The Hobbit (U.S. special)

The only original song lyrics for this TV movie are those to "The Greatest Adventure" and other sections where that melody is used. All other songs are directly taken from the book as written by J.R.R. Tolkien or adaptations of what he had written in verse form.

The Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's dynasty and the most important treasure that he wishes to recover, was completely omitted from this TV movie. Thus the surrounding storyline of Bilbo stealing the Arkenstone itself and giving it to the elves, which led to the event that caused a noticeable friction between the two of them in the book was absent. Instead it features Thorin being irritated at Bilbo's lack of understanding for war, which was something that doesn't happen at all in the book.

The dwarves' map and runes upon it are an exact copy of the version featured in the original book, although the phrase indicated as written in the moon runes is incorrect. When Elrond holds the map of Lonely Mountain up to the moon and reads; "Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks and the setting sun will shine upon the keyhole," the runes shown actually read as: "Five feet high the door, and three may walk abreast," the part of the map that was already visible, hence Gandalf's comment about the door being too small for Smaug to notice it.

This TV movie was Cyril Ritchard’s final acting role. He died just a few weeks after this TV movie was originally broadcasted.

With exception of the giant spiders being female or simply voiced by actresses, there are no female characters depicted anywhere else in this TV movie. Even the crowd scenes in Lake Town consisted entirely of men.

The concept of the three trolls being voiced by three actors who voiced three of the dwarves of Thorin's company was also been done in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" (2012).

For reasons unknown, during the opening credits, Theodore Gottlieb's name was simply listed as just "Theodore" minus his surname.

This was the second animated adaptation of the Hobbit. The first adaptation was a 12-minute animated short produced by Gene Deitch that got made 11 years prior to this TV movie. The animated short was considerably different from its source material as opposed to the TV movie. The short featured a city called Dale which had an Arken Stone of magic, a princess, and a dragon called Slag (as opposed to Smaug.). None of these elements were featured in Tolkien's book at all and thus this 1966 short became quickly forgotten, although it is still available to watch on various online videos.

For this TV movie, the Elven king Thranduil along with the Wood Elves, were depicted as being squat, ugly, and gray-skinned, a completely different set of features as opposed to the Elves described in Tolkien's works.

The concept of Bilbo not understanding warfare may of been due to the anti-war bias movement at the time this TV movie aired.