Posted by David Brooks on June 29, 2000 at 19:49:02 from 216-064-124-149.inaddr.vitts.com:
In Reply to: Re: Unsurprising news... posted by Andy Morley on June 29, 2000 at 14:38:37:
"Bored of the Rings" was written by Doug Kenney and Henry Beard of the Harvard Lampoon magazine, who went on to help create the late, lamented National Lampoon. It's much funnier than you might think.
A Web search finds many pages about it, including the one I add here.
Legally, "Bored" is undoubtedly protected under U.S. laws regarding parody, which give you broad license to use other characters as long as you make fun of them. I don't know if Britain has similar protection; in general, the U.K.'s libel laws are much stronger than those in the U.S.
And who in the world would want to make fun of S&A, anyway?
Someone in the 1970s wrote a spoof of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings which was a substantial success in its own right. They called it Bored of the Rings and the chief wizard instead of being called Gandalf was called Galdor.