I remember the book being pretty funny, but pretty uneven too; it’s hard to sustain something so broad for even that length of pages. I will say it makes the Tom Bombadil sections of LotR much more bearable when you can think back to Tim Benzedrino. “O slender as a speeding freak! Spaced-out groovy tripper! O mush-brained maid whose mind decays with every pill I slip her!”
I have a friend who likes to sign off emails with “Must close, left something on the Bunsen.”
I discovered BotR shortly after discovering LotR, back in junior high (mid 70s). I loved it then, and I love it now. The spouse and I still quote bits of it to each other, just randomly (“Hash! Boo! Valvoline! Clean! Clean! Clean for Gene!”, “Deer Free-Toad…”, and “I am Arrowroot of Arrowshirt…but I have many names” come to mind off the top of my head).
Maybe it was because it was the first parody of that sort that I ever read, but it just struck a chord with me and just stuck in my brain. Fortunately I do have a spouse who likes it as much as I do. 
That said, I haven’t read it in years. And now I’m thinking I should again.
I love the description of Moxie & Pepsi Dingleberry:
“Frito called them to attention, wondering vaguely why Goodgulf had saddled him with two tail-wagging idiots that no one in the town could trust with a burned out match.”
I occasionally refer to any pairing of my kids as “Moxie & Pepsi”, generally after they’ve done something remarkably stupid.
That’s fitting, given that they were sophomores (juniors?) at the time.
When I was a kid, one of my friends was a big fan of it. I have tried reading it on several occasions since then but I haven’t gotten very far because I didn’t find it very funny.
I tried to read it once, and found that it was like reading a novelization of a sub-par Mad Magazine parody. They basically had one joke, which was, “This character’s name sounds kind of like this other word!” and ran it into the ground before the end of the first page.
“Pity I’m out of bullets,” was pretty good, though.
The orcs collapsing in laughter when Arrowroot’s sword fell apart, Frito, Moxie and Pepsi slitting their throats was also cool. 
Strongly disagree – it wasn’t just making fun of the names. BOTR took Tolkien’s assumptions, conventions, and even his language to task.
“The land was rich with many an oast and tilth, not to mention rippling rilns and rolling ferndocks!” is surprisingly close to what Tolkien actually wrote, but hilarious.
“Do not mention that Black Land in this Black Land!” said Goodgulf.
“The enemy has eyes everywhere,” he said, as one great eyeball rolled off a ledge with a heavy squeak.
And I can still recite some of the hack poems by heart, even after all these years.
My favorite was the prediction: “5’ 9” is your height and 180’s your weight/You’ll cash in your chips around page 88." And then have the character later checking the top of the page nervously.
Doug Kenney, who wrote it, was one of the most influential forces in modern comedy, starting in the 70s and beyond. He created the National Lampoon and Animal House and also the 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, one of the best of all time (it’s still breathtakingly funny even today).
BotR is hilarious when you’re 15. Mind you, LotR is brilliant when you’re 15.
And after those parts, they get to the jokes, yes?
I loved both LotR and BotR and happily bought a copy for my best friend. Tote up another one on the register, Jocko. “Ching!”
Shantih Billerica! (for all you New Englanders)
I’m a huge Tolkien fan and I thought BOTR was…okay. Not horrible or insulting, but, as someone said, fittingly, sophomoric.
On the other hand, I’m a huge Dune fan as well, and I love Doon. So HL was pretty hit or miss for me.
Those of y’all who love it…check out National Lampoon (NL, not HL) “This Side of Parodies.” It’s mixed: some are brilliant, and some are a tad dull. But the whole collection is stunning. The spoof of James Joyce and Finnegan’s Wake is amazing: they really did capture his essence. The Mickey Spillane spoof is also biting: it’s sex-swapped, and makes fun of 70’s sexism and feminism. “My Gun is Cute.”
If you like BOTR, TSOP has a damn good chance of pleasing you.
And, yeah, it’s terribly dated. What can I say? The seventies were very good to me!
That book has “Over the River and Through the Woods,” the funniest Hemingway parody I’ve ever read:
Har!
Alas! Alackaday!
Interesting variety of thoughts / positions !
A point to ponder – on reflection: yes, this is one of the ways in which humans are strange. A trait of LOTR is that it’s one of those things which on the whole, people either love or loathe – and many of those who loathe, detest it with the white-hot heat of, etc. …
(A mild example – silenus’s “over-written, boring claptrap” is almost praise, compared to what some of the most vehement haters say about the work.) With utter detestation on the part of so many: I had rather taken it for granted “sight unseen”, that the Lampoon guys were in the “Tolkien should have been strangled at birth” camp, and wrote the parody in that spirit.
On balance, think I’ll continue to refrain from reading BOTR. It occurs in passing: a certain proportion of the jokes would likely be lost on me because I’m not American – would reckon, proprietary brand-names in particular.