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Posted in: Comedy Central, Movies, TV | Tagged: lord of the rings, south park
South Park: Ralph Bakshi Shares "Lord of the Rings" Parody Reminder
Director and animator Ralph Bakshi honored the South Park parody of "The Lord of the Rings," matching it with his 1978 animated feature.
Article Summary
- Ralph Bakshi shares a still from his 1978 "LOTR" film and a "South Park" parody scene.
- Bakshi's "LOTR" was an ambitious animation, pre-dating Peter Jackson's epic trilogy.
- "South Park" cleverly parodies LOTR in "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers."
- The parody humorously swaps a corrupting adult film for the "one ring," affecting Butters.
Ralph Bakshi has been a pioneer in animation for nearly seven decades since his debut on The Heckle and Jeckle Show in 1956. While he's worked on some of the biggest IPs in the industry, like Mighty Mouse and Spider-Man, his ambitions were far grander and more ambitious than his contemporaries, courting older audiences with Fritz the Cat (1972) and tackling J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (1978) for United Artists. Even as an animated feature, along with the help of writers Chris Conkling and Peter S. Beagle, trying to condense three books' worth of material into just over two hours was a herculean feat in and of itself. Keep in mind this predates the Peter Jackson live-action entry, which was far more rigorous with the nine-plus hour combined runtime across three films. Bakshi shared a still from his 1978 film alongside a still from the sixth season episode of South Park, parodying the LOTR trilogy in the cleverly titled "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers".
Ralph Bakshi Pays Tribute to South Park's Tribute to Lord of the Rings
The still shown was when Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin hid from a ring wraith deep within the roots of a tree. The scene below shows a bully looking out for Stan (Matt Stone), Kyle (Trey Parker), and Cartman (Parker). While in the original story, the four Hobbits are protecting the One Ring from the forces of Sauron, the South Park episode features Stan, Kyle and Cartman dressed up trying to return a copy of the 2001 film, The Fellowship of the Ring (first book) to a video store called the "Two Towers" (second book) The episode title is a play on words and a combination of all three books of LOTR which the third and final book is called "The Return of the King."
The South Park episode sees the corrupting force not as the "one ring" or even the film itself but an accidentally swapped adult film that corrupts Butters (Stone). After viewing the film, Butters becomes twisted and becomes the episode's "Gollum," calling the film "his precious." The scene in question was also depicted in the Jackson film, but Bakshi chose the Comedy Central series to reference.
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