I Just Read About That…

[LISTENED TO: September 2017] The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy complete radio series

The history of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is almost as convoluted as the story itself.

Douglas Adams (with help from John Lloyd) wrote the radio story in 1977.  It aired in 1978.  A second season aired in 1980.

Adams wrote the novel based on the radio series in 1979.  And then the second book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in 1980.

Then they made the TV show.

Apparently Adams considered writing a third radio series to be based on Life, the Universe and Everything in 1993, but the project did not begin until after his death in 2001.  The third, fourth and fifth radio series were based on Life, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless which were transmitted in 2004 and 2005.

It’s interesting and a little disconcerting how different the radio play is from the story of the book. There are a lot of similarities of course, but some very large differences.

The first series obviously leaves a lot out from the book, since the book wasn’t written yet.

The Primary Phase opens Arthur Dent is attempting to prevent Mr Prosser from bulldozing his house to make way for a bypass.  You’ve got to have bypasses!

Dent’s friend, Ford Prefect arrives, quite excited about something.  I never knew that his name was an actual make and model of British car until recently.  Ford insists they go to the pub.  They have six pints.  I wonder how cheap pints must have been since Ford gives the man a fiver and the guy is really excited for the tip. Ford explains that he is not from Guildford after all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and that a fleet of Vogon Constructor Ships are about to blow up the Earth.

The character of Lady Cynthia Fitzmelton is unique to the radio series.  She’s pretty unpleasant and bureaucratic.  She’s a nice companion to Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz who says they are to demolish the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

Ford hitches a lift with Arthur onto one of the Vogon ships, just as the Earth is destroyed.  Ford explains that the Dentrassi let them on the Vogon ship since they hate the Vogons.  Dentrassi work on the ship but hate the ship’s owners.   The Vogons hate hitchhikers.

On the Vogon ship, Ford explains that he is a field researcher for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a kind of electronic book (boy did Adams presage that!).  He came for a weekend but was stuck for 15 years.  Arthur copes with all of this reasonably well because the Hitchhiker’s Guide has the words Don’t Panic in large friendly letters on the cover (the most useful thing anyone has said all day).

Vogon Captain Jeltz captures them and tortures them by reading them his poetry.  Arthur tries to say he likes it but Jeltz is not swayed and throws them into space.

They are rescued after 29 seconds, by a the Heart of Gold.  This ship was stolen by Ford’s semi-cousin and President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox. The Heart of Gold works on a basis of infinite improbability, which hurts my head to think about.  It basically means that Adams can allow anything to happen.

Aboard the Heart of Gold is Trillian, whom Arthur met at a party (when she was called Tricia Macmillan) and totally failed to get off with her.  She left that party with Zaphod Beeblebrox.  There’s a wonderful scene where Arthur recognizes Zaphod and Ford can’t believe it (he only had the one head then, but..).  We also meet Marvin, the paranoid android, and Eddie the super happy (and irritating) on-board computer. The ship is heading to Magrathea, a planet that long long ago manufactured custom-designed planets for rich businessmen. Due to its immense success, Magrathea became the richest planet in the galaxy.  This caused the collapse of the galactic economy so Magrathea went into hibernation until people had money again.  Cowards.

Many people believe Magrathea is a myth–it was generations ago that this happened.  But Zaphod thinks he has found it.  As they get close, a recording from the Commercial Council of Magrathea, says that the planet is currently closed for business. A follow-up message thanks them for the unwanted interest in the planet and announces that nuclear missiles will be launched against the ship.  Arthur activates the Infinite Improbability Drive and the missiles are turned into a bowl of petunias (“not again”) and a very surprised-looking sperm whale (whose death is hilarious and very sad).

When they land on the planet, Zaphod, Trillian and Ford (they have no faith in Arthur) explore a tunnel and leave Arthur and Marvin to protect the ship from the vast emptiness.  Then Slartibartfast comes to meet Arthur.

Slartibartfast: You must come with me, you don’t want to be late.
Arthur: Late for what?
Slartibartfast: Well, like, um, what’s your name?
Arthur: Dent. Arthur Dent.
Slartibartfast: Well, late as in the *late* Dentarthurdent. It’s a kind of threat.

Slartibartfast takes him into the interior of the planet where he shows off his planet-building skills.  He won an award for the crinkly bits and fjords of Norway.

Then he introduces Arthur to the mice (who were Trillian’s pets or so she thought) and explains that the mice are really “the protrusions into our dimension of vast hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings.”  The mice commissioned a computer called Deep Thought, to answer the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. After seven and a half million years, the answer was revealed.  And that is where we learn about 42.

The problem now is that they need the question. Deep Thought promises to design a computer that can get the question and names it, disappointingly, “Earth.”

Five minutes before Earth was supposed to give up the answer, the bloody Vogons came along and destroyed it.

The mice believe that as the last surviving humans Arthur and Trillian should be able to find the Question, and offer to make them “extremely rich” if they can.  I actually have a cassette version (which I guess is a later version) of this in which the mice want to extract the answer from Arthur’s brain.

Our heroes flee but the galactic police show up to arrest Zaphod for stealing The Heart of Gold.  There is an explosion.  Arthur, Ford, Trillian and Zaphod wake up and assume they are in the afterlife. But their snooty waiter assures them that they are in Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.  They are in the same Where, just at a very different When. The Restaurant was constructed in the ruins of Magrathea and is located in the far future when the universe ends, which you can watch while you eat. While eating, they get a call from Marvin, who has been on the planet for all of those millennia and has been impatiently waiting for them.

Our heroes steal a totally black, frictionless car.  But they soon find out that it is part of a battle fleet and they have no control over it.  It is a ship controlled by the Haggunenon, a race of nasty shape-shifters.  [In my other version it is controlled by a rock band who is planning to send it remotely into the sun].  The Admiral becomes a “carbon copy” of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.  Arthur and Ford take an escape capsule but Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin are eaten by the beast.

Ford and Arthur are teleported to a ship: Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B.  On board the ship, the crew consists of telephone sanitizers, hairdressers, and advertising account executives.  Why they are in a ship is really hilarious.  As is the fate of the planet that expelled them.  They soon land on a planet and after a year, the middle managers have accomplished nothing except meetings.

Meanwhile Ford and Arthur have encountered cavemen.  Arthur tries to teach a caveman to play Scrabble, but it is no use. The caveman winds up spelling out forty-two. Arthur is convinced that he needs to find the question from this creature, his ancestor.  But Ford is pretty sure it’s not the cavemen that are his ancestors….

The Secondary Phase was broadcast in 1980.  For some reason Trillian is not a part of this series at all.

This episode opens in the Hitchhiker’s offices on Ursa Minor Beta.  The receptionist claims that Zarniwoop, the editor of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, cannot take a call because he is both in his office, and on an intergalactic cruise.  Zaphod, having heard the report of his own death on the radio, is heading to the office.  Zaphod meets Marvin (who is not happy to see him of course) and then with the help of Roosta, they try to talk to Zarniwoop.  But soon the Frog Star Robots attack the offices and take the whole building back to Frogstar “the most totally evil place in the Galaxy”.

On Frogstar, Roosta explains that they are going to feed Zaphod to the “Total Perspective Vortex” which no one has ever survived.  Zaphod comes out and a Frogstar Prisoner Relations Officer teleports in,to taunt him.  Zaphod reports that it showed him that he is a “really great guy.”

Meanwhile, Arthur and Ford are still in Earth’s pre-history.  They notice a spaceship half-appear and decide it must be some kind of time paradox.  Arthur decides to wave his towel at it (what else can they do?).  This is the first time we hear the guide’s description of towels!  The ship notices the towel but lands rather catastrophically, trapping them under a boulder.  The Improbability Drive explains how this is all connected.

We meet Gag Halfrunt. Halfrunt is revealed not only to be Vogon Captain Jeltz’s (and Zaphod’s) psychiatrist.  He also hired Jeltz to destroy the Earth and any survivors.  We also learn that “Share and Enjoy” (and the song) is the motto of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints Division.

The Heart of Gold is under attack from Vogons.  Zaphod tries to escape using the Improbability Drive but can’t because the computers are all being used to calculate why Arthur wants tea. It gets straightened out and they transport to the planet Brontitall, where the Heart of Gold has just arrived.  They are thirteen miles above ground level and Arthur has managed to fall onto a large passing bird.

The bird reveals that the “cave” is actually a mile long marble sculpture of a plastic cup hanging in the sky.  It is part of a larger statue known as “Arthur Dent Throwing the Nutrimatic Cup.”  Arthur takes refuge in a trench with an archaeologist named Lintilla and her clones.  (578,000,000,000 clones in total).  The Lintillas had been looking for: “an entire archaeological layer of compressed shoes.”

Ford and Zaphod have discovered a spaceport with one ship still intact.  A man introduces himself as Zarniwoop, the man Zaphod had been looking for.  Zarniwoop starts by explaining that they had been in an artificially created universe within his office, then explains that he and Zaphod had co-conspired to discover who was really ruling the galaxy, as it was obvious it wasn’t the President.  Turns out to be and old man, so Ford, Zaphod, Arthur and Zarniwoop go to his shack. They question the man about the galaxy, but he gives every question a vague answer.

He does, however, reveal that he may have given his assent to the men who regularly seek his advice, thus giving Jeltz permission, under the pressure of the galaxy’s psychiatrists, to destroy Earth before the Ultimate Question was revealed, thus securing their jobs. Arthur leaves angrily. Zarniwoop attempts further questions, but is eventually brushed off, and it’s discovered that Arthur has made away with the Heart of Gold, with Lintilla and Marvin aboard. This leaves Ford, Zaphod and Zarniwoop stranded on the Old Man planet, and here the episode ends – though open-ended with a spoken possibility of another series.

The Tertiary Phase series came over twenty years later, in 2004.  There were a few changes.  Peter Jones the inimitable voice of The Book died in 2000.  Jones was replaced by his friend William Franklyn.  They cleverly used some excerpts from Jones’ original narration showing the Book’s speech-generation system changing as part of updates to the Guide.  There was also a cameo role by Adams himself (who had died in 2001) as Agrajag, which was edited in from his BBC audiobook recording of the novel.

The opening of the third series starts at the same place and time (prehistoric Earth) as the opening of the second radio series, the entire Secondary Phase was dismissed as one of Zaphod’s “psychotic episodes” (including events that did take place in the books).  And that’s why Trillian is back, too.

Arthur wakes up in a cave on pre-historic Earth four years after he last saw Ford Prefect.  Ford returns with news that he has detected disturbances in the “space-time wash”, and that they might be able to escape. The disturbance turns out to be an old sofa, which materializes in a field. They chase the sofa as it runs off, and then are transported elsewhere.

Zaphod and Trillian are on the Heart of Gold, without Marvin. Zaphod is extremely hung over, and upset that Trillian is dismissing the events of The Secondary Phase as a “psychotic episode.”  Being fed up with Zaphod in general she tells the ship to “transport me the hell out of Zaphod Beeblebrox’s life.”

Arthur and Ford arrive at Lord’s Cricket Ground on the sofa that they had caught in the previous episode. They have arrived in the final Test Match, which was the day before the earth was destroyed. Realizing the planet is about to be demolished again, they look for an escape and discover a spaceship, hidden by the hilarious “Somebody Else’s Problem Field”  But before they can use it, much more happens on Earth.

The cricket match finishes and Slartibartfast arrives because “something terrible is about to happen.”  He walks to the center of the cricket pitch, and asks to be given the Ashes saying that they are “vitally important for the past, present and future safety of the Galaxy”.

Another spaceship arrives and eleven white robots, carrying bats and balls and dressed like cricketers start attacking the spectators and players with grenades until they get the Ashes.  They take off and go to the location of Marvin.

Without question, my favorite audio part of this series is Marvin talking to the mattress, Zem.  There is just something so delightful about Andy Taylor as Zem the Mattress.  The tone, the sounds, everything about it makes me absurdly happy.  But while Marvin is talking to Zem, the cricket robots come out and steal Marvin’s leg.

This leads to a lengthy discussion of the Krikkit Wars and how Earth’s is a “racial memory” of the Wars.  The people who lived on Krikkit were peaceful until a spaceship landed on their planet. The planet had been previously obscured in a dust cloud that left the Krikketmen unaware of the existence of anything else. Once they saw that the rest of the universe existed, they decided to annihilate it.

Arthur materializes in a gloomy room, with signs such as “DO NOT BE ALARMED. BE VERY VERY FRIGHTENED, ARTHUR DENT.”  The episode ends with the new character of Agrajag saying “Bet you weren’t expecting to see me again.”  Agrajag claims to have been the bowl of petunias (but not the sperm whale) in the first series).

Zaphod has discovered Marvin.  Marvin was stolen by the Krikkit robots and was plugged into the Krikkit mainframe.  They used him as its central computer, which wound up depressing the robots, and making them unable to kill Zaphod.

Trillian explains that Krikkit’s history is a sequence of contrived coincidences that was set up in order to provoke a race into wanting to destroy the universe. She points out their ultimate weapon, the supernova bomb, would destroy Krikkit as well.  But they have no intention of listening to her and detonate the bomb anyway.

In the confusion, they run into a man named Prak, who was a witness at a trial where he was administered an overdose of a drug that was designed to make him tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”—a horrifying fate.  He has apparently stopped telling it (“there not nearly as much of it as people imagine”).  He tells them he has the address of God’s Last Message to his Creation.

There’s some amusing cricket jokes ta the end that help to spare the world.

The Quandary Phase shows that Ford’s entry about Earth in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is no longer just “mostly harmless,” but is now Ford’s full original entry.  Arthur sets off to Earth and to his home.  Along the way, he meets Rob McKenna, a man who complains about the rain.  He also meets Russel whose sister, Fenchurch, is asleep in the back seat of the car.  Arthur is smitten with her but Russell says she is crazy, going on an on about hallucinations of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.

Back on the Constructor Fleet, a junior crew member notices that Earth has re-appeared.  Around the same time Ford notices his entry in the Guide updating to his full entry and decides to go to Earth himself.

Meanwhile Arthur is home and notices a strange bowl, bearing the inscription ‘So Long and Thanks for All the Fish’.   He also learns that all of the dolphins have left the earth.  He phones his boss at the BBC to explain that he has been absent due to going mad and would return to work when hedgehogs come out of hibernation (plus a few minutes to have a shave).

Driving, he encounters Fenchurch again, and gives her a lift to the train station, saying that he has something he wants to tell her. At the station pub they attempt to engage in conversation, but are interrupted by someone offering raffle tickets. Fenchurch has to leave to catch her train, and leaves her phone number on a ticket — with which Arthur then wins the raffle.

Arthur finds her and Fenchurch tells him about her revelation at the time of the Vogon fleet’s visit. Arthur notices that her feet do not touch the ground, leading him to suspect that she also can fly.  There is a wonderfully romantic sequence if Arthur and Fenchurch flying–just fall to the ground and miss.

Curious about the dolphins’, Arthur and Fenchurch head to California to visit Wonko the Sane, a scientist considered the foremost expert on the species. Wonko, lives in an inside-out house called “The Outside of the Asylum.” The glass bowl that Arthur received was a gift from the dolphins.  Many people got them.

When Fenchurch and Arthur return to England, they find that a large spaceship has landed in London, Ford Prefect is on that ship.  Fenchurch, Arthur and Ford leave on the ship.  Arthur begins to suspect that this is not the Earth he and Ford knew — there is a “Tricia McMillan” on the news, with an American accent and blonde hair who is otherwise identical to the Trillian that they all knew.

Fenchurch and Arthur go to see God’s Final Message to His Creation, and bump into Marvin, who is also en route to see it–despite thee fact that all of his parts are pretty much dismantled.  Marvin is now 37 times older than the universe itself, and needs assistance to read the message, which turns out to be “WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.”

The Quintessential Phase is sort of based on the book Mostly Harmless, but there are recurring characters in the radio series who are not in the book.

The Vogons had noticed that the Earth re-appeared so they resolved to destroy all versions of it.

The episode opens with a Grebulon spaceship suffering an accident and losing nearly all records of what it is and what it should be doing, along with the crew’s memories of why. Based on what little remains of their orders, they land on the tenth planet from the Sun, and start to ‘monitor’ Earth.

After a year’s travelling Arthur has returned to the co-ordinates ZZ9 plural Z alpha—where he is expecting to find Earth, and hopefully Fenchurch. In its place, he finds a planet called NowWhat.  Despite that, it looks like earth, with all the right continents and everything.  This story is going to confuse things even further by talking about slipping in dimensions.

During a flashback, we see Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox meeting at a party.  But this is a parallel Earth so Tricia is American and blonde.  She is interviewing Gail Andrews, an astrologer, about the effect that the recently discovered planet Persephone (nicknamed Rupert) will have on astrology. The Grebulons, monitoring this, have an idea which involved talking to famous news person Tricia MacMillan.

Back at the Hitchhiker’s building, Ford decides to sneak in (for money of course). He goes in trough the ventilation system, disables a security robot (which he dubs “Colin”) by hard wiring it to be happy all the time.  Ford gets to the editor’s office where he finds that Zarniwoop Vann Harl has been expecting Ford. He wants Ford to be the restaurant critic for the Guide.

They are publishing a new edition of the guide, aimed at families rather than hitchhikers, and they plan to make one and sell it in billions of billions of alternate worlds. Ford steals the Dine-a-Charge and hacks into the accountancy system.  He is set.

Arthur Dent has settled on the planet Lamuella, where he becomes The Sandwich Maker, making sandwiches for the inhabitants of a village from the meat of the Perfectly Normal Beast.

A messenger brings news to the Sandwich Maker that a spaceship has landed on the planet. When Arthur approaches it, he is surprised to see Trillian disembark. Trillian explains that she had a daughter, named Random, using sperm sold by Arthur.  Obviously she is here to drop off their daughter whilst she is off covering a war.  Because of all the time travel, they don;’ know how old Random actually is.

Random takes a package and opens it revealing the Guide Mark II, in the form of a black bird. The Bird explains the nature of probability and that some alternative Earths do exist, and persuades Random to go to one of them. Random challenges the Bird to get her a spaceship and just at that moment, one lands. She leaves Lamuella.  Arthur had been looking for Random saw the spaceship. He runs into th eofrst and stumbles on the pilot the ship, Ford Prefect.

They decide that the Perfectly Normal Beasts are the best way off the planet–infinite improbability of something.

On the alternate Earth, Tricia McMillan has returned from interviewing the Grebulons and is lamenting that none of the footage she has taken is usable. She is told that s spaceship has landed and the young girl on the ship is demanding to see her.

Arthur and Ford arrive at the Domain of the King Bar and Grill, where Ford buys a pink spaceship from the bar singer, Elvis Presley. They to Earth and find that Tricia McMillan has taken Random to a club.  When Arthur and Ford arrive a, and go there themselves. A strange man confronts Arthur, and says “I told you not to come here!” Arthur and Ford find Random, along with Tricia and Trillian learn that the Grebulons are about to destroy the planet, once again.

Arthur explains it is impossible for him to die and hence for the planet to be destroyed, but we know better than that.

So many things account for the end of the series that it’s probably better just to listen to it all.

There’s something wonderfully fun about the radio series that makes it very different from the books.  Not that the books aren’t fun, but the constraints of radio make you have to think extra cleverly.  If you enjoyed the books, even just the first one, definitely check out this radio series.