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aka: The Hobbit

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  • Crayon Shin-chan have their own version of LOTR, set in an Alternate Universe titled "Lord of the Ika-ring" note  with Kazama and Shin-Chan as stand-ins for Frodo and Sam. Their version of Aragon is notably a Gender Flipped Badass Biker. Instead of Mount Doom, their quest have them throwing the titular Ika-ring into a "Mouth of Despair" - a giant Sarlacc-like mouth meant for disposing garbage.
  • Exceptionally old halflings in Delicious in Dungeon become very much like Gollum.
  • Jujutsu Kaisen features Anime Sam and Frodo running in a theater.
  • Centorea in Monster Musume wields an Anduril replica at times.
  • In Saint Seiya, one of Hades specters named Balron Rune has his armor modelled after the Balrogs from LOTR, whip and all.
  • An Omake of Slayers has Lina embroiled in the War of the Ring. Christopher Lee (Saruman and Gandalf being called by their actors names here) fully falls from grace and becomes a balrog, but in doing so, becomes too fat-fingered to wear the Ring! Legolas and, of all people the Witch-King become a Composite Character, with the other eight Nazgûl being played by his fan-club. Lina, for her part, ignores said evil bauble in favour of blowing things up (and is called "Lina the Pink," to her annoyance).

Comic Books

  • Another LOTR fan in the Marvel Universe is the Black Knight, who has named his successive winged horses Aragorn, Valinor and Strider.
  • The X-Men enemy Sauron was specifically stated in-universe to have taken his name from the LOTR villain.

Fan Works

Films - Animated

  • The LEGO Batman Movie: The Eye of Sauron is one of the inmates of the Phantom Zone.
  • The LEGO Movie: One of the film's locales is Middle Zealand, a nod to the fact that the films' outdoor scenes were filmed in New Zealand. Additionally, Gandalf (voiced by Todd Hansen) has a minor role as a Master Builder.
  • The Simpsons Movie: An orc is seen in the lynch mob trying to kill the Simpsons.

Films — Live-Action

  • In Blue Iguana (2018), Cornelius tells Paul and Eddie that he was the first pick to play Frodo Baggins in 1999, but was rejected for being 6'2'' because the special effects to make him hobbit-sized were too expensive.
  • In The Hustle, Josephine refers to her scheme to trick men into giving her expensive engagement rings as her Lord of the Rings con.
  • In Joy Ride (2023), Audrey does a Gollum impression to entertain a couple basketball players she meets.
  • In The Martian, the NASA staff use names from Lord of the Rings in their operation plan to rescue Mark Watney.

Literature

  • Animorphs:
    • In Book #15, Marco tries to write a book report on it without having read the book.
    • In Book #14, the Air Force uses the fake company "Gondor Industries".
    • Crayak is a dead ringer for the Eye of Sauron.
    • Several of the alien species and characters' names are from Tolkien:
      • Elfangor is named after the Fangorn forest (more obvious in his human alias, Alan Fangor).
      • Ax's middle name, Esgarrouth, is from the lake town near the Lonely Mountain.
      • Alloran is pronounced like Olorin, Gandalf's true name.
      • The word Yeerk comes from the Sindarin word for orc, yrch.
  • Are You Alone on Purpose?: Alison brings The Two Towers to read while Rabbi Roth tutors Adam, but she finds the Ring's influence on Frodo stressful to read about. When she sees that Harry has a copy of The Hobbit in his room, she gives him all three volumes of The Lord of the Rings.
  • Emma from Because of the Rabbit longs for a best friend and hopes to be half of an "and," like Frodo and Sam.
  • The Book of Bunny Suicides has a Bunny shaking salt into the Eye of Sauron.
  • In The Boy Who Drew Monsters, Nick tries to draw monsters like Jack Peter. One of his drawings is of a Lord of the Rings orc.
  • In Castle Hangnail, Edward recalls the castle being visited, centuries ago, by a tall old wizard seeking a source of magical fire to melt down a magic ring, and that he eventually ended up destroying it in "a volcano or something".
  • A Certain Magical Index:
    • The Serial Killer Jinsaku Hino was intentionally designed as an Expy of Gollum in both looks and personality.
    • Pope Matthai Reese was designed as an Expy of Gandalf.
  • Crosstime Traffic: In The Valley-Westside War, the password for entering the secret crosstime chamber is Mellon, referencing the entrance to Moria. A character from the post-apocalyptic world is able to figure it out, though, since LOTR was published before 1967 (when the nuclear war happened), and copies still exist.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick is given several books for his summer reading, but he rents the movies based on the books instead of reading the books themselves. When he rents the movie version of The Lord of the Rings, he forgets to check the title and ends up renting a wrestling movie called "Lords of the Ring".
  • In Dogs Don't Talk, Emily tells Ben that she's reading The Lord of the Rings, and that she plans to see the movie after she finishes the books. Ben has seen the movie, but found it hard to follow.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Dead Beat:
      • Harry is so fond of The Hobbit he used it as an affinity-item when summoning the Erlking.
      • Harry refusing Lasciel's offer of power by quoting Gandalf's refusal of the One Ring stood out as especially awesome.
    • Changes:
      • Harry claims that Tolkien got a lot about wizards right, save for one little thing; "Fuck subtle."
      • Outraged that the FBI had searched his place, Harry ruefully muses that it is not like he lives in an ivory tower or Bag End or whatever.
      • The ambient magical energies at the Red Court warehouse remind Harry of Smaug lying covetously on his hoard.
    • Ghost Story:
      • In the flashback to his teen years the straitjacket that alerts Harry to Justin's intentions lies next to Harry's much-used copy of The Hobbit. Seeing it, Harry realizes he cannot exactly run off to Oz and ask another wizard for help.
      • Harry tries some of the same words Gandalf used to try to open the door to Moria on the entrance to the Corpsetaker's lair. And calls her a tasteless bitch for not reading Tolkien when it does not work.
    • Cold Days:
    • White Night: Seeing Grey Cloak's contact, he muses that the Ringwraith look is pretty common among dark wizards. Ramirez has made the same connection.
    • "Backup": Thomas says Harry is like Gandalf on crack and an IV of Red Bull.
    • Battle Ground:
      • The illusion of the Carpenters being murdered is explicitly compared to Fellowship of the Ring by Molly.
      • When Harry and Butters collapse a bridge to hinder Fomor forces Harry is darkly amused at getting the chance to use a quote he's always liked:
        "YOU. SHALL NOT. PASS!"
  • March from The Eagle Tree read The Lord of the Rings as a kid. For the most part he didn't like it, as he's not a fiction fan, but he did relate to the Ents. He once attended a Halloween party dressed as an Ent and stood perfectly still the entire time.
  • In Even If We Break, Ever calls Finn "Fool of a Took" for trying to climb over a pile of boulders without asking for help and almost getting hurt.
  • In Experimental Film, Mattheuis is described as "sort of the Gimli of Canadian film studies."
  • If I Fall, If I Die: After Will starts going outside for the first time since he was four, he decides that he doesn't trust nature, and liked the Ents better than the real thing.
  • In the Juniper Sawfeather novel Whisper of the Woods, when Juniper realizes that a tree on the reservation is sentient, she thinks of fictional examples, including the Ents.
  • In Kaitangata Twitch, Rufus puts a piece of kitchen brush around his finger like a ring and says, "One ring to bind them all!". Meredith says that it's more like one ring to scrub them all.
  • In The Kingdoms of Evil, Freetrick is confronted by a halfling wielding a magic ring, who is promptly executed by his security staff.
  • A secret meeting at NASA in The Martian is called "Project: Elrond" specifically because it's a secret meeting where a momentous decision will be made (and everyone there's a massive nerd except one person). Incidentally, it concerns saving all life on Mars (to whit, one Mark Watney, astronaut) whereas the Council of Elrond was to do with saving all life on Middle-Earth.
  • In No One Needed to Know, Donald's friend Peter can recite the first five pages of The Hobbit from memory.
  • Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: From the first episode, when talking about mithril, Claire asks:
    Is this mythril stuff the same magic silver from those movies with the elves and the ring and stuff?
  • Selfish Pigs shows a pig shoving a boulder onto Gollum so he can steal the Ring.
  • Chloe from Stim owns a thick paperback copy of Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings.
  • The scene where Tailchaser meets Queen Sunback in Tailchaser's Song is a parody of when Galadriel is first met.
  • In The Tuning Station, Ted remembers pretending as a child that a tree stump was the bridge at Moria or the path through Mirkwood.
  • In the Underdogs novel Acceleration, teen assassin Oliver Roth remembers watching the movies. He found them to be too long and too full of sappy do-gooders, but it was interesting to watch Frodo's personality collapse as the Ring's influence on him grew stronger.
  • In Unidentified Suburban Object, the seventh graders are each assigned a country to do a report on. One kid is excited to get New Zealand because of The Hobbit.
  • In Will Save the Galaxy for Food, Not-Mckewan starts to feel "Like a hobbit whose friend won't throw that plying ring into Mt. Doom" when his contractor screws him over.
  • Savvy from You Have a Match is secretly a huge Lord of the Rings fan. She and Leo once learned Elvish together; Leo then annoyed Abby and Connie by trying to send coded messages in the language.

Live-Action TV

  • Doctor Who: Sil, who appears as an antagonist in both "Vengeance on Varos" and "Mindwarp", was portrayed by his actor, Nabil Shaban, as a serpentine version of Gollum.
  • The Flash (2014): "When Harry Met Harry" features several alternate versions of Harrison Wells. One calls himself Wells the Gray and is dressed like Gandalf.
  • Friends: In "The One Where They're Going to Party!", Ross and Chandler talk about a friend from college who was nicknamed Gandalf because he was a "party wizard". Joey asks about the nickname.
    Chandler: Didn't you read Lord of the Rings in high school?
    Joey: No, I had sex in high school.
  • Haven: In "Double Jeopardy", Vince and Dave discuss that the Monster of the Week might be a Golem. They pronounce it as "Gollum" and Duke thinks they are talking about the Lord of the Rings character before they correct him.
  • Sesame Street once parodied Lord of the Rings by having Cookie Monster as a monster named Gobble, parodying Gollum, making cookies.
  • Elnor from Star Trek: Picard could be transported to Middle-earth, and he would seamlessly blend into that world because he's basically an Elf (Romulans are Space Elves, after all). The media frequently compared him to Legolas because he's long-haired, Elfeminate and has an agile, graceful fighting style. Elnor's name is similar to Elrond, and in Sindarin, "Elnor" means "Star-Run." note  The Qowat Milat monastery where he grew up is an Arboreal Abode situated in a forest which looks virtually identical to Rivendell, as the foliage and the late afternoon/early evening sunlight appear to be in a perpetual autumn setting. Elnor pledging his sword to Picard's quest and joining the latter's ragtag crew is akin to Legolas joining the Fellowship of the Ring, and their respective missions are extremely dangerous with little hope of success.
  • Stranger Things: The name Mirkwood is straight out of The Hobbit (not Lord Of The Rings).
  • Supernatural: "Pac-Man Fever", like any episode featuring Charlie Bradbury, contains plenty of shout-outs. This outing included Star Wars, TRON, WarGames and The Hobbit.
  • Veronica Mars: In the second season episode "The Quick and the Wed", when Heidi, the bride-to-be, shows off her engagement ring, one of the bridesmaids comments on how large it is, and says, in her best Gollum voice, "It's ours; we wants it!"

Music

  • "Not Today" by BTS (meant to be an underdog anthem) references Aragorn's Rousing Speech in The Return Of the King, down to the first lines of the song semi-quoting it:
    All the underdogs in the world
    A day may come when we lose
    But it is not today
    Today we fight!
  • Burzum takes it's name from the Black Speech of Mordor. It means "Darkness".
  • Gandalf and Elron makes a cameo in this song of Destripando La Historia while Odin seeks magical knowledge.
  • Led Zeppelin's "Ramble On":
    "'T was in the darkest depths of Mordor
    I met a girl so fair
    But Gollum, and the evil one
    Crept up and slipped away with her
    Her, her, yeah"

Professional Wrestling

  • The third of CHIKARA's four 2016 Aniversario events, held May 29, 2016, was titled Aniversario: The Two Towers.

Theatre

  • The 2001 edition of the spanish animatronic show Cortylandia was done to promote the theatrical release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
  • Matilda: When Miss Honey is assessing her reading ability, Matilda gives a long list of books she has read recently, one of them is Lord Of The Rings.

Video Game

  • Animal Restaurant: The Green Round Door is a reference to Bilbo Baggins' door. Its description reads:
    "Knock, knock!" Will a dwarf open the door?
  • In Astalon: Tears of the Earth, it's possible to get a Nonstandard Game Over at the beginning of the game by having Arias turn back and leave the tower rather than following his friends into it. This rewards the player with an achievement called "Fly, you fool!"
  • One AI taunt in the Updated Re Release of Battlezone II: Combat Commander is "Open war is upon you, wether you'd risk it or not."
  • The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark: The protagonists visit an ancestral estate whose gardener extols the range of plants to be found on the grounds, claiming that there's even an ent about the place somewhere.
  • Marathon: The level titled "Foe Hammer" is named for the sword Gandalf picks up in The Hobbit and keeps with him throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, also known as Glamdring (Quenya for "Foe-hammer"; it is written as "Foe-hammer" in the book.)
  • Minecraft: Come the new Advancements system replacing achievements in 1.12, a few more little shout outs in the names have appeared alongside the existing achievement names. These include "Not Today, Thank You".
  • Them's Fightin' Herds:
    • Early on in story mode, Arizona will say "Well. This is it. Take one more step, and I'll be the farthest away from home I've ever been...".
    • Tianhuo has a palette swap called "Under The Mountain", resembling Smaug's colors from the 1977 film.

Webcomics

  • Girl Genius: The weapons wielded by the Storm King are a mace named "The Platonic Solid" and a sword called "Archimedes' Lever". But the Jägers call them Smasher and Slasher. This may be a reference to the swords retrieved by Thorin and Gandalf in The Hobbit. They're properly named Orcrist (Goblin-Cleaver) and Glamdring (Foe-Hammer), but the Goblins call them Biter and Beater.
  • El Goonish Shive: NP: "An NPC by any other name", the naming of the Cleric has tons of shout-outs running through Ellen's head, with the last readable one presumably being "Lord of the Rin(gs)".

Web Original

  • Atun Shei Films: The bit in which the Witchfinder General exorcises the Nazi officer from Johnny Reb in "Was it REALLY the WAR of NORTHERN AGGRESSION?!?!?!" is a play on the scene of Gandalf ridding Thèoden of Saruman's grip on his mind in The Two Towers film.
  • Honest Trailers:
    • Peter Jackson's film trilogy got its own trailer.
    • In the trailer for The Little Mermaid (1989), King Triton is nicknamed "Jacked Gandalf".
  • Neopets:
    • This article describes having 20 meals a day as "Hobbit-style".
    • This user wrote to the Neopian Times asking, "My Neopet has been acting strangely ever since he found this magical gold ring... He keeps turning invisible and talking about his 'precioussss'. What shall I do?".
  • Nostalgia Critic:
    • In his review of Short Circuit 2, a clip of Frodo's Big "NO!" from The Fellowship of the Ring is played over the scene where Johnny 5 is beaten to death.
    • In his review of Rover Dangerfield, the Critic thinks about all the trees that were cut down to make the movie, leading to a clip from The Two Towers of Treebeard reacting to the chopped forest.
    • At the end of the Good Burger review, Critic's face morphs into a Demon Head: The Balrog's as he replies "Yes. DIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!" in response to the jingle "Welcome to Good Burger! Home of the Goodburger! Can I take your order?"
  • SCP Foundation: SCP-423 is an entity who exists within textual narratives and can travel between them while slighty altering the stories themselves. It appeared as a 14th dwarf named Feredor in a copy of ''The Hobbit'' once.
  • Zero Punctuation:
    • "I'm not sure anyone could consider (Sonic Unleashed) 'the game for them,' but they probably live in a cave and subsist on raw fish." The accompanying visual is a silouhette of Gollum holding a fish in, ironically, a very nice cave with great lighting and a little pebbly stream, as opposed to a stygian underground lake.
    • The Phoenix Point / Bug Fables episode has game designer Julian Gollop go around on all fours muttering "gollop gollop" to himself.

Western Animation

  • The American Dad! episode "The Return of the Bling" had Roger acting and talking to himself like Gollum over an Olympic medal he unfairly earned, which Stan and Steve were trying to take back to the committee. He even bites off Stan's finger at the end of the episode (even though he already had the medal back) just because "They did it in the movie".
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: When team Avatar is trying to arrange a meeting with the Earth King, Joo Dee replies that "One does not simply pop in on the Earth King", referencing the memetic quote by Boromir from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
  • Centaurworld: Holetaurs agree to join the hootenanny using the same words as heard during the Fellowship of the Ring being formed, only replacing weapons with instruments.
    Badgertaur: By my life or death, you have my fiddle.
  • Codename: Kids Next Door: The episode "Operation: F.I.S.H.Y.", in which Numbuhs Two and Four try to dispose of Numbuh Three's dead goldfish, is a parody of the films.
  • The Dragon Prince: When Callum and Rayla are discussing how they should cross the Xadian border, he points out that "One does not simply walk into Xadia!" He even makes the same hand gesture that Boromir did.
  • Evil Con Carne: In "No No Nanook", a minor Running Gag involves characters entering a cave and running over expies of Frodo and Gollum.
  • Family Guy:
    • In "I Take Thee Quiagmire", Quagmire imagines himself as Aragorn and Joan as Arwen.
    • A cutaway from "Sibling Rivalry" has the Eye of Sauron getting worried about losing his contact lens.
    • In "Petergeist", Herbert fights an evil tree and shouts "You shall not pass!"
    • In "Stewie Loves Lois", Seamus owns a map of Middle Earth.
    • In "Movin' Out (Brian's Song)", Carl tells Chris that he owns a DVD boxset of the trilogy, and Chris points out a plot hole to him.
    • One of the title cards for "Road to the Multiverse" depicts Stewie as Gollum and Brian as Frodo.
    • In "Tiegs for Two" the "light-the-beacons" scene is parodied when Peter finds out that Brian is in a relationship with Cheryl Tiegs.
    • In "Brian the Closer", Peter becomes obsessed with Brian's old rope chew toy to the point where he turns into Gollum.
  • Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends:
    • In "Partying is Such Sweet Soiree", a sugar-crazed Mac freaks out upon tasting a piece of sugar-free gum and screams "It burns us! It burns us!"
    • In "Cookie Dough", Frankie starts behaving like Gollum and talking to herself while eating Madame Foster's cookies.
    • In “Duchess of Wails”, the entire scene where the friends square off against Mac and Bloo when they try to bring Duchess back to Foster's parodies the battle of the second movie, with Bloo saying a quote that parodies another in the film.
  • In the Gravity Falls episode "The Stanchurian Canditate", after Stan (who was running for mayor) makes a remark about teaching kids swears to "bring them into the real world", Wendy tells him, "You're meming fast, and none of them are good" - while showing him a parody of the "walk into Mordor" meme depicting Stan saying "One does not simply 'teach kids swears'".
  • The Great North: In "Enough Bed Adventure", when the Tobin kids are telling stories to Beef to convince him to buy the bed they want for him, Ham tells a Whole-Plot Reference to the series, with the ring being replaced with a mattress and each of the characters from the series are represented by the characters in the show. While Ham is Gandalf in the story, Beef plays the role of Frodo and there's another Beef as Gollum.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: In "Secret Decoder Ring", Billy thinks the titular ring will make him invisible, leading him to put it on and take off his clothes.
  • Phineas and Ferb: Enough for the show's wiki to have made a list. Highlights include:
    • Professor Poofenplotz channeling Galdriel as she monologues about her Evil Plan to become Queen of the World using royal bee jelly.
    • Baljeetolas of the Nerdling Realm in "Excaliferb".
    • When an even-bigger goon joins the others, Monty just sighs and mutters, "They have a cave troll."
  • The R.O.B. the Robot episode about the kids putting on a fantasy action story is titled "Lord of the Robots" (although its plot is more similar to Dungeons & Dragons.
  • The Simpsons:
    • "Treehouse of Horror XII", a Hobbit is seen attending the Gypsy and Leprechaun's wedding in Hex and the City.
    • In "Dude, Where's My Ranch?", a prospector named Cleanie puts some dirty dishes and into a sack and says "My precious". Bonus points for him being voiced by Andy Serkis.
    • In "Rome-Old and Julie-Eh", Bart and Lisa's battle with delivery people spoofs the Battle of the Hornburg from The Two Towers.
    • In a flashback from "That '90s Show", Comic Book Guy is seen telling a college study group "And that is why The Lord of the Rings can never be filmed."
    • In "Pranks and Greens", Homer says "You found the precious" when Marge uncovers his secret stash of junk food.
    • In "Brick Like Me", Comic Book Guy says that Bart's LEGO robot is partially made from a Hobbit Hole Playset.
    • Several references appear throughout "The Serfsons", a parody of high fantasy works in general.
  • South Park:
    • The episode "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" was a Whole-Plot Reference to the series. Not only did the plot revolve around a VHS of The Fellowship of the Ring, it also bears similarities to The Lord of the Rings itself, with Cartman taking on the role of Gandalf and Butters taking on the role of Gollum. The 6th Graders take on the role of the Shadow, with Scott Tenormann as a Ringwraith and unnamed teenagers as orcs.
    • The episode immediately after that one, "The Death Camp of Tolerance," similarly parodied The Hobbit—specifically the 1977 animated version by Rankin/Bass Productions—in the subplot with Lemmiwinks the gerbil, whose nature as a Pinball Protagonist is a deliberate Take That! by Trey Parker and Matt Stone against Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Lemmiwinks returned nine years later in the episode "Bass to Mouth," which features more songs inspired by those in the Hobbit cartoon.
  • Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?: According to Word of God, Josh Peck's voice for Lenny Yogman was based on those of Gollum and a Skeksis.

Alternative Title(s): The Hobbit, The Lord Of The Rings

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