So you're annoyed that the Ralph Bakshi cartoon ran out of money and couldn't be completed? Yep, so am I. You want to see more of these animated adventures? If the answer was yes, then tough! This made for tv adaption gives new definitions to the words shite and abysmal.

So what was wrong with the Tolkien book? Well, being a book, there weren't numerous piss-poor musical numbers. Also, there wasn't any cheesy dialogue, annoying conversations or daft scenarios. Don't worry, this adaption corrects all those faults for us.

A couple of minutes into the silly tacked-on introduction, the alleged minstrel sings the classic "Frodo of the 9 fingers, and the ring of doom." Sounds good, eh? It lasts for 5 minutes and will drive anybody with ears completely up the wall. This sort of thing carries on for the whole adaption.

Roddy MacDowall provides the voice of Samwise and I suppose he's not too bad. Orson Bean provides the voice of Frodo and it really is awful. He talks a bit like this - "Saaammm, I ammm a heerroo!" All dramatic and stupid like. Whereas Sam and Frodo sound like two Americans trying to sound half-English, Pippin and Merry sound like two American children. Or more accurately, two adults trying to sound like children. Pippin sounds like this - "Gee whizz, mister!" In fact check out this classic example of a quoted line from Pippin the "hobbit" to Gandalf - "He's gone looney, I tell you!" Hmmm.

I personally think that goblins and orcs should look menacing rather than looking like cuddly toys with teeth. This is another problem I have with this adaptation, although many other factors also provide serious competition.

Aargh! Won't these songs ever end?! They cut in every 5 minutes just when you've finished trying to block the last one out of your memory. They achieve a legendary status in poorness. Well done! A lot of the cartoon doesn't even refer to the Tolkien book at all. They just make stuff up. Hey, why bother being faithful to the book anyway? Why not just write completely rubbish stuff to replace it instead?!

Like the embarassing sequence where Sam imagines him
self as "Samwise The Strong," ring-bearer. Like many others, this stupid scene goes on for far too long.

Representations of the Nazgul are actually rather good. As are some of the location paintings and snippets of action taken from the book, which seems to make the rest of it even worse. Sometimes you think that the cartoon's sorted itself out, but oh no, there's always another embarassing song or made-up scenario around the corner.

What can you say of an adaption with dialogue such as this, spoken by Sam to Frodo:

"I'd hate to think of you with naught but a bit of leather between you and a stab in the dark."It's a bad idea to write dialogue like that. Childish people (such as myself) will only think bad thoughts!

I liked the part where the cuddly toy (goblin, orc, whatever it's supposed to be!) is so terrified by Sam that he falls off a rocky ledge. Anyway, check this out.

"Sam" and "Frodo" decide to don some orc uniforms to disguise themselves for their journey to Mount Doom. Hey presto, what a great disguise! It must be because upon meeting a load of orcs, these "disguises" fool them completely. Yep, they look and sound absolutely nothing like orcs at all. Nothing. The orcs don't notice, not even when talking to the two hobbits. They're entirely convinced. I get the impression that I could put one of these uniforms on Treebeard and that these orcs would still be none the wiser!

At this moment we're treated to the classic musical number "Where there's a whip, there's a way." What a great song it is as well. And it's sung by the orcs in male choir type voices. What a good idea!

Suddenly we're reminded of what could have been when the cartoon shows us some dark imagery and also decides to stay loyal to the story it's based on. Wow, why couldn't the rest of it have been more like this? That's the worst part about this adaption. Around 20-25 minutes of it is actually decent. The rest blows goats. Big time! And the film is over 95 minutes long!

Oh, by the way, we don't see Saruman in the whole of this cartoon. Can you believe that?! Bar the stupid introduction, the parts featuring Gandalf are okay. Everything else is horrible beyond belief. Especially the woeful songs which cut in every 5 minutes. The same animators made The Hobbit cartoon adaption which I would much rather watch than this, and I'm not too fond of that one either.

One for Tolkien obsessives only, and for collectors of bad cartoons. Buy the book or stick with Bakshi and Jackson's impressive adaptions instead.

Check out the names of this adaption's creators - Muller, Rankin and Bass. Extremely appropriate seeing as how they managed to muller this story into stinking like a rank six-week old fish! Avoid. Trust me!

Your disc wil provide:

- Full-frame (made for tv)
- Mono sound
- 5 Pages of cast and crew details, a Tolkien bio, and a short amount of information on some of the featured characters
- English, French and Spanish subtitles
- The worst songs you've ever heard
- Scene access. Wow! Thanks WB!

WB are also fooling themselves if they really think that a couple of still pictures somehow equates to an animated menu.

Check this out. WB have printed the chapter information from another film entirely on the box! How stupid can you get? It gives you the chapter titles and information from the Bakshi LOTR cartoon, and not this one! WB, you must try harder.

Muller, Rankin and Bass. You shouldn't even bother trying!

Just go. Now.