This is a surprising find. I never knew there's a LOTR cartoon produced in 1978.

Intro
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

Ralph Bakshi animiated up to return of the king, but never got the go ahead. Bakshi is oneof the big originl animators. He also did Fritz the Cat the first animated porn. Most recently he did Cool World back in 92. My fave work of his is Wizards. Simply genius, the theme and whole idea behind it was brilliant. The fact that it was animated by 12 people shows, but the film was great for it's time none-the-less, I don't care how bad the V-Os were.

I liked Wizards, but I've never liked Bakshi's reliance on putting live action into his animated movies. Like that LOTR intro, which was not actual animation at all. And his work on Cool World was just horribly done. It really looks slap-dash.

It was,but it wasn't terrible per se. And not all of his movies do. Fire and Ice? And Bakshi has never truly been big nor does he usually get any money to really make something. C'mon Wizards-16 animators! Most Disney movies boast well over a hundred and Bakshi was doing this stuff back in the early days of animation!