[davem]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

While the Hobbit does indeed have a great deal of humour, it tends to be wry and puckish; Tolkien just didn't do Laurel & Hardy. (With of course one slapstick exception- the last group of Dwarves falling in a heap on Bilbo's doormat).

And Radagast of Skid Row!!!!! THIS is how to portray one of the Istari, an Ainu from before the beginning of Time?

Let's not get too precious about TH - its a children's book, & I doubt PJ will manage to outdo Tolkien's own Tra-la-la-ly's - or worse:

Let's have something to eat!"
"Yes, please!"they all said together. "Thank you very much!"
Inside the hall it was now quite dark. Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk. They went out again and soon came back carrying torches in their mouths, which they lit at the fire and stuck in low brackets on the pillars of the hall about the central hearth. The dogs could stand on their hind-legs when they wished, and carry things with their fore-feet. Quickly they got out boards and trestles from the side walls and set them up near the fire.
Then baabaabaa! was heard, and in came some snow-white sheep led by a large coal-black ram. One bore a white cloth embroidered at the edges with figures of animals; others bore on their broad backs trays with bowls and platters and knives and wooden spoons, which the dogs took and quickly laid on the trestle tables. ....... The other ponies came in rolling round drum-shaped sections of the logs, smoothed and polished, and low enough even for Bilbo; so soon they were all seated at Beom's table, and the hall had not seen such a gathering for many a year.

Radagast looks quite interesting - reminds me of accounts of Shamans the world over - & when TH was written neither Gandalf nor Radagast were Ainur. When Gandalf became one during the writing of LotR then so must his 'cousin', I'm much more comfortable with what I've seen of TH than with much of the LotR films. TH was a novel even Tolkien himself was a bit sniffy about:

“I don’t much approve of The Hobbit myself, preferring my own mythology (which is just touched on) with its consistent nomenclature – Elrond, Gondolin and Esgaroth have escaped out of it – and organized history, to this rabble of Eddaic-named dwarves out of Volüspá, newfangled hobbits and gollums (invented in an idle hour) and Anglo-Saxon runes.”