Over the past month or so, I have watched all three of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. In the past two weeks, I have also had a chance to check out Ralph Bakshi's 1978 Lord of the Rings and Rankin-Bass' 1977 The Hobbit and 1980 Return of the King.

At first I thought that Bakshi's LOTR was bad, but I did not know what true pain was until I watched Rankin-Bass' ROTK. Now that, ladies and gentleman, was truly awful. Of the three animated films, the only one that didn't induce constant cringing was The Hobbit. Ugh, ugh, and ugh. (There's actually a wonderful lambasting of thr R-B ROTK here.)

I do hope that in a few years, when Peter Jackson has rested up a bit, he does get around to filming The Hobbit. That would make my day.