According to Lord of the Rings canon, on September 22, a very long time ago, Frodo Baggins was born. It's unlikely anybody had any inkling how important a day that would be, considering what Frodo would eventually do to save middle-earth. But it's certainly a day worth celebrating. The epic importance of Frodo Baggins was probably on the mind of Elijah Wood quite often as he played the role in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, though perhaps not on the first day of filming, when Wood made everybody on set laugh by letting out a hilarious fart.
The first day of filming on The Lord of the Rings did not reflect the epic undertaking that the production of these movies truly was, it was apparently just a bunch of young guys laughing at a fart. Elijah Wood recently appeared on First We Feast, where he ate hot wings, while talking about his career, especially his work on Lord of the Rings. Specifically how on the first day of filming, on the second take of a scene he let out "the fart heard 'round the Shire." Wood explains...
First day of filming. Day 1. So yeah, the scene is we are rolling down the hill after Merry and Pippin run into us running away from Farmer Maggot’s field, having stolen a bunch of vegetables. They bang into us. We roll down the hill. So it’s picking up that moment of falling down the hill and falling on top of each other in a very comedic way. And I think it was like Take 2 I had a -- what is that? -- a concussion fart. A fart that is brought on by pressure. Yeah, I literally fell and [farted while piled with everyone]. Everybody burst out laughing. It was great.
If there was any tension on the set of Lord of the Rings, one assumes it was broken when the guy playing the biggest role in all three films just farted at the end of a scene. At a certain point, even if you're not the sort of person that finds bodily functions all that funny, it's probably hard not to laugh when everybody else starts laughing when a scene ends in a fart.
It was a perhaps inauspicious start to what would become one of the most famous movie productions of all-time. All three Lord of the Rings movies were filmed together in one epic production. When a group is spending so much time together, being able to enjoy each other's company is going to be that much more important, and perhaps Elijah Wood's gas helped unite the on-screen hobbits in a special way.
If nothing else, it makes for a hilarious story to tell while you're eating wings.
