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''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a

comedy science fiction Science fiction comedy (sci-fi comedy) or comic science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that exploits the science-fiction (SF) genre's conventions for comedic effect. Comic science fiction often mocks or satirizes stand ...

franchise created by

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series), BBC radio comedy, ''The H ...

. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

, it was later adapted to other formats, including novels, stage shows, comic books, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 text-based computer game, and 2005 feature film. ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' has become an international multi-media phenomenon; the novels are the most widely distributed, having been translated into more than 30 languages by 2005. The first novel, ''

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it ...

'' (1979), has been ranked fourth on the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

’s

The Big Read The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel of all time. The year-long survey wa ...

poll. The sixth novel, ''

And Another Thing And Another Thing may refer to: * ''And Another Thing...'' (album), a 2000 Graham Gouldman album * ''And Another Thing...'' (novel), a 2009 novel by Eoin Colfer and part six in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' "trilogy" *''And Another Thin ...

'', was written by

Eoin Colfer Eoin Colfer (; born 14 May 1965) is an Irish author of children's books. He worked as a primary school teacher before he became a full-time writer. He is best known for being the author of the Artemis Fowl (series), ''Artemis Fowl'' series. I ...

with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams. In 2017,

announced a 40th-anniversary celebration with

Dirk Maggs David George Dirk Maggs (born St. Helier, Jersey, February 1955) is a British freelance writer and director. During his career as a Senior Producer in BBC Radio he made radio drama adopting a cinematic-sounding approach, combining filmic story c ...

, one of the original producers, in charge. The first of six new episodes was broadcast on 8 March 2018. The broad narrative of ''Hitchhiker'' follows the misadventures of the last surviving man,

Arthur Dent Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character and the hapless protagonist of the comic science fiction series ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams. In the radio, LP and television versions of the story, Arthur is played by ...

, following the demolition of the Earth by a

Vogon The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''—initially a BBC Radio series by Douglas Adams—who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an interga ...

constructor fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Dent is rescued from Earth's destruction by

Ford Prefect The Ford Prefect is a line of British cars which was produced by Ford UK between 1938 and 1961 as an upmarket version of the Ford Popular and Ford Anglia small family cars. It was introduced in October 1938 and remained in production until 19 ...

—a human-like alien writer for the eccentric, electronic

travel guide A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying det ...

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''—by hitchhiking onto a passing Vogon spacecraft. Following his rescue, Dent explores the galaxy with Prefect and encounters Trillian, another human who had been taken from Earth (before its destruction) by the self-centred President of the Galaxy

Zaphod Beeblebrox Zaphod Beeblebrox () is a fictional character in the various versions of the comic science fiction series ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams. He is from a planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and is a "semi-half-cousin" ...

and the depressed

Marvin the Paranoid Android Marvin the Paranoid Android is a fictional character in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship ''Heart of Gold''. Originally built as one of many failed prototypes of Si ...

. Certain narrative details were changed among the various adaptations.

Spelling

The different versions of the series spell the title differently—thus ''Hitch-Hiker's Guide'', ''Hitch Hiker's Guide'' and ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' are used in different editions (UK or US), formats (audio or print) and compilations of the book, with some omitting the apostrophe. Some editions used different spellings on the spine and title page. The

h2g2 The h2g2 website is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project. It describes itself as "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication '' The Hitchhiker's Guide to ...

's ''English Usage in Approved Entries'' claims that ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' is the spelling Adams preferred.Style page at h2g2
with their own justification for using ''Hitchhiker's Guide''. At least two reference works make note of the inconsistency in the titles. Both, however, repeat the statement that Adams decided in 2000 that "everyone should spell it the same way ne word, no hyphenfrom then on."

Synopsis

The various versions follow the same basic plot but they are in many places mutually contradictory, as Adams rewrote the story substantially for each new adaptation. Throughout all versions, the series follows the adventures of

, a hapless Englishman, following the destruction of the Earth by the

s (a race of unpleasant and bureaucratic aliens) to make way for an intergalactic bypass. Dent's adventures intersect with several other characters:

(an

alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...

and researcher for the

eponymous An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

guidebook who rescues Dent from Earth's destruction),

(Ford's eccentric semi-cousin and the Galactic President who has stolen the ''Heart of Gold,'' a spacecraft equipped with Infinite Improbability Drive), the depressed

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...

, and Trillian (formerly known as Tricia McMillan) who is a woman Arthur once met at a party in Islington and who—thanks to Beeblebrox's intervention—is the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction. In their travels, Arthur comes to learn that the Earth was actually a giant supercomputer, created by another supercomputer, Deep Thought. Deep Thought had been built by its creators to give the answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", which, after eons of calculations, was given simply as " 42". Deep Thought was then instructed to design the Earth supercomputer to determine what the Question actually is. The Earth was subsequently destroyed by the Vogons moments before its calculations were completed, and Arthur becomes the target of the descendants of the Deep Thought creators, believing his mind must hold the Question. With his friends' help, Arthur escapes and they decide to have lunch at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, before embarking on further adventures.

Background

The original, first radio series comes from a proposal called "The Ends of the Earth": six self-contained episodes, all ending with Earth being destroyed in a different way. While writing the first episode, Adams realised that he needed someone on the planet who was an alien to provide some context, and that this alien needed a reason to be there. Adams finally settled on making the alien a roving researcher for a "wholly remarkable book" named ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. As the first radio episode's writing progressed, the ''Guide'' became the centre of his story, and he decided to focus the series on it, with the destruction of Earth being the only hold-over. Adams claimed that the title came from a 1971 incident while he was hitchhiking around Europe as a young man with a copy of the ''

Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe The ''Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe'' () was a travel guide, by "Australian expatriate" Ken Welsh and first published in 1971 in the UK by Pan Books. A first American edition was published in 1972 by Stein and Day, New York, NY, USA. The book ...

'' book: while lying drunk in a field near Innsbruck with a copy of the book and looking up at the stars, he thought it would be a good idea for someone to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as well. However, he later claimed that he had forgotten the incident itself, and only knew of it because he'd told the story of it so many times. His friends are quoted as saying that Adams mentioned the idea of "hitch-hiking around the galaxy" to them while on holiday in Greece in 1973. Adams's fictional ''Guide'' is an electronic guidebook to the entire universe, originally published by Megadodo Publications, one of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor Beta. The narrative of the various versions of the story is frequently punctuated with excerpts from the ''Guide''. The voice of the ''Guide'' ( Peter Jones in the first two radio series and TV versions, later

William Franklyn William Leo Franklyn (22 September 1925 – 31 October 2006) was a British actor, perhaps best known for voicing the "Schhh... You Know Who" adverts for Schweppes from 1965 to 1973. He also performed on stage, film, television and radio, t ...

in the third, fourth and fifth radio series, and

Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...

in the movie version), also provides general narration.

Radio

Overview

Original radio series

The first radio series of six episodes (called "Fits" after the names of the sections of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

's nonsense poem "

The Hunting of the Snark ''The Hunting of the Snark'', subtitled ''An Agony in 8 Fits'', is a poem by the English writer Lewis Carroll. It is typically categorised as a nonsense poem. Written between 1874 and 1876, it borrows the setting, some creatures, and eight por ...

") was broadcast in 1978 on

. Despite a low-key launch of the series (the first episode was broadcast at 10:30 pm on Wednesday, 8 March 1978), it received generally good reviews and a tremendous audience reaction for radio. A one-off episode (a "Christmas special") was broadcast later in the year. The BBC had a practice at the time of commissioning "Christmas Special" episodes for popular radio series, and while an early draft of this episode of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' had a Christmas-related plotline, it was decided to be "in slightly poor taste" and the episode as transmitted served as a bridge between the two series. This episode was released as part of the second radio series and, later, '' The Secondary Phase'' on cassettes and CDs. The Primary and Secondary Phases were aired, in a slightly edited version, in the United States on ''

NPR Playhouse ''NPR Playhouse'' was a series of radio dramas from National Public Radio. The series was a successor to the NPR series '' Earplay'' and was discontinued in September 2002. Beginning on March 1, 1981, the ''Playhouse'' production of the first of ...

''. The first series was repeated twice in 1978 alone and many more times in the next few years. This led to an LP re-recording, produced independently of the BBC for sale, and a further adaptation of the series as a book. A second radio series, which consisted of a further five episodes, and bringing the total number of episodes to 12, was broadcast in 1980. The radio series (and the LP and TV versions) were narrated by comedy actor Peter Jones as The Book. Jones was cast after a three-month-long casting search and after at least three actors (including

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin w ...

) turning down the role. The series was also notable for its use of sound, being the first comedy series to be produced in stereo. Adams said that he wanted the programme's production to be comparable to that of a modern rock album. Much of the programme's budget was spent on sound effects, which were largely the work of

Paddy Kingsland Paddy Kingsland (born 30 January 1947) is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggar's Grammar Sch ...

(for the pilot episode and the complete second series) at the

BBC Radiophonic Workshop The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electroni ...

and

Dick Mills Dick Mills (born 1936) is a British sound engineer, specialising in electronic sound effects which he produced at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Mills was one of the original staff at the Radiophonic Workshop, joining in 1958 as a technical as ...

and Harry Parker (for the remaining episodes (2–6) of the first series). The fact that they were at the forefront of modern radio production in 1978 and 1980 was reflected when the three new series of ''Hitchhiker's'' became some of the first radio shows to be mixed into four-channel Dolby Surround. This mix was also featured on DVD releases of the third radio series. The theme tune used for the radio, television, LP, and film versions is "

Journey of the Sorcerer "Journey of the Sorcerer" is an instrumental by the American rock band Eagles. It appeared on their 1975 album ''One of These Nights'' and was later used as the theme tune to the BBC comedy/science fiction franchise ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ...

", an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

piece composed by

Bernie Leadon Bernie Leadon (pronounced ''led-un''; born July 19, 1947) is an American singer, musician, songwriter and founding member of the Eagles, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member ...

and recorded by

the Eagles The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971. With five number-one singles and six number-one albums, six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s ...

on their 1975 album ''

One of These Nights ''One of These Nights'' is the fourth studio album by the Eagles, released in 1975. In July that year, the record became the Eagles' first number one album on ''Billboard''s album chart, yielding three Top 10 singles: " One of These Nights", "Lyi ...

''. Only the transmitted radio series used the original recording; a sound-alike cover by

Tim Souster Tim Souster (29 January 1943 – 1 March 1994) was a British composer and writer on music, best known for his electronic music output. Biography Education Born Timothy Andrew James Souster in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Souster was educated ...

was used for the LP and TV series, another arrangement by

Joby Talbot Joby Talbot (born 25 August 1971) is a British composer. He has written for a wide variety of purposes and an accordingly broad range of styles, including instrumental and vocal concert music, film and television scores, pop arrangements and wor ...

was used for the 2005 film, and still another arrangement, this time by

Philip Pope Philip R. J. Pope is a British composer and actor. He is best known for role as Tony Angelino in Only Fools And Horses. He was educated at Downside School and New College, Oxford. Performer Pope appeared in the Oxford Revue in Edinburgh Festi ...

, was recorded to be released with the CDs of the last three radio series. Apparently, Adams chose this song for its futuristic-sounding nature, but also for the fact that it had a banjo in it, which, as

Geoffrey Perkins Geoffrey Howard Perkins (22 February 1953 – 29 August 2008) was a British comedy producer, writer and performer. Best known as the BBC head of comedy (1995–2001), he produced the first two radio series of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galax ...

recalls, Adams said would give an "on the road, hitch-hiking feel" to it. The twelve episodes were released (in a slightly edited form, removing the Pink Floyd music and two other tunes "hummed" by Marvin when the team land on Magrathea) on CD and

cassette Cassette may refer to: Technology * Cassette tape (or ''musicassette'', ''audio cassette'', ''cassette tape'', or ''tape''), a worldwide standard for analog audio recording and playback ** Cassette single (or "Cassingle"), a music single in th ...

in 1988, becoming the first CD release in the

BBC Radio Collection AudioGO (formerly BBC Audiobooks) was a publisher of audiobooks and a range of spoken word and large-print titles. It was majority owned by AudioGO Ltd, and minority owned by BBC Worldwide. It was formed in 2010, when AudioGO purchased a majori ...

. They were re-released in 1992, and at this time Adams suggested that they could retitle Fits the First to Sixth as "The Primary Phase" and Fits the Seventh to Twelfth as "The Secondary Phase" instead of just "the first series" and "the second series". It was at about this time that a "Tertiary Phase" was first discussed with Dirk Maggs, adapting ''Life, the Universe and Everything'', but this series would not be recorded for another ten years.

Radio series 3–5

On 21 June 2004, the BBC announced in a press release that a new series of ''Hitchhiker's'' based on the third novel would be broadcast as part of its autumn schedule, produced by Above the Title Productions Ltd. The episodes were recorded in late 2003, but actual transmission was delayed while an agreement was reached with

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...

over Internet re-broadcasts, as Disney had begun pre-production on the film. This was followed by news that further series would be produced based on the fourth and fifth novels. The third series was broadcast in September and October 2004. The fourth and fifth were broadcast in May and June 2005, with the fifth series following immediately after the fourth. CD releases accompanied the transmission of the final episode in each series. The adaptation of the third novel followed the book very closely, which caused major structural issues in meshing with the preceding radio series in comparison to the second novel. Because many events from the radio series were omitted from the second novel, and those that did occur happened in a different order, the two series split in completely different directions. The last two adaptations vary somewhat—some events in ''Mostly Harmless'' are now foreshadowed in the adaptation of ''So Long and Thanks For All The Fish'', while both include some additional material that builds on incidents in the third series to tie all five (and their divergent plotlines) together, most especially including the character Zaphod more prominently in the final chapters and addressing his altered reality to include the events of the Secondary Phase. While ''Mostly Harmless'' originally contained a rather bleak ending, Dirk Maggs created a different ending for the transmitted radio version, ending it on a much more upbeat note, reuniting the cast one last time. The core cast for the third to fifth radio series remained the same, except for the replacement of Peter Jones by

as the Book, and Richard Vernon by Richard Griffiths as Slartibartfast, since both had died. (Homage to Jones' iconic portrayal of the Book was paid twice: the gradual shift of voices to a "new" version in episode 13, launching the new productions, and a blend of Jones and Franklyn's voices at the end of the final episode, the first part of Maggs' alternative ending.) Sandra Dickinson, who played Trillian in the TV series, here played Tricia McMillan, an English-born, American-accented alternate-universe version of Trillian, while David Dixon, the television series' Ford Prefect, made a cameo appearance as the "Ecological Man".

Jane Horrocks Barbara Jane Horrocks (born 18 January 1964) is a British actress. She portrayed the roles of Bubble and Katy Grin in the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous''. She was nominated for the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for the title role in th ...

appeared in the new semi-regular role of Fenchurch, Arthur's girlfriend, and Samantha Béart joined in the final series as Arthur and Trillian's daughter, Random Dent. Also reprising their roles from the original radio series were

Jonathan Pryce Sir Jonathan Pryce (born John Price; 1 June 1947) is a Welsh actor who is known for his performances on stage and in film and television. He has received numerous awards, including two Tony Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2021 he was ...

as Zarniwoop (here blended with a character from the final novel to become Zarniwoop Vann Harl),

Rula Lenska Rula Lenska (born Róża Maria Leopoldyna Łubieńska, 30 September 1947) is a British actress. She mainly appears in British stage and television productions and is known in the United States for a series of television advertisements in the 19 ...

as Lintilla and her clones (and also as the Voice of the Bird), and Roy Hudd as Milliways compere Max Quordlepleen, as well as the original radio series' announcer, John Marsh. The series also featured guest appearances by such noted personalities as

Joanna Lumley Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley (born 1 May 1946) is an English actress, presenter, former model, author, television producer, and activist. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (1992 ...

as the Sydney Opera House Woman, Jackie Mason as the East River Creature,

Miriam Margolyes Miriam ( he, מִרְיָם ''Mīryām'', lit. 'Rebellion') is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The ...

as the Smelly Photocopier Woman, BBC Radio cricket legends

Henry Blofeld Henry Calthorpe Blofeld, OBE (born 23 September 1939) nicknamed Blowers by Brian Johnston, is an English retired sports journalist, broadcaster and amateur ornithologist best known as a cricket commentator for ''Test Match Special'' on BBC Ra ...

and

Fred Trueman Frederick Sewards Trueman, (6 February 1931 – 1 July 2006) was an English cricketer who played for Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the England cricket team. He had professional status and later became an author and broadcaster. Acknowled ...

as themselves,

June Whitfield Dame June Rosemary Whitfield (11 November 1925 – 29 December 2018) was an English radio, television, and film actress. Her big break was a lead in the radio comedy '' Take It from Here'', which aired on the BBC Light Programme in 1953. ...

as the Raffle Woman,

Leslie Phillips Leslie Samuel Phillips (20 April 1924 – 7 November 2022) was an English actor, director, producer and author. He achieved prominence in the 1950s, playing smooth, upper-class comic roles utilising his "Ding dong" and "Hello" catchphrases. ...

as Hactar,

Saeed Jaffrey Saeed Jaffrey (8 January 1929 – 15 November 2015) was a British-Indian actor. His career covered film, radio, stage and television roles over six decades and more than 150 British, American, and Indian movies. During the 1980s and 1990s he wa ...

as the Man on the Pole, Sir Patrick Moore as himself, and

Christian Slater Christian Michael Leonard Slater (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut with a leading role in ''The Legend of Billie Jean'' (1985) and gained wider recognition for his breakthrough role as Jason "J.D." D ...

as Wonko the Sane. Finally, Adams himself played the role of Agrajag, a performance adapted from his book-on-tape reading of the third novel, and edited into the series created some time after the author's death.

Radio series 6

The first of six episodes in a sixth series, the ''Hexagonal Phase'', was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 8 March 2018 and featured Professor Stephen Hawking introducing himself as the voice of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Mk II'' by saying: "I have been quite popular in my time. Some even read my books."

Novels

The novels are described as "a trilogy in five parts", having been described as a trilogy on the release of the third book, and then a "trilogy in four parts" on the release of the fourth book. The US edition of the fifth book was originally released with the legend "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy" on the cover. Subsequent re-releases of the other novels bore the legend "The irst, second, third, fourthbook in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy". In addition, the blurb on the fifth book describes it as "the book that gives a whole new meaning to the word 'trilogy. The plots of the television and radio series are more or less the same as that of the first two novels, though some of the events occur in a different order and many of the details are changed. Much of parts five and six of the radio series were written by John Lloyd, but his material did not make it into the other versions of the story and is not included here. Many consider the books' version of events to be definitive because they are the most readily accessible and widely distributed version of the story. However, they are not the final version that Adams produced. Before his death from a heart attack on 11 May 2001, Adams was considering writing a sixth novel in the Hitchhiker's series. He was working on a third

Dirk Gently Dirk Gently (born Svlad Cjelli, also known as Dirk Cjelli) is a fictional character created by English writer Douglas Adams and featured in the books '' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'', ''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' and '' T ...

novel, under the working title ''

The Salmon of Doubt ''The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time'' is a posthumous collection of previously published and unpublished material by Douglas Adams. It consists largely of essays, interviews, and newspaper/magazine columns about technolo ...

'', but felt that the book was not working and abandoned it. In an interview, he said some of the ideas in the book might fit better in the Hitchhiker's series, and suggested he might rework those ideas into a sixth book in that series. He described ''Mostly Harmless'' as "a very bleak book" and said he "would love to finish ''Hitchhiker'' on a slightly more upbeat note". Adams also remarked that if he were to write a sixth instalment, he would at least start with all the characters in the same place. Eoin Colfer, who wrote the sixth book in the Hitchhiker's series in 2008–09, used this latter concept but none of the plot ideas from ''The Salmon of Doubt''.

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''

The first book was adapted from the first four radio episodes (the Primary Phase), with Arthur being rescued from Earth's destruction by Ford, meeting Zaphod and Trillian, coming to the planet of Magrathea and discovering the true purpose of Earth, and ending with the group preparing to go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was first published in 1979, initially in paperback, by

Pan Books Pan Books is a publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. Pan Books began as an independent publisher, est ...

, after

BBC Publishing BBC Books (also formerly known as BBC Publishing) is an imprint majority-owned and managed by Penguin Random House through its Ebury Publishing division. The minority shareholder is BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC, British Broad ...

had turned down the offer of publishing a novelisation, an action they would later regret. The book reached number one on the book charts in only its second week, and sold over 250,000 copies within three months of its release. A hardback edition was published by Harmony Books, a division of

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

in the United States in October 1980, and the 1981 US paperback edition was promoted by the give-away of 3,000 free copies in the magazine ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' to build word of mouth. In 2005, Del Rey Books re-released the Hitchhiker series with new covers for the release of the 2005 movie. To date, it has sold over 14 million copies. A photo-illustrated edition of the first novel appeared in 1994.

''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe''

In ''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' (published in 1980), Zaphod is separated from the others and finds he is part of a

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...

to uncover who really runs the Universe. Zaphod meets

Zarniwoop This page is a list of characters in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', by Douglas Adams. The descriptions of the characters are accompanied by information on details about appearances and references to the characters. Main characters ...

, a conspirator and editor for ''The Guide'', who knows where to find the secret ruler. Zaphod becomes briefly reunited with the others for a trip to Milliways, the restaurant of the title. Zaphod and Ford decide to steal a ship from there, which turns out to be a stunt ship pre-programmed to plunge into a star as a special effect in a stage show. Unable to change course, the main characters get Marvin to run the teleporter they find in the ship, which is working other than having no automatic control (someone must remain behind to operate it), and Marvin seemingly sacrifices himself. Zaphod and Trillian discover that the Universe is in the safe hands of a simple man living on a remote planet in a wooden shack with his cat. Ford and Arthur, meanwhile, end up on a spacecraft full of the outcasts of the Golgafrinchan civilisation. The ship crashes on prehistoric Earth; Ford and Arthur are stranded, and it becomes clear that the inept Golgafrinchans are the ancestors of modern humans, having displaced the Earth's indigenous hominids. This has disrupted the Earth's programming so that when Ford and Arthur manage to extract the final readout from Arthur's subconscious mind by pulling lettered tiles from a

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...

set, it is "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" Arthur then comments, "I've always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe." The book was adapted from the remaining material in the radio series—covering from the fifth episode to the twelfth episode, although the ordering was greatly changed (in particular, the events of Fit the Sixth, with Ford and Arthur being stranded on pre-historic Earth, end the book, and their rescue in Fit the Seventh is deleted), and most of the Brontitall incident was omitted, instead of the Haggunenon sequence, co-written by John Loyd, the

Disaster Area A disaster area is a region or a locale that has been heavily damaged by either natural, technological or social hazards. Disaster areas affect the population living in the community by dramatic increase in expense, loss of energy, food and serv ...

stunt ship was substituted—this having first been introduced in the LP version. Adams himself considered ''Restaurant'' to be his best novel of the five.

''Life, the Universe and Everything''

In ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' (published in 1982), Ford and Arthur travel through the space-time continuum from prehistoric Earth to Lord's Cricket Ground. There they run into Slartibartfast, who enlists their aid in preventing galactic war. Long ago, the people of Krikkit attempted to wipe out all life in the Universe, but they were stopped and imprisoned on their home planet; now they are poised to escape. With the help of Marvin, Zaphod, and Trillian, our heroes prevent the destruction of life in the Universe and go their separate ways. This was the first Hitchhiker's book originally written as a book and not adapted from radio. Its story was based on a treatment Adams had written for a ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' theatrical release, with the Doctor role being split between Slartibartfast (to begin with), and later Trillian and Arthur. In 2004, it was adapted for radio as the

Tertiary Phase The Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase, Quintessential Phase and Hexagonal Phase are respectively the third, fourth, fifth and sixth series of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' radio series. Produced in 2003, 2004 and 2018 by Above the Title P ...

of the radio series.

''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish''

In ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish'' (published in 1984), Arthur returns home to Earth, rather surprisingly since it was destroyed when he left. He meets and falls in love with a girl named Fenchurch, and discovers this Earth is a replacement provided by the dolphins in their Save the Humans campaign. Eventually, he rejoins Ford, who claims to have saved the Universe in the meantime, to hitch-hike one last time and see God's Final Message to His Creation. Along the way, they are joined by Marvin, the Paranoid Android, who, although 37 times older than the universe itself (what with time travel and all), has just enough power left in his failing body to read the message and feel better about it all before expiring. This was the first ''Hitchhiker's'' novel which was not an adaptation of any previously written story or script. In 2005 it was adapted for radio as the Quandary Phase of the radio series.

''Mostly Harmless''

Finally, in ''Mostly Harmless'' (published in 1992), Vogons take over ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' (under the name of InfiniDim Enterprises), to finish, once and for all, the task of obliterating the Earth. After abruptly losing Fenchurch and travelling around the galaxy despondently, Arthur's spaceship crashes on the planet Lamuella, where he settles in happily as the official sandwich-maker for a small village of simple, peaceful people. Meanwhile, Ford Prefect breaks into ''The Guide's'' offices, gets himself an infinite expense account from the computer system, and then meets ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mark II'', an artificially intelligent, multi-dimensional guide with vast power and a hidden purpose. After he declines this dangerously powerful machine's aid (which he receives anyway), he sends it to Arthur Dent for safety ("Oh yes, whose?"—Arthur). Trillian uses DNA that Arthur donated for travelling money to have a daughter, and when she goes to cover a war, she leaves her daughter Random Frequent Flyer Dent with Arthur. Random, a more than typically troubled teenager, steals ''The Guide Mark II'' and uses it to get to Earth. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Tricia McMillan (Trillian in this alternate universe) follow her to a crowded club, where an anguished Random becomes startled by a noise and inadvertently fires her gun at Arthur. The shot misses Arthur and kills a man (the ever-unfortunate

Agrajag This page is a list of characters in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', by Douglas Adams. The descriptions of the characters are accompanied by information on details about appearances and references to the characters. Main characters ...

). Immediately afterwards, ''The Guide Mark II'' causes the removal of all possible Earths from probability. All of the main characters, save Zaphod, were on Earth at the time and are apparently killed, bringing a good deal of satisfaction to the Vogons. In 2005 it was adapted for radio as the

Quintessential Phase The Tertiary Phase, Quandary Phase, Quintessential Phase and Hexagonal Phase are respectively the third, fourth, fifth and sixth series of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' radio series. Produced in 2003, 2004 and 2018 by Above the Title P ...

of the radio series, with the final episode first transmitted on 21 June 2005.

''And Another Thing...''

It was announced in September 2008 that

, author of ''

Artemis Fowl ''The Fowl Adventures'' is a series of eleven fantasy novels written by Irish author Eoin Colfer revolving around various members of the Fowl family. The first cycle, ''Artemis Fowl'', follows elf LEP recon officer Holly Short as she faces t ...

,'' had been commissioned to write the sixth instalment entitled ''And Another Thing...'' with the support of Jane Belson, Adams's widow. The book was published by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Hyperion in the US in October 2009. The story begins as death rays bear down on Earth, and the characters awaken from a virtual reality. Zaphod picks them up shortly before they are killed, but completely fails to escape the death beams. They are then saved by Bowerick Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged, whom they agree to help kill. Zaphod travels to Asgard to get

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, an ...

's help. In the meantime, the Vogons are heading to destroy a colony of people who also escaped Earth's destruction, on the planet Nano. Arthur, Wowbagger, Trillian and Random head to Nano to try to stop the Vogons, and on the journey, Wowbagger and Trillian fall in love, making Wowbagger question whether or not he wants to be killed. Zaphod arrives with Thor, who then signs up to be the planet's God. With Random's help, Thor almost kills Wowbagger. Wowbagger, who merely loses his immortality, then marries Trillian. Thor then stops the first Vogon attack and apparently dies. Meanwhile, Constant Mown, son of Prostetnic Jeltz, convinces his father that the people on the planet are not citizens of Earth, but are, in fact, citizens of Nano, which means that it would be illegal to kill them. As the book draws to a close, Arthur is on his way to check out a possible university for Random, when, during a hyperspace jump, he is flung across alternate universes, has a brief encounter with Fenchurch, and ends up exactly where he would want to be. And then the Vogons turn up again. In 2017 it was adapted for radio as the ''

Hexagonal Phase A hexagonal phase of lyotropic liquid crystal is formed by some amphiphilic molecules when they are mixed with water or another polar solvent. In this phase, the amphiphile molecules are aggregated into cylindrical structures of indefinite lengt ...

'' of the radio series, with its premiere episode first transmitted on 8 March 2018 (exactly forty years, to the day, from the first episode of the first series, the Primary Phase).

Omnibus editions

Two omnibus editions were created by Douglas Adams to combine the Hitchhiker series novels and to "set the record straight"."Introduction: A Guide to the Guide - Some unhelpful remarks from the author" by Adams p.vi-xi in the omnibus edition "The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide" The stories came in so many different formats that Adams stated that every time he told it he would contradict himself. Therefore, he stated in the introduction of ''The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide'' that "anything I put down wrong here is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong for good." The two omnibus editions were ''The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide, Complete and Unabridged'' (published in 1987) and ''The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, Complete and Unabridged'' (published in 1997).

''The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide''

Published in 1987, this 624-page leatherbound omnibus edition contains "wrong for good" versions of the four ''Hitchhiker'' series novels at the time, and also includes one short story: * ''

'' * ''

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe ''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' is the second book in the ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' comedy science fiction "trilogy" by Douglas Adams, and is a sequel. It was originally published by Pan Books as a paperback in 1980. ...

'' * ''

Life, the Universe and Everything ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' (1982, ) is the third book in the six-volume ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' science fiction "trilogy of five books" by British writer Douglas Adams. The title refers to the Answer to Life, the Univ ...

'' * ''

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish'' is the fourth book of the '' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' "trilogy of six books" written by Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just befo ...

'' * " Young Zaphod Plays it Safe"

''The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide''

Published in 1997, this 832-page leatherbound final omnibus edition contains five ''Hitchhiker'' series novels and one short story: * ''

'' * ''

Mostly Harmless ''Mostly Harmless'' is a 1992 novel by Douglas Adams and the fifth book in the ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' series. It is described on the cover of the first edition as "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers ...

'' * " Young Zaphod Plays it Safe" Also appearing in ''The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide'', at the end of Adams's introduction, is a list of instructions on "How to Leave the Planet", providing a humorous explanation of how one might replicate Arthur and Ford's feat at the beginning of ''Hitchhiker's''.

Television series

1981 series

The popularity of the radio series gave rise to a six-episode television series, directed and produced by Alan J. W. Bell, which first aired on BBC 2 in January and February 1981. It employed many of the actors from the radio series and was based mainly on the radio versions of Fits the First to Sixth. A second series was at one point planned, with a storyline, according to Alan Bell and Mark Wing-Davey that would have come from Adams's abandoned ''Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen'' project (instead of simply making a TV version of the second radio series). However, Adams got into disputes with the BBC (accounts differ: problems with budget, scripts, and having Alan Bell involved are all offered as causes), and the second series was never made. Elements of ''Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen'' were instead used in the third novel, ''Life, the Universe and Everything''. The main cast was the same as the original radio series, except for

David Dixon David Dixon (born 28 October 1947) is an English actor and screenwriter. He was born at the Nightingale Maternity Home in Derby, near his father's shop in London Road, and brought up there before the family moved to Normanton in 1959. Dixon's ...

as Ford Prefect instead of McGivern, and

Sandra Dickinson Sandra Dickinson (née Searles) is an American-British actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She has often played characters who fell into the trope of a dumb blonde with a high-pitched voice. Early life D ...

as Trillian instead of Sheridan.

Planned television series

A new television series for Hulu was announced in July 2019.

Carlton Cuse Arthur Carlton Cuse (born March 22, 1959) is a screenwriter, showrunner, producer, and director, best known for the American television series ''Lost'', for which he made the ''Time'' list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. ...

was named as the showrunner alongside

Jason Fuchs Jason Isaac Fuchs (born March 5, 1986) is an American actor and screenwriter, best known for writing '' Ice Age: Continental Drift'' (2012), '' Pan'' (2015) and ''Wonder Woman'' (2017). He is also known for his role as Lawrence Grey on the Fox ...

, who will also be writing for the show. The show will be produced by

ABC Signature ABC Signature is an American television production studio that is a subsidiary of Disney Television Studios, a division of Walt Disney Television, which is part of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Company. T ...

and Genre Arts. The series was set to premiere in 2021. Production was slated to begin in the summer of 2020 and air on

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

in international markets. The series has reportedly been renewed for a second season. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, production on the series has most likely been delayed. However, a production outlet claimed that the series began production in May 2021.

Other television appearances

Segments of several of the books were adapted as part of the

...

's ''

'' survey and programme, broadcast in late 2003. The film, directed by Deep Sehgal, starred

Sanjeev Bhaskar Sanjeev Bhaskar (born 31 October 1963) is a British actor, comedian and television presenter. He is best known for his work in the BBC Two sketch comedy series '' Goodness Gracious Me'' and as the star of the sitcom ''The Kumars at No. 42''. H ...

as Arthur Dent, alongside Spencer Brown as Ford Prefect,

Nigel Planer Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953) is a British actor, comedian, musician, novelist and playwright. He played Neil in the BBC comedy '' The Young Ones'' and Ralph Filthy in ''Filthy Rich & Catflap''. He has appeared in many West End mu ...

as the voice of Marvin, Stephen Hawking as the voice of Deep Thought, Patrick Moore as the voice of the Guide,

Roger Lloyd-Pack Roger Anthony Lloyd-Pack (8 February 1944 – 16 January 2014) was an English actor. He is best known for playing Trigger in ''Only Fools and Horses'' from 1981 to 2003, and Owen Newitt in '' The Vicar of Dibley'' from 1994 to 2007. He later st ...

as Slartibartfast, and

Adam Buxton Adam Offord Buxton (born 7 June 1969) is an English actor, comedian, podcaster and writer. With the filmmaker Joe Cornish, he is part of the comedy duo Adam and Joe. They presented the Channel 4 television series '' The Adam and Joe Show'' (19 ...

and

Joe Cornish Joseph Murray Cornish (born 20 December 1968) is an English comedian and filmmaker. With his long-time comedy partner, Adam Buxton, he forms the comedy duo Adam and Joe. In 2011, Cornish released his directorial debut ''Attack the Block''. He ...

as Loonquawl and Phouchg.

Film

After several years of setbacks and renewed efforts to start production and a quarter of a century after the first book was published, the big-screen adaptation of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' was finally shot. Pre-production began in 2003, filming began on 19 April 2004 and post-production began in early September 2004. Adams died during the film's production but had still helped with early screenplays and concepts introduced with the film. After a London premiere on 20 April 2005, it was released on 28 April in the UK and Australia and on 29 April in the United States and Canada. The movie stars

Martin Freeman Martin John Christopher Freeman (born 8 September 1971) is an English actor. Among other accolades, he has won an Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Freeman's most not ...

as Arthur,

Mos Def Yasiin Bey (; born Dante Terrell Smith, December 11, 1973), previously and more commonly known by his stage name Mos Def (), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and actor. His hip hop career began in 1994, alongside his siblings in the s ...

as Ford,

Sam Rockwell Sam Rockwell (born November 5, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for appearing in independent films and also as a character actor portraying a wide variety of roles both comedic and dramatic in films such as '' Lawn Dogs'' (19 ...

as President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox and

Zooey Deschanel Zooey Claire Deschanel (; born January 17, 1980) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She made her film debut in '' Mumford'' (1999) and had a supporting role in Cameron Crowe's film '' Almost Famous'' (2000). Deschanel is known for h ...

as Trillian, with

Alan Rickman Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (21 February 1946 – 14 January 2016) was an English actor and director. Known for his deep, languid voice, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespe ...

providing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android (and

Warwick Davis Warwick Ashley Davis (born 3 February 1970) is an English actor. He played the title character in ''Willow'' (1988) and the ''Leprechaun'' film series (1993–2003), several characters in the ''Star Wars'' film series (1983–2019), most nota ...

acting in Marvin's costume), and Stephen Fry as the voice of the Guide/Narrator. The plot of the film adaptation of ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' differs widely from that of the radio show, book and television series. The romantic triangle between Arthur, Zaphod, and Trillian is more prominent in the film; and visits to Vogsphere, the homeworld of the Vogons (which, in the books, was already abandoned), and Viltvodle VI are inserted. The film covers roughly events in the first four radio episodes, and ends with the characters en route to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, leaving the opportunity for a sequel open. A unique appearance is made by the Point-of-View Gun, a device specifically created by Adams himself for the movie. Commercially the film was a modest success, taking $21 million in its opening weekend in the United States, and nearly £3.3 million in its opening weekend in the United Kingdom. The film was released on DVD (Region 2, PAL) in the UK on 5 September 2005. Both a standard double-disc edition and a UK-exclusive numbered limited edition "Giftpack" were released on this date. The "Giftpack" edition includes a copy of the novel with a "movie tie-in" cover, and collectible prints from the film, packaged in a replica of the film's version of the ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' prop. A single-disc widescreen or full-screen edition (Region 1, NTSC) were made available in the United States and Canada on 13 September 2005. Single-disc releases in the

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

format and UMD format for the PlayStation Portable were also released on the respective dates in these three countries.

Stage shows

There have been multiple professional and amateur stage adaptations of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Three early professional productions were staged in 1979 and 1980. The first of these was performed at the

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...

in London, between 1 and 19 May 1979, starring

Chris Langham Christopher Langham (born 14 April 1949) is an English writer, actor, and comedian. He is known for playing the cabinet minister Hugh Abbot in the BBC sitcom '' The Thick of It'', and as presenter Roy Mallard in '' People Like Us'', first on B ...

as Arthur Dent (Langham later returned to ''Hitchhiker's'' as

Prak This page is a list of characters in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', by Douglas Adams. The descriptions of the characters are accompanied by information on details about appearances and references to the characters. Main characters ...

in the final episode of 2004's Tertiary Phase) and Richard Hope as Ford Prefect. This show was adapted from the first series' scripts and was directed by

Ken Campbell Kenneth Victor Campbell (10 December 1941 – 31 August 2008) was an English actor, writer and director known for his work in experimental theatre. He has been called "a one-man dynamo of British theatre". Campbell achieved notoriety in the 1 ...

, who went on to perform a character in the final episode of the second radio series. The show ran 90 minutes, but had an audience limited to eighty people per night. Actors performed on a variety of ledges and platforms, and the audience was pushed around in a hovercar, 1/2000th of an inch above the floor. This was the first time that Zaphod was represented by having two actors in one large costume. The narration of "The Book" was split between two usherettes, an adaptation that has appeared in no other version of ''H2G2''. One of these usherettes,

Cindy Oswin Cindy may refer to: People *Cindy (given name), a list of people named Cindy, Cindi, Cyndi or Cyndy *Tugiyati Cindy (born 1985), Indonesian footballer Music * ''Cindy'' (musical), an off-Broadway production in 1964 and 1965 * "Cindy" (folk song ...

, went on to voice Trillian for the LP adaptation. The second stage show was performed throughout Wales between 15 January and 23 February 1980. This was a production of

Theatr Clwyd Theatr Clwyd () is a regional arts centre and producing theatre from Mold, Flintshire, in North East Wales. It opened as Theatr Clwyd in 1976, but was known between 1998 and 2015 as Clwyd Theatr Cymru, before reverting to its original name. His ...

, and was directed by Jonathan Petherbridge. The company performed adaptations of complete radio episodes, at times doing two episodes in a night, and at other times doing all six episodes of the first series in single three-hour sessions. This adaptation was performed again at the Oxford Playhouse in December 1981, the Bristol Hippodrome, Plymouth's Theatre Royal in May–June 1982, the Belgrade Theatre,

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

, in July 1983 and La Boite in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

, November 1983. The third and least successful stage show was held at the Rainbow Theatre in London, in July 1980. This was the second production directed by Ken Campbell. The Rainbow Theatre had been adapted for stagings of rock operas in the 1970s, and both reference books mentioned in footnotes indicate that this, coupled with incidental music throughout the performance, caused some reviewers to label it as a "musical". This was the first adaptation for which Adams wrote the "Dish of the Day" sequence. The production ran for over three hours, and was widely panned for this, as well as for the music, laser effects, and the acting. Despite attempts to shorten the script, and make other changes, it closed three or four weeks early (accounts differ), and lost a lot of money. Despite the bad reviews, there were at least two stand-out performances: Michael Cule and

David Learner David Francis Somerville Learner (born 23 August 1955 in Hammersmith, London) is a British actor who is best known for playing Marvin the Paranoid Android in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' and Pickle in the CITV adventure game show ' ...

both went on from this production to appearances in the TV adaptation. In December 2011 a new stage production was announced to begin touring in June 2012. This included members of the original radio and TV casts such as Simon Jones, Geoff McGivern, Susan Sheridan,

Mark Wing-Davey Mark Wing-Davey (born 30 November 1948) is a British actor and director. He portrayed Zaphod Beeblebrox in the radio and television versions of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Early life and career The son of actor and actress Pete ...

and Stephen Moore with VIP guests playing the role of the Book. It was produced in the form of a radio show which could be downloaded when the tour was completed. This production was based on the first four Fits in the first act, with the second act covering material from the rest of the series. The show also featured a band, who performed the songs " Share and Enjoy", the Krikkit song "Under the Ink Black Sky", Marvin's song "How I Hate The Night", and " Marvin", which was a minor hit in 1981. The production featured a series of "VIP guests" as the voice of The Book including Billy Boyd, Phill Jupitus, Rory McGrath,

Roger McGough Roger Joseph McGough (; born 9 November 1937) is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme '' Poetry Please'', as well as performing his own poetry. McGough was one ...

, Jon Culshaw,

Christopher Timothy Christopher is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or '' Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Christ" or "Anointed", and φέρει� ...

Andrew Sachs Andreas Siegfried Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016), known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor and writer. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Sp ...

John Challis John Spurley Challis (16 August 1942 – 19 September 2021) was an English actor. He had an extensive theatre and television career but is best known for portraying Terrance Aubrey "Boycie" Boyce in the long-running BBC Television sitcom ''Only ...

Hugh Dennis Peter Hugh Dennis (born 13 February 1962) is an English comedian, presenter, actor, writer, impressionist and voice-over artist who has appeared in the comedy double act Punt and Dennis with partner Steve Punt. He played Dr Piers Crispin in the ...

, John Lloyd,

Terry Jones Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh comedian, director, historian, actor, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy team. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and ...

and Neil Gaiman. The tour started on 8 June 2012 at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow and continued through the summer until 21 July when the final performance was at Playhouse Theatre, Edinburgh. The production started touring again in September 2013, but the remaining dates of the tour were cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

Other adaptations

Vinyl LPs

The first four radio episodes were adapted for a double LP, also entitled ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (appended with "Part One" for the subsequent Canadian release), first by mail-order only, and later into stores. The double LP and its sequel were originally released by Original Records in the United Kingdom in 1979 and 1980, with the catalogue numbers ORA042 and ORA054 respectively. They were first released by

Hannibal Records Hannibal Records was a British record label and one of the first to work with the World music genre. Hannibal was started by Joe Boyd in 1980. Boyd had produced records by artists such as Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band and Fairport ...

in 1982 (as HNBL 2301 and HNBL 1307, respectively) in the United States and Canada, and later re-released in a slightly abridged edition by Simon & Schuster's Audioworks in the mid-1980s. Both were produced by Geoffrey Perkins and featured cover artwork by

Hipgnosis Hipgnosis were an English art design group based in London, that specialised in creating album cover artwork for rock musicians and bands. Their commissions included work for Pink Floyd, T. Rex, the Pretty Things, Black Sabbath, UFO, 10c ...

. The script in the first double LP very closely follows the first four radio episodes, although further cuts had to be made for reasons of timing. Despite this, other lines of dialogue that were indicated as having been cut when the original scripts from the radio series were eventually published can be heard in the LP version. The Simon & Schuster cassettes omit the Veet Voojagig narration, the cheerleader's speech as Deep Thought concludes its seven-and-one-half-million-year programme, and a few other lines from both sides of the second LP of the set. Most of the original cast returned, except for Susan Sheridan, who was recording a voice for the character of

Princess Eilonwy Princess Eilonwy ( ) is a fictional character in Lloyd Alexander's '' The Chronicles of Prydain''. She appears in four of the five novels in the series, as well as Disney's 1985 animated film adaptation '' The Black Cauldron''. Eilonwy is a memb ...

in '' The Black Cauldron'' for

Walt Disney Pictures Walt Disney Pictures is an American film production company and subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. The studio is the flagship producer of live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Studios unit ...

. Cindy Oswin voiced Trillian on all three LPs in her place. Other casting changes in the first double LP included Stephen Moore taking on the additional role of the barman, and

Valentine Dyall Valentine Dyall (7 May 1908 – 24 June 1985) was an English character actor. He worked regularly as a voice actor, and was known for many years as "The Man in Black", the narrator of the BBC Radio horror series '' Appointment with Fear'' ...

as the voice of Deep Thought. Adams's voice can be heard making the public address announcements on Magrathea. Because of copyright issues, the music used during the first radio series was either replaced, or in the case of the title it was re-recorded in a new arrangement. Composer Tim Souster did both duties (with Paddy Kingsland contributing music as well), and Souster's version of the theme was the version also used for the eventual television series. The sequel LP was released, singly, as ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Part Two: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' in the UK, and simply as ''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' in the USA. The script here mostly follows Fit the Fifth and Fit the Sixth, but includes a song by the backup band in the restaurant ("Reg Nullify and his Cataclysmic Combo"), and changes the Haggunenon sequence to "Disaster Area". As the result of a misunderstanding, the second record was released before being cut down in a final edit that Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins had both intended to make. Perkins has said, " is far too long on each side. It's just a rough cut. ..I felt it was flabby, and I wanted to speed it up." The Simon & Schuster Audioworks re-release of this LP was also abridged slightly from its original release. The scene with Ford Prefect and Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard is omitted. Sales for the first double-LP release were primarily through mail order. Total sales reached over 60,000 units, with half of those being mail order, and the other half through retail outlets. This is in spite of the facts that Original Records' warehouse ordered and stocked more copies than they were actually selling for quite some time, and that Paul Neil Milne Johnstone complained about his name and then-current address being included in the recording. This was corrected for a later pressing of the double-LP by "cut

ing Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...

up that part of the master tape and reassembl ngit in the wrong order". The second LP release ("Part Two") also only sold a total of 60,000 units in the UK. The distribution deals for the United States and Canada with Hannibal Records and Simon and Schuster were later negotiated by Douglas Adams and his agent,

Ed Victor Edward "Ed" Victor (9 September 1939 – 7 June 2017) was an American literary agent, based, for most of his career, in London, England. Biography Victor was born on 9 September 1939, in Bronx, New York City. The son of Russian-Jewish immigran ...

, after gaining full rights to the recordings from Original Records, which went bankrupt. All five phases were released on LP in 2018 by Demon Records, and for its 42nd anniversary, the original ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' and ''Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' were combined into a three-record set that was released in August 2020 for

Record Store Day Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...

, also by Demon Records. It is available in three versions: Translucent Vogon Green, Translucent Magrathean Blue and Translucent Pan-Galactic Purple.

Audiobooks

There have been three audiobook recordings of the novel. The first was an abridged edition (), recorded in the mid-1980s for the

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

label Music For Pleasure by Stephen Moore, best known for playing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the radio series and in the TV series. In 1990, Adams himself recorded an unabridged edition for Dove Audiobooks (), later re-released by New Millennium Audio () in the United States and available from BBC Audiobooks in the United Kingdom. Also by arrangement with Dove, ISIS Publishing Ltd produced a numbered exclusive edition signed by Douglas Adams () in 1994. To tie-in with the 2005 film, actor Stephen Fry, the film's voice of the Guide, recorded a second abridged edition (). In addition, unabridged versions of books 2-5 of the series were recorded by Martin Freeman for Random House Audio. Freeman plays Arthur in the 2005 film adaptation. Audiobooks 2-5 follow in order and include: ''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' (); ''Life, the Universe, and Everything'' (); ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish'' (); and ''Mostly Harmless'' ().

Video games

Sometime between 1982 and 1984 (accounts differ), the British company

Supersoft Supersoft was a software and computer game developer and publisher founded in England in 1978. It was founded by Peter Calver and Pearl Wellard to develop and publish software primarily for the Commodore PET. History The earliest Supersoft catalo ...

published a text-based

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

based on the book, which was released in versions for the

Commodore PET The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, ...

and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

. One account states that there was a dispute as to whether valid permission for publication had been granted, and following legal action the game was withdrawn and all remaining copies were destroyed. Another account states that the programmer, Bob Chappell, rewrote the game to remove all ''Hitchhiker's'' references, and republished it as "Cosmic Capers". Officially, the TV series was followed in 1984 by a best-selling " interactive fiction", or text-based adventure game, distributed by

Infocom Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerstone''. ...

. It was designed by Adams and Infocom regular Steve Meretzky and was one of Infocom's most successful games. As with many Infocom games, the box contained a number of "

feelies Infocom was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone''. Infocom was founded on ...

" including a "Don't panic" badge, some "pocket fluff", a pair of peril-sensitive sunglasses (made of cardboard), an order for the destruction of the Earth, a small, clear plastic bag containing "a microscopic battle fleet" and an order for the destruction of Arthur Dent's house (signed by Adams and Meretzky). In September 2004, it was revived by the BBC on the ''Hitchhiker's'' section of the Radio 4 website for the initial broadcast of the Tertiary Phase, and is still available to play online. This new version uses an original Infocom datafile with a custom-written interpreter, by Sean Sollé, and Flash programming by Shimon Young, both of whom used to work at

The Digital Village The h2g2 website is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project. It describes itself as "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to t ...

(TDV). The new version includes illustrations by Rod Lord, who was head of Pearce Animation Studios in 1980, which produced the guide graphics for the TV series. On 2 March 2005 it won the Interactive BAFTA in the "best online entertainment" category. A sequel to the original Infocom game was never made. An all-new, fully graphical game was designed and developed by a joint venture between The Digital Village and PAN Interactive (no connection to Pan Books / Pan MacMillan). This new game was planned and developed between 1998 and 2002, but like the sequel to the Infocom game, it also never materialised. In April 2005,

Starwave Starwave was a Seattle, Washington-based software and website company, founded in 1993 by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and led by CEO Mike Slade. The company produced original CD-ROM titles, including ''Muppets Inside'', and titles for ...

Mobile released two mobile games to accompany the release of the film adaptation. The first, developed by Atatio, was called ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Vogon Planet Destructor''. It was a typical top-down shooter and except for the title had little to do with the actual story. The second game, developed by TKO Software, was a graphical adventure game named ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Adventure Game''. Despite its name, the newly designed puzzles by TKO Software's Ireland studio were different from the Infocom ones, and the game followed the movie's script closely and included the new characters and places. The ''Adventure Game'' won the

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

's "Editors' Choice Award" in May 2005. On 25 May 2011,

Hothead Games Hothead Games Inc. is an independent Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver. History The studio was founded in 2006 by Steve Bocska, Vlad Ceraldi and Joel DeYoung, all three of which were formerly employed by Radical Entertainment. ...

announced they were working on a new edition of The Guide. Along with the announcement, Hothead Games launched a teaser web site made to look like an announcement from Megadodo Publications that

The Guide ''The Guide'' is a 1958 novel written in English by the Indian author R. K. Narayan. Like most of his works the novel is based on Malgudi, the fictional town in South India. The novel describes the transformation of the protagonist, Raju, fr ...

will soon be available on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. It has since been revealed that they are developing an

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

app in the style of the fictional Guide.

Comic books

In 1993, DC Comics, in conjunction with

Byron Preiss Byron Preiss (April 11, 1953 – July 9, 2005)Byron Preiss
at the

John Carnell Edward John Carnell (8 April 1912 – 23 March 1972) was a British science fiction editor known for editing '' New Worlds'' in 1946 then from 1949 to 1963. He also edited ''Science Fantasy'' from the 1950s. After the magazines were sold to anoth ...

Steve Leialoha Steve Leialoha (born January 27, 1952) is an American comics artist whose work first came to prominence in the 1970s. He has worked primarily as an inker, though occasionally as a penciller, for several publishers, including Marvel Comics and late ...

provided the art for ''Hitchhiker's'' and the layouts for ''Restaurant''. Shepherd Hendrix did the finished art for ''Restaurant''. Neil Vokes and John Nyberg (comics), John Nyberg did the finished artwork for ''Life'', based on breakdowns by Paris Cullins (Book 1) and Christopher Schenck (Books 2–3). The miniseries were edited by Howard Zimmerman and Ken Grobe.

Live radio

On Saturday 29 March 2014, Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation in front of a live audience, featuring many members of the original cast including Stephen Moore, Susan Sheridan, Mark Wing-Davey, Simon Jones and Geoff McGivern, with John Lloyd as the book. The adaptation was adapted by Dirk Maggs primarily from Fit the First, including material from the books and later radio Fits as well as some new jokes. It formed part of Radio 4's ''Character Invasion'' series.

Legacy

Future predictions

While Adams' writing in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' was mostly to poke fun at scientific advance, such as through the artificial personalities built into the work's robots, Adams had predicted some concepts that have since come to be reality. The Guide itself, described as a small book-sized object that held a great volume of information, predated computer laptops and is comparable to tablet computers. The idea of being able to instantaneously translate between any language, a function provided by the Babel Fish, has since become possible with several software products that work in near real-time. In the ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', Adams also mentions computers being controlled by voice, touch and gesture, a reality for humans today.

"Hitch-Hikeriana"

Many merchandising and spin-off items (or "Hitch-Hikeriana") were produced in the early 1980s, including towels in different colours, all bearing the Guide entry for towels. Later runs of towels include those made for promotions by Pan Books, Touchstone Pictures / Disney for the 2005 movie, and different towels made for ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the official ''Hitchhiker's'' Appreciation society.A wiki devoted to the history of H2G2 themed towels
Other items that first appeared in the mid-1980s were T-shirts, including those made for Infocom (such as one bearing the legend "I got the Babel Fish" for successfully completing one of that game's most difficult puzzles), and a Disaster Area tour T-shirt. Other official items have included "Beeblebears" (teddy bears with an extra head and arm, named after ''Hitchhiker's'' character Zaphod Beeblebrox, sold by the official Appreciation Society), an assortment of pin-on buttons and a number of novelty singles. Many of the above items are displayed throughout the 2004 "25th Anniversary Illustrated Edition" of the novel, which used items from the personal collections of fans of the series. Stephen Moore recorded two novelty singles in character as Marvin, the Paranoid Android: "Marvin"/"Marvin the Paranoid Android, Metal Man" and "Reasons To Be Miserable"/"Marvin the Paranoid Android, Marvin I Love You". The last song has appeared on a Dr. Demento compilation. Another single featured the re-recorded "Journey of the Sorcerer" (arranged by Tim Souster) backed with "Reg Nullify In Concert" by Reg Nullify, and "Only the End of the World Again" by Disaster Area (including Douglas Adams on bass guitar) . These discs have since become collector's items. The 2005 movie also added quite a few collectibles, mostly through the National Entertainment Collectibles Association. These included three prop replicas of objects seen on the Vogon ship and homeworld (a mug, a pen and a stapler), sets of "action figures" with a height of either 3 or 6 inches (76 or 150 mm), a gun—based on a prop used by Marvin, the Paranoid Android, that shoots foam darts—a crystal cube, shot glasses, a ten-inch (254 mm) high version of Marvin with eyes that light up green, and "yarn doll" versions of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, Marvin and Zaphod Beeblebrox. Also, various audio tracks were released to coincide with the movie, notably re-recordings of "Marvin" and "Reasons To Be Miserable", sung by Stephen Fry, along with some of the "Guide Entries", newly written material read in-character by Fry.

Towel Day

Celebrated on 25 May, Towel Day is a fan-created event in which they carry a towel with them throughout the day, in reference to the importance of towels as a tool of a galactic hitchhiker described in the work. The annual event was started in 2001 two weeks after Adams' death.

42, or The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything

In the works, the number 42 is given as The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything by the computer Deep Thought. The absurdly simple answer to a complex philosophical question became a frequent reference in popular culture in homage to ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'', particularly within works of science fiction and in video games, such as in ''

'', ''Lost (TV series), Lost'', ''Star Trek'' and ''The X-Files''. 2020 was the 42nd anniversary of HG2G appearing on Radio 4. The book ''Hitchhiking: Cultural Inroads'' was dedicated to the memory of British actor Stephen Moore (actor), Stephen V. Moore who died in Oct 2019 and played the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the original BBC Radio and Television Series.

Other references in popular culture

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Two asteroids, ''18610 Arthurdent'' and ''25924 Douglasadams'' were named after Arthur Dent and Douglas Adams, as both had been discovered shortly after Adams' death in 2001. The fish species ''Bidenichthys beeblebroxi'' and moth species ''Erechthias beeblebroxi'' were both named after the character of Zaphod Beeblebrox. Radiohead's song "Paranoid Android" was named after the character of Marvin the Paranoid Android. The band's singer Thom Yorke used the character's name jokingly, as the song was not about depression, but Yorke knew many of his fans felt that he should seem to be depressed. The album ''OK Computer'' which "Paranoid Android" appears on is also taken from ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'', referencing how Zaphod would address the Heart of Gold's onboard computer Eddie, and was selected by the band after listening to the radio plays while travelling on tour. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has stated that ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' is one of his favourite works, his "favorite philosopher is Douglas Adams" and his favourite spaceship ever is in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide''. Musk said the attitude that Adams presented through ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' had influenced the vision behind both SpaceX and Tesla Motors. When Musk launched Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster, his Tesla Roadster into an Elliptic orbit, elliptical heliocentric orbit as part of the initial test launch of the Falcon Heavy, he had a copy of

' novel ''

'' in the glovebox, along with references to the book in the form of a Phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy#Knowing where one's towel is, towel and a sign on the dashboard that reads "Phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy#Don't Panic, DON'T PANIC!", as a nod to the ''Hitchhiker's Guide''. References to the series can be seen on websites, within TV and radio programmes, songs, and in console and computer games. Examples include borrowing Adams's characters' names, or references to the number 42, or other catchphrases, or even reusing "The Hitchhiker's Guide to ..." to title other books and articles (which Adams himself had borrowed from Ken Welsh (author), Ken Welsh's ''

''). ''Hitchhiker's'' references have also appeared in several series and episodes of another famous British science fiction series with which Adams was once affiliated: ''

''. * The online Babel Fish (website), Babel Fish translation service was also named in honour of a fictional creature that Adams created for the ''Hitchhiker's'' series. * The 1980s British Pop band Level 42 attribute their name to the ultimate answer. * The rock group Radiohead named the album ''OK Computer'' after Zaphod Beeblebrox's typical hail to Eddie the Computer on the Infinite Improbability Drive starship ''Heart of Gold''; a hit single from the album was named after Paranoid Android, Marvin the paranoid android, . * The instant message program Trillian (instant messaging client), Trillian is also named after a lead ''Hitchhiker's'' character. * The massive online game ''RuneScape'' has a small area named "Mos Le'Harmless" (which sounds like Mostly Harmless). Mostly Harmless was the body of the initially published, severely edited version of Ford's expanded entry for Earth (also used as the title of the fifth book). * Internet search engines Google and MSN offer "42" as the answer to the search criteria "What is the answer to life the universe and everything?" * In the ''Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends'' episode "Bus the Two of Us", Bloo picks up a hitchhiker holding a sign reading "Magrathea". * In ''AdventureQuest, Adventure Quest'', there is a door that says 42 on it. If clicked on it will say "This room contains the answers to the universe. It is locked, bolted, and duct taped shut", or "A tiny sign on the door reads 'Beware of LepardZard. * In the comic strip ''Get Fuzzy'', Rob frequently wears a 6 times 9 = 42 shirt, and a strip paid tribute to Douglas Adams soon after his passing. * Coldplay named a song "Don't Panic (Coldplay song), Don't Panic": "the opening track to Parachutes and is a guitar-based song. It was originally called 'Panic' and was one of six songs played at Coldplay's first concert in 1998. Eventually, the title became 'Don't Panic', taken from Douglas Adams's ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''." Also on their album ''Viva La Vida'' there is a song called "42". * The video game ''Fallout (Video Game), Fallout'', the pre-rendered scenery in one location features a dead whale and a broken flowerpot, parodying a scene from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book), the first book. * In the video game ''Spore (2008 video game), Spore'', at the centre of the universe the player may receive a Genesis Device known as the "Staff of Life". The device has 42 charges as well as an icon which reads "42". * The rock band Perpetual Groove has an album entitled ''All This Everything'' in which many of the tracks are related to ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. The first track is entitled "Life", the eighth "The Universe", and the last "And Everything". Other ''Hitchhiker's''-related titles include "53 More Things to Do in Zero Gravity" and "Andromeda".

Other ''Hitchhiker's''-related books and stories

Published radio scripts

Douglas Adams and Geoffrey Perkins collaborated on ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts'', first published in the United Kingdom and United States in 1985. A tenth-anniversary (of the script book publication) edition was printed in 1995, and a twenty-fifth-anniversary (of the first radio series broadcast) edition was printed in 2003. The 2004 series was produced by Above The Title Productions and the scripts were published in July 2005, with production notes for each episode. This second radio script book is entitled ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts: The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases''. Douglas Adams gets the primary writer's credit (as he wrote the original novels), and there is a foreword by Simon Jones (actor), Simon Jones, introductions by the producer and the director, and other introductory notes from other members of the cast.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * *

External links

Official sites * (includes information, links and downloads). * . * . * * * * * . * . Other links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, The The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1978 radio programme debuts BBC Radio comedy programmes British radio dramas Comic science fiction novels Novel series Novels by Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series) Novels about time travel Fiction about hitchhiking Radio programs adapted into comics Radio programs adapted into novels Radio programs adapted into plays Radio programs adapted into video games Radio programs adapted into television shows Post-apocalyptic fiction

Spelling

Synopsis

Background

Radio

Overview

Original radio series

Radio series 3–5

Radio series 6

Novels

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''

''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe''

''Life, the Universe and Everything''

''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish''

''Mostly Harmless''

''And Another Thing...''

Omnibus editions

''The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide''

''The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide''

Television series

1981 series

Planned television series

Other television appearances

Film

Stage shows

Other adaptations

Vinyl LPs

Audiobooks

Video games

Comic books

Live radio

Legacy

Future predictions

"Hitch-Hikeriana"

Towel Day

42, or The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything

Other references in popular culture

Other ''Hitchhiker's''-related books and stories

Related stories

Published radio scripts

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

External links