* November 27 – The Rankin / Bass made-for-TV animated film The Hobbit premieres on NBC in the United States.

John Huston voiced Gandalf in the animated films The Hobbit ( 1977 ) and The Return of the King ( 1980 ) produced by Rankin / Bass.

Smaug as he appears in the The Hobbit ( 1977 film ) | 1977 animated version of The Hobbit.

In the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit, Smaug was voiced by Richard Boone.

In the 1977 Rankin / Bass animated version of The Hobbit, Bilbo was voiced by Orson Bean.

The Goblins in the 1977 animated adaptation of The Hobbit were likened to the work of Maurice Sendak.

The Rankin Bass animated version of the Hobbit portrayed the eagles as similar in physique and appearance to Harpy, crowned or monkey-eating eagles of the tropics, while Jackson's trilogy provided a more traditional interpretation, with birds similar to the Golden Eagle.

In the 1977 animated adaption of The Hobbit, The Wood Elves are depicted as having fair hair and pale lavender skin, with clothing predominantly brown and olive coloured garb.

Rankin / Bass ' animated adaptation of The Hobbit depicts Bilbo's encounter with the trolls Bill, Bert, and Tom.

He provided the voices for several J. R. R. Tolkien characters ( most notably the dwarf Bombur ) in Rankin / Bass animated versions of The Hobbit and The Return of the King.

In 1977, Rankin / Bass produced an animated version of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

Don Messick voiced Balin in the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit.

* The Hobbit – a 1977 animated musical television special created by Rankin / Bass * The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

* The Hobbit ( 1977 film ), animated made-for-TV film

These were mostly small parts in B-movies, although he did provide the voice of Gollum in the 1977 made-for-television animated version of The Hobbit and the follow-up adaptation of The Return of the King.

Among other career highlights, Yarbrough provided vocals for the Rankin / Bass animated versions of The Hobbit ( 1977 ) singing songs such as The Greatest Adventure, The Road Goes Ever On as well as The Return of the King ( 1980 ) singing " Frodo of the Nine Fingers " in addition to singing the title song in the 1966 holiday classic, The Christmas That Almost Wasn't.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Raimi had expressed an interest in directing a film version of The Hobbit, the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

* 1966 Gene Deitch 12 minute version of The Hobbit

Also on New Line's upcoming slate will be the upcoming film version of The Hobbit.

Tolkien also said the original version of the Red Book contained the story of Bilbo's journey from the first edition of the Hobbit.

At the end of this version, Christopher included extracts from an earlier and longer manuscript, which was later published in its entirety in The Annotated Hobbit.

In the forthcoming film version of The Hobbit, McKenzie has been cast as Lindir, an elf of Rivendell who appeared briefly in J. R. R.

When he revised The Hobbit to bring the story of the finding of the Ring in line with The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien retained the original version as the tale Bilbo told to justify his acquisition of the Ring.

The split of Tolkien's works between Tolkien Enterprises and the Tolkien Estate means that none of the Tolkien Enterprises ' products can include source material from outside The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and therefore a film or stage version of The Silmarillion is highly unlikely.

In 1937 Tolkien sent the current version of The Lay of Leithian together with a prose version of the yet unfinished part of the poem to his publisher Allen & Unwin who had asked for further material of his fictional world after the success of The Hobbit.

( The rights to produce a role playing game version of the films were sold to another firm, Decipher, Inc .) They also have the rights to produce a Battle of Five Armies game called " The Hobbit: Strategy Battle Game ", using smaller miniatures to enact larger battles ( more akin to the Warmaster system ).

Heron Carvic ( 21 January 1913 – 9 February 1980 ) was a British actor and writer who provided the voice for Gandalf in the BBC Radio version of The Hobbit, and played Caiphas the High Priest every time the play cycle The Man Born To Be King was broadcast.

# " Hobbit Motherfuckers " ( on double LP version, American version and 2005 re-issue ) – 1: 18

Instead of approaching The Hobbit as a children's book in its own right, critics such as Randell Helms picked up on the idea of The Hobbit as being a " prelude ", relegating the story to a dry-run for the later work.

Many of the thematic and stylistic differences arose because Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a story for children, and The Lord of the Rings for the same audience, who had subsequently grown up since its publication.

" The Quest of Erebor " in Unfinished Tales elaborates upon the story behind The Hobbit.

As explained in The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf spent the years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings travelling Middle-earth in search of information on Sauron's resurgence and Bilbo's mysterious ring, spurred particularly by Bilbo's initial misleading story of how he had obtained it as a " present " from Gollum.

Smaug is a fictional character in the novel The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien and the main antagonist within the story.

" This theft of a cup, Smaug's knowledge of every item in the hoard, and the dragon's ensuing rampage all echo the story of Beowulf, on which Tolkien was a noted expert and which he described as one of his " most valued sources " for The Hobbit.

The most Dwarf-centric story from The Book of Lost Tales, " The Nauglafring ", was not redrafted to fit with the later positive portrayal of the dwarves from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, nor other events in the Silmarillion, leading Christopher Tolkien significantly to rewrite it with input from Guy Gavriel Kay in preparation for publication.

In fact Tolkien's The Hobbit ( 1937 ) features an incredible number of similarities beyond those mere aspects above, for instance, the two swords Orcrist and Glamdring correspond to the story, as well, Bilbo's Mithril shirt also stands in for the chain mail shirt of gold.

His story is told primarily in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, and he appears briefly in The Hobbit.

Since The Hobbit is written almost entirely from the perspective of Bilbo Baggins and contains little that he does not directly experience or at least witness, " The Quest of Erebor " provides additional insight into the events during and preceding the story.

The Lord of the Rings picks up the story of The Hobbit some sixty years later, and contains many of the same locations and characters.

Several adjustments to The Hobbit only increased the discrepancies ; and in the 1960s, Tolkien began rewriting The Hobbit more in the style and tone of The Lord of the Rings, adjusting the journey and landmarks to fit the later story, but ultimately abandoned the effort.

" The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins " is a song composed by Charles Randolph Grean and performed by Leonard Nimoy, telling the story of Bilbo Baggins and his adventures in J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit.

The last of ten story titles Ellison had kept on his desk for years, " The Chocolate Alphabet " was used ( and expanded to its present title ) when Ellison wrote the story in the window of a Los Angeles science fiction bookshop, A Change of Hobbit.

Ellison began a week-long stint literally in the front window of A Change of Hobbit, writing a complete story each day for six days as a fund-raiser.