 | ||
"Frodo Lives!" was a popular counterculture slogan in the 1960s and 1970s, referring to the character Frodo Baggins from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. The term was used frequently in graffiti, buttons, bumper-stickers, T-shirts, and other materials. It was commonly associated with the hippie movement. Other examples of use include a Frodo Lives album released by Smash Records and merchandising items for the New Line Cinema The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The phrase was also displayed during the activation of a computer virus in the early 1990s, in which the text 'Frodo Lives!' was displayed in large letters with a moving border.
The term first became popular because of an increase in the availability and number of readers of the novel (which, up until that point, had been subject to rather mixed reviews) following release of the Ballantine Books paperback edition. While no longer as pervasive as it once was, the term continues to appear regularly in newspaper articles and popular culture related to Tolkien's stories.