The Lord of the Rings in pop culture
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J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has a profound and wide-ranging impact on popular culture, from 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 films by Peter Jackson.
Contents
References
Television
- 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 LOTR, South Park has a nurse with a conjoined twin fetus on her head called Nurse Gollum.
- The South Park episode "The Return of the Lord of the Rings to the Two Towers" is a parody of the movie version of The Lord of the Rings.
- 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.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy episode Here Thar Be Dwarves is a The Lord of the Rings parody. Billy gets the Dwarves stronghold "Boringya" where Dwarves leader "Beardbottom" tells him about Dwarves war with Elves over the monopol of cooky industry. Flashback about the origns of the war is an obvious parody of the Council of Elrond, where Middle-earth was parodied as "Mid-western Earth", and the participants were shown dividing up the fast-food industry.
- The TV show Gilmore Girls often has references to The Lord of the Rings in various episodes.
- 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, During a scene that also parodied the movie Poltergeist 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 Lord of the Rings when Herbert the Creepy Old Pedophile shows up to save Chris. Herbert recites the famous "You shall not pass!" line.
- In the episode "Whoever Did This" of The Sopranos, two children play with bows and arrows while quoting lines from 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.
Music
- The Beatles' song "She Said, She Said" includes a passing reference to the trilogy, and writer John Lennon is known to have been a fan of the books. 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.
- Leonard Nimoy's music: "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" (1968) is based around this series (in particular 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 Mordor, "Misty Mountain Hop" (1971) is named after Tolkien's Misty Mountains, and "The Battle of Evermore" (1971) is an actual allegory from the "Battle of the Pelennor Fields" from The Return of the King.
- 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
- 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, and a song called "The Necromancer" on their "Caress of Steel' 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).
- 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 movements are:
I. GANDALF (The Wizard)
II. LOTHLORIEN (The Elvenwood)
III. GOLLUM (Sméagol)
IV. JOURNEY IN THE DARK
a. The Mines of Moria
b. The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm
V. HOBBITS
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 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 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 Elebreth Lorien. They also recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for their album Once released in 2004.
- The Tolkien Ensemble has created An Evening in Rivendell (1997), A Night in Rivendell (2000) and At Dawn in Rivendell (2003), composing original music to practically all the songs and poems in The Lord of the Rings. A fourth CD is planned.
- 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.
- 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
- 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), 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) and many more.
- The Swedish New Frontier band Machinae Supremacy uses a blend of two samples, one from 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 forest and the wizard in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
- All songs by the Finnish metal band Battlelore are based on Middle-earth.
- Prog Hard-core band The Fall Of Troy have a song on their eponymously named debut album titled The 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 " - which is a re-issue of previously rcorded 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.
Literature
- 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. 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.
- 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.'
Games
Computer and video games
- In the MMORPG RuneScape, there is an inn called "The Dancing Donkey", which is a spoof of the Prancing Pony.
Real-world 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.
- 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.
Satire and parody based on The Lord of the Rings
- "[Play Orc]" - A funny parody of Playboy featureing sexy "Orcs" from 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 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!"
- [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 .
- [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 LOTR entitled is downloadable from San Francisco Indymedia [link]
- In the MMORPG Kingdom of Loathing, there is an adventure in the Itznotyerzitz Mine that has many references to the Mine from Fellowship of the Ring, such as "Speak "Friend," and enter" changed to "Speak,Frat Boy, and enter."
- ["Orc Magazine"] - Funny parody featuring Orc-themed magazines inspired by the Lord of the Rings.
- The Sprite Comic Neglected Mario Characters contains an adventure entitled "The Lord of the Wings," which is loosely based on the plot of the trilogy.
- 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.
| The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien | |
| Books: | The Fellowship of the Ring | The Two Towers | The Return of the King |
|---|---|
| Live-action: | ' | ' | |
| Animation: | J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings | The Return of the King (TV special) |
| Radio: | The Lord of the Rings (1955 radio series) | The Lord of the Rings (1979 radio series) | The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio series) |
| Characters: | Frodo | Sam | Merry | Pippin | Bilbo |Gandalf | Aragorn | Legolas | Gimli | Boromir | Sauron | Saruman | Arwen | Elrond | Galadriel | Théoden | Éomer | Éowyn | Wormtongue | Faramir | Denethor | Gollum | Witch-king | Treebeard |
| Miscellanea: | Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien | The Lord of the Rings in pop culture | Middle-earth in video games | Themes in The Lord of the Rings |
| See also: | The Hobbit | The Silmarillion | Unfinished Tales | The History of Middle-earth | The History of The Lord of the Rings |
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