!!''Literature/TheHobbit'' (book)

* BreakthroughHit: Made Creator/JRRTolkien one of the most famous authors of all time, leading into his MagnumOpus: ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''
* FilkSong: Creator/LeonardNimoy's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPh12Q7cpeE "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins"]]. [[SoBadItsGood It's as bad as it sounds.]]
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: ''The History of the Hobbit'' is full of these. For example, the first draft sets the story in the time of ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', Bilbo mentions China at one point, and Beorn was originally called Medwed (Russian for "bear"). Gandalf's name was originally to be "Bladorthin", Thorin's name was originally to be "Gandalf" and Bilbo's working name was "Bingo Baggins".

!!''WesternAnimation/TheHobbit'' (animated)

* HeyItsThatGuy: Plenty among the cast, including Brother Theodore (credited as just Theodore), John Huston, Otto Preminger, and Glenn Yarborough (sings "The Greatest Adventure"--he was later one of the West End [[ThePhantomOfTheOpera Phantoms]]).
* HeyItsThatVoice: Plenty among the cast, including [[WesternAnimation/DudleyDoRight Hans Conried]], [[WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo Don Messick]], [[WesternAnimation/SantaClausIsCominToTown Paul Frees]], ThurlRavenscroft, and John Stephenson.

!!''Film/TheHobbit'' (Peter Jackson movie)

* DeletedScene: Weta's ''Hobbit Chronicles'' art anthology reveals that, as with Jackson's previous trilogy, there are extra scenes in ''AUJ'' that didn't make the theatrical cut to look forward to upon the home release. Examples include a flashback to The Old Took's Party, where we see a very young Bilbo with his mother, Belladonna, and his first encounter with Gandalf, as well as prim young Lobelia Sackville-Baggins accompanied by her beleaguered husband Otho. There will also be scenes in The High Fells -- the crypts of the 9 Nazgul.
** Whilst not actually deleted scenes, it does appear that the first film ends somewhat earlier than was initially intended, before the third film was commissioned. The most prominent evidence is the toys that are available of Legolas and Tauriel, neither of whom appear in the first film, and specifically a Lego set based in Mirkwood containing those two characters. These scenes were likely moved into the second movie in order to spread out the story more over the 3 instalments.
* DevelopmentGag:
** Yazneg (the Orc executed by Azog in the first movie) is played by John Rawls, the actor meant to play Azog before Manu Bennett took his place. Not only this, but Yazneg is damn near identical to the original design of Azog (see WhatCouldHaveBeen below).
** Balin and Dwalin's HeadbuttOfLove references [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1VZG7zYBbo a behind-the-scenes tradition amongst the Lord of the Rings stuntmen (and Viggo Mortenson)]].
* DevelopmentHell: ''Mother of Zod''. Financing and copyright problems that caused the director to leave the project gave way to union problems that could potentially have taken the production out of New Zealand entirely. It only ''just'' got greenlit at the end of 2010 after the whole financial mess was sorted out and Jackson stepped up to direct. Thankfully, [[KillItWithFire the fire at Weta studios]] didn't cause any major problems.
** Peter Jackson was hospitalized in January 2011 for a perforated stomach ulcer, which [[ThereAreNoCoincidences just so happened]] to be one of the contributing causes of Tolkien's death. Luckily, it was caught in time and surgery went smoothly, with the only impact on production being pushing back principal photography by a month so Jackson could recover before putting himself under three more years of constant stress.
** Even prior to MGM's money woes and the [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1578440/JRR-Tolkiens-estate-to-sue-New-Line-Cinema-over-Lord-of-the-Rings-trilogy-profits.html Tolkien estate's lawsuit]] in 2008, there was Peter Jackson's legal snit with New Line Cinema (the distributors of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings''). A lawsuit Jackson felt was minor and unlikely to stop him filming ''The Hobbit'' right after ''Film/KingKong'' led to New Line's leadership declaring Peter Jackson would never direct another film for them. They changed their tune after an epic series of box-office flops, but not before it was too late for the company as an independent entity.
** Also, MartinFreeman, the actor they wanted as Bilbo, would be in the middle of filming the second series of ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' right in the middle of ''The Hobbit's'' production time. It was thought that he would have to give up one or the other, but fortunately they managed to arrange filming so that he could still do both.
* HeyItsThatGuy:
** To British viewers: Bofur is the dad from ''{{Millions}}'' and Tom Jackman from ''Series/{{Jekyll}}''.
*** He's [[Film/WakingNedDevine Finn the pig farmer]]!
** [[MartinFreeman Bilbo]] is [[Film/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Arthur Dent]], [[Series/{{Sherlock}} Watson]], and [[Series/TheOfficeUK Tim Canterbury]].
** [[Creator/BenedictCumberbatch Smaug and the Necromancer]] are voiced by [[Series/{{Sherlock}} Sherlock Holmes]], which is also a case of IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine (see below).
*** Let's call it "Sherlock Smaug and Bilbo Watson"
** [[Series/BeingHuman Kíli]] is a FriendlyNeighbourhoodVampire.
** [[RichardArmitage Thorin Oakenshield]] is [[Series/RobinHood Sir Guy of Gisbourne]], [[{{Spooks}} Lucas North]], [[Series/ChrisRyansStrikeBack John Porter]],[[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger Heinz Kruger]], and [[TheVicarOfDibley Harry the accountant]]
** [[Creator/StephenFry The Master of Lake-Town]] is [[Series/{{Bones}} Gordon Gordon Wyatt]], [[VideoGame/{{Fable}} Reaver]] and, of course, [[Series/JeevesAndWooster Jeeves]].
*** Some would also recognize him as the [[Film/AliceInWonderland Cheshire Cat]] and the Narrator for LittleBigPlanet.
** The King of the Mirkwood Elves (a.k.a. the father of [[OrlandoBloom Legolas]]) is [[PushingDaisies Ned the Pie-maker]] and [[Film/{{Lincoln}} pro-slavery Congressman Fernando Wood]].
** Balin is [[{{Rebus}} Inspector Rebus]] and DCI Metcalfe from ''Messiah''.
** Dwalin is [[VideoGame/DantesInferno Dante]], [[VideoGame/{{Uncharted}} Lazarevic, Cutter]], [[Series/TwentyFour Mikhail Novakovich]], [[VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron Thundercracker]], and [[WesternAnimation/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes Loki]] ([[{{Film/Thor}} not]] [[Film/TheAvengers that]] [[TomHiddleston one]]).
** Nori is [[Film/HeavenlyCreatures the illfated John-Nicholas]].
** Radagast the Brown is [[Series/DoctorWho the Seventh Doctor]].
** Overlapping with HeyItsThatVoice, the Great Goblin is Dame Edna and [[WesternAnimation/FindingNemo Bruce]].
** Azog the Defiler is [[SpartacusBloodAndSand Crixus the Undefeated Gaul]].
** Thranduil is [[Series/{{Wonderfalls}} Aaron Tyler]], [[Series/PushingDaisies Ned]], and [[Film/{{Lincoln}} Fernando Wood]].
* HeyItsThatVoice: The Japanese dub retains all the dubbing voice cast from ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings''' original trilogy, with the sole exception of Gandalf's former voice actor, who died previously.
** [[ToshiyukiMorikawa Bilbo Baggins]] is [[SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration Kyosuke Nanbu]] and TekkamanBlade.
** Gandalf, as already mentioned, is voiced by Michio Hazama ([[SuperDimensionFortressMacross Capt. Bruno Global]]) [[TheOtherDarrin replacing the late Hiroshi Arikawa]].
** [[HirokiTochi Thorin Oakenshield]] is [[MobileSuitGundamAGE Grodek Ainoa]] and [[{{Bokurano}} Kokopelli]].
** [[TesshoGenda Dwalin]] is [[Manga/{{Naruto}} The Nine-tailed Fox]] and [[VideoGame/SengokuBasara Takeda Shingen]].
** [[KoukiMiyata Oli]] is [[HoushinEngi Nataku]].
** [[HiroshiTsuchida Kíli]] is [[SoulSeries Zazalamel]].
** [[{{Chafurin}} Dori]] is [[MobileSuitGundam0083StardustMemory Bernard Monsha]].
** [[HiroakiHirata Bofur]] is [[OnePiece Sanji]] and [[BlackLagoon Benny]].
* IWantYouToMeetAnOldFriendOfMine: MartinFreeman's costar Creator/BenedictCumberbatch from the acclaimed show ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' is slated to voice Smaug the dragon. One can already imagine Smaug and Bilbo [[TheyFightCrime solving crimes in Middle Earth]].
** Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch aren't the only examples of this. Hugo Weaving and Richard Armitage also both appeared in CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger.
** And Graham [=McTavish=] guest-starred in an episode of PushingDaisies, where Lee Pace played the main character.
* TheOtherMarty: Dean O'Gorman replaced Rob Kazinsky as Fíli early on in filming, due to problems with the latter's health. Considering all the makeup, it's not hard to imagine that Kazinsky might still be seen in some shots of the finished film, where his face isn't clearly visible. Or [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame even if it is]].
* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: A meta-example, with Peter Jackson gradually recruiting back former ''Lord of the Rings'' castmembers (including those who were initially reluctant to spend another several years in New Zealand doing nothing but Tolkien all day and night). It's bittersweet, especially for the actors whose characters Jackson ''couldn't'' shoehorn into the plot of ''The Hobbit''.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen
** Del Toro did ''a lot'' of [[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/07/110207fa_fact_zalewski?currentPage=9 preproduction work]] including designing creatures and [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience color scripts]] that might not even make it into the finished films, although TheOtherWiki says he's still collaborating with Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens on the scripts.
** DavidTennant as Thranduil is now an example of this.
*** As is Creator/IanMcShane who GuillermoDelToro claimed 'would make the most perfect dwarf' (incidentally he did, but in a [[SnowWhiteAndTheHuntsman different film]]). In fact many of Guillermo's casting choices will now be consigned to the annals of what might have been including BRIANBLESSED as Thorin, RonPerlman as Beorn and DougJones as possibly Thranduil. However MartinFreeman and Sylvester [=McCoy=] were shared favourites for their respective roles by both Guillermo and PeterJackson.
** Part of the reason Sylvester [=McCoy=] got a role in the film was because he was this trope in [=LoTR=] - he was passed over for Bilbo.
** Azog ''was'' going to be played by an actor in prosthetics/makeup, as shown in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzDbSdKND9Y this video]]. However, Peter Jackson wanted Azog to have a unique design from the other Orcs, so the CG/mo-cap version was put in place of the original Azog in most scenes, while the original design for Azog was Retconned as Azog's MookLieutenant, Yazneg. See DevelopmentGag above.
* When telling Bilbo about the other wizards, Gandalf mentions the 2 Blue Wizards, but claims to be unable to remember their names. Their names are Alatar and Pallando, but the film makers do not have the rights to Literature/UnfinishedTalesOfNumenorAndMiddleEarth or TheSilmarillion, and as such they cannot be legally named.

!! ''VideoGame/TheHobbit'' (interactive fiction)

* NoExportForYou: This UK game never appeared in America, [[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0006440 because]] "some company owned the rights to the pictures" and blocked a US release. The market in 1982 might have been too small; it was not until 2001 when the film version of ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' created American demand for Tolkien games.

----