The Hobbit animated (1966)

Gandalf's Tower from The Hobbit cartoon (1964)

Above is a screenshot from a little-known 1966 cartoon of The Hobbit, which is all of twelve minutes long. I saw this reported on Sacnoth's Scriptorium this morning, and just watched it over on Grognardia. Or you can read the original news (and watch the video) on Gene Deitch's blog or read a story about it on the Escapist.

Highlights:
-Reminds me of a Fractured Fairy Tale from the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show
-The art is very 60's style children's illustration...and strangely like the Cor Blok art on this year's Tolkien Calendar
-"Slag the Dragon" - mainly interested in jewelry
-The Dwarves are downsized to Thorin, a Princess, and one random guard
-Credit sequence - nice font
-Gandalf's tower - where did he live anyway?
-Gnarly trolls (or whatever they call them) that turn to trees in the sun
-Bilbo & company build a giant crossbow to shoot Slag with the Arkenstone!
-Bilbo reigns in Dale (with the Princess) before returning to the Shire (still with the Princess, naturally) until next time (LOTR, obviously).