[alatar]

Thinking about it some more, surely LOTR had to have generated some outrage - maybe we just didn't hear about it or just aren't aware of it. Led Zeppelin, the greatest rock band ever! included Tolkien within their songs, and so there had to have been some benefit from that, meaning that it was either counterculture to do so or the hype of the day (or maybe they just liked LOTR).

Also, back in the day it was Dungeons and Dragons that was going to lead all children to hell, then video games (don't think that Pong was included in this), then those card games - not sure what came next. Paralleling this was the usual suspects - cults, rock and roll, violent cartoons and anything foreign.

It would seem that there is a certain subset of the society (not always the same people) who feel the need to gripe about what the next generation is being exposed to.

And today, we can know about one protester on the other side of the planet, and the nuttier, the better, from the media's POV.