Oh yeah. There was an animated adaption of Lord of the Rings that came out in the 1970's, and they've crammed The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. I kind of prefer the Peter Jackson trilogy, though.

In the early 80s, someone who knew I liked Lord of the Rings recommended I try reading Stephen Donaldson's fantasy series, so I slogged through quite a few chapters of the first one. But I didn't like it. The main character was an anti-hero (which I have never liked in all my years of studying literature), and I never got the impression that he would become a good man. It was a dreary and harsh world, nothing of a God element, and no redemption.
As a fantasy it lacked elements I had loved in Narnia and Middle Earth.

How does Dr. Who compare with other fantasy?  I would say it was surprisingly good.  The BBC saw it as a disposable series in the 1970’s. They didn’t even save all of the old episodes.  But it turned out to be one of the most highly regarded science fiction series of all time. Today it is just as highly regarded as Star Trek or Twilight Zone. There wasn’t much money available to its creators, but they were very resourceful.  It just shows how attitudes towards science fiction can change over time.

@narnian78 I'm quite a fan, in spite of having seen very little of the classic programmes (no TV as a child, watched it a few times when staying at our aunt's, seldom watched after I left home - it was for kids, right?)

One of its strengths is that it's not so much about the adventures in time and space, but more about the people who had these adventures. How did they cope, what did they learn, how did it change them, etc.

Occasionally there's a real shortcut these days  such as when non-tech Clara became brilliant after having her mind uploaded and then released again. A bit of a cheat. 

I don't watch it for the science,  but for the people. And of course it is fantastical.

@coracle 

If only the BBC had loved and valued Dr. Who enough to have saved all of the episodes. It’s amazing that the show lasted so many years and so sad that the early episodes didn’t all survive. I would recommend watching the old classic series to see how the series began— especially the early episodes. I think most of them are available on DVD or streaming. I actually prefer the old fashioned look of the old series and its wonderful stories. It’s like an older type of quaint science fiction and fantasy. My favorite Doctors are Tom Baker, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee. I also love the beginning episodes with William Hartnell, the first Doctor. 🙂

@narnian78  I still love the classic Dr Who series; my favourite Doctor was Peter Davison. I liked the 2005 reboot at first, but as time went on I became increasingly disenchanted with it. That's demonstrated by the fact that I still regularly watch dvd's of the classic series but although I've recorded all the reboot up to the last season of Capaldi, there are few episodes I've actually watched again and none more than twice. 

@narnian78 I have got a dvd copy of An Adventure In Time And Space, in which David Bradley plays William Hartness (and turns up more than once in recent years to stand in for him).

@coracle 

In the audio dramas Peter Purves has played the first Doctor a number of times. His voice is a little different than William Hartnell’s, but he is very convincing. I think William Russell played the first Doctor in the beginning audio adventures.  They have both acted very well in Dr. Who for many years.

My mom loved Dr. Who. So much so that when some of the characters came to a city festival as part of a promo thing for PBS (which broadcast them in America) she posed obligingly with a Cyber-man, tickling him under the chin.

@jasmine_tarkheena 

I remember the cartoon version of The Lord of the Rings.  I think it was made in the 1980’s, a few years after the animated version of The Hobbit.  The movie ended in the middle of The Two Towers, leaving that book about halfway finished.  I think about ten years later there was an animated version of The Return of the King, which continued the story where the previous film had left off.  I actually kind of liked all of the animated films since they focused more on the story than on visual spectacle. However, although Peter Jackson’s movies were very good technically, I liked the Narnia films better for the acting.  There was less visual spectacle because those movies were more simply made. I tend to like movies better which don’t show off the technology.  The audio radio drama of The Lord of the Rings also appeals more to me since it was closer to the original story.

@narnian78 I saw it in 1980 so it was made a year or so before that.
I didn't like it, and was stunned to find that it was only half the story. I don't recall its characters at all, only that they were drawn as awful cartoons and that the whole thing was dominated by confused red and black battle scenes. Ugly, I thought.

If that is what LOTR was really like, it would be beaten hands down by Narnia!

@coracle 

Actually I liked the animated 1977 version of The Hobbit better than the later cartoon of The Lord of the Rings.  But I have known people who have hated most cartoon versions of books.  My mother also didn’t like The Lord of the Rings animated movie when I brought home the VHS tape from the church library.  But the church librarian recommended it. She probably thought it was good for older children, although it did contain a considerable amount of violence.  I guess at that time there weren’t too many options to make a fantasy book into a movie with the limited technology that was available. And some people would dislike a film just because it was a cartoon. They might see it as being too childish. 🙂

I wonder if it makes much difference who does the animation. For example, the 1989 cartoon of The Little Mermaid is actually quite good. In fact it was considered one of the best Disney cartoons of that time. If The Lord of the Rings were made similar to that cartoon people might have liked it better. In the 1980’s CGI animation did not exist so they had to do most things the old fashioned way. A cartoon version was more practical and affordable.

Talking of animation, I know this will probably cause outrage but I preferred the 1979 animated version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the live action Walden version. Yes I know the animation is a bit crude, but it's so much more faithful to the book and Aslan's resurrection scene is just so joyous that I can't help prefer it.

@hermit 

When the BBC Narnia was first broadcast on television I liked it that the series had real actors. I never disliked the 1979 cartoon, but I liked seeing real people performing the characters, and it did not matter much if the special effects were not done with a high budget. The animation in the 1979 cartoon had a similar appeal to old cartoons of the 1960’s, although it may have been a bit plain and looked somewhat non-dimensional.  I have to say that I liked it for nostalgia reasons, but I might prefer the BBC and Walden versions since they had real actors. The BBC and Walden versions looked more like the time setting of the books (the 1940’s) and less like the 1960’s or ‘70’s. I guess they had a more accurate sense of time and the people who made them thought more carefully of the decade of the Second World War.  I thought some of the music might have been a little too modern in the Walden version (e.g., “Wunderkind”), although I liked the soundtrack very much. I think all three of the films were successful in making the story interesting when compared to other fantasy films, but having real people might work better in making the fantasy more believable. 🙂