the Rings (Bakshi, 1978) The Return of the King (Rankin/Bass, 1980) The War of the Rohirrim (Kamiyama, 2024) Peter Jackson series The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) The Two Towers (2002) The Return of the King (2003) Music "Concerning Hobbits" "Into the West" "May It Be" Approach Production Hobbiton Movie Set Peter Jackson's interpretation Picturing Tolkien Tolkien on Film Other Sagan om ringen (1971) Khraniteli (1991) Hobitit (1993) The Rings of Power (2022) music Fan-made The Hunt for Gollum (2009) Born of Hope (2009) Video games Journey to Rivendell Game One Game Two: Shadows of Mordor War in Middle Earth Vol. I (1990) Vol. I (SNES) Riders of Rohan Elendor Vol. II: The Two Towers The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King War of the Ring The Third Age Game Boy Advance The Battle for Middle-earth Tactics The Battle for Middle-earth II The Rise of the Witch-king Conquest Aragorn's Quest War in the North Lego The Lord of the Rings Guardians of Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor Shadow of War Gollum Return to Moria The Lord of the Rings Online Mines of Moria Siege of Mirkwood Rise of Isengard Riders of Rohan Helm's Deep Mordor Minas Morgul War of Three Peaks Fate of Gundabad Before the Shadow Tabletop role- playing games Middle-earth Role Playing The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game The One Ring Roleplaying Game Adventures in Middle-earth Board games Middle Earth War of the Ring Gondor: The Siege of Minas Tirith Sauron Lord of the Rings War of the Ring Card games Middle-earth Collectible Card Game The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Other games Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Lego The Lord of the Rings