TV 1981: The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

Article by Chris Hallam. First published: 2017.

It was the TV version which got me first.
Yes, I know this isn’t what I’m supposed to say. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy was, first and foremost, a radio series. It was here Douglas Adams first introduced us to Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Marvin, life, the universe and everything and all the rest back in 1978. In fairness, as I was less than two years old then, I think I can be excused for not tuning in on the opening night. However, yes, I am fully aware that it was original I should have come to first, not the TV re-tread.
But, to be honest, I was never a big radio listener as a child or even now really. It was thus inevitable I’d find it on TV first, after glimpsing a tantalising extract of a sequence about Vogons on Noel Edmonds’ Telly Addicts first.
The series itself was a repeat showing. I was again (probably) too young for the original screening when I was just four in 1981, particularly as my younger brother seems to have been born virtually simultaneous to the broadcast of the first episode. I was nine years old by 1986. And while, I know, the TV version has its critics, it remains one of the greatest viewing experiences of my life.
Why?
Well, let’s begin at the beginning. The title sequence is brief but strangely brilliant. There’s just something wonderful about the use of The Eagles’ Journey of the Sorcerer. Check out the full version on You Tube. To be honest, I think the way it is used very sparingly as the theme tune to both the show on radio and TV works much better than the full-length version which to me sounds overlong and overindulgent.
Why is there an astronaut floating around in the titles when there aren’t any in the actual series? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I still like it.
Then there’s the late Peter Jones’ masterful narration. A clever trick is how the narrative of Adams’ overall story is cleverly merged with that of the contents of the book, that is The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the book within the book. And Jones did a great job. Even Stephen Fry, a real-life friend of Adams, couldn’t really compete in the film version.

Then there’s the book itself! So marvellously realised on screen, it still looks great today, thirty-six years later. If there is anything better in existence than the Babel fish sequence, I am not aware of it. And the book. A portable digital source of information? Remind you of anything? You probably have something very similar in your pocket right now.
Then, there’s the cast. With the exception of the excellent (and still very prolific) Geoff McGivern who was replaced by the equally wonderful (but for some reason, far less prolific) David Dixon as incognito visitor from Betelgeuse Ford Prefect and the late Susan Sheridan who was replaced by Sandra Dickinson in the perhaps underwritten role of Trillian, the main cast were mostly drawn from the original radio series too. And while Martin Freeman did a reasonable job as the hapless Arthur Dent in the 2005 film version, for me, Arthur Dent will always be the exasperated but well-mannered version played by the wonderful Simon Jones.
The series is not perfect, of course. The terrible prosthetic on Zaphod Beeblebrox (played by Mark Wing-Davey, son of the late Anna Wing, best known for playing EastEnders matriarch Lou Beale) proves definitively that two heads are not always better than one.

The story also fizzles out somewhat. There was talk of a second series which never came but in truth a narrative arc was never the greatest strength of a story originally conceived as a weekly serial by an overworked twentysomething Douglas Adams.
There are other quibbles. Marvin, the paranoid android, who gave his name to a Radiohead track isn’t strictly speaking paranoid. But again, who cares?
Forty-two. So long and thanks for all the fish. Don’t panic. Life, the universe and everything. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
I would argue the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series in whatever form it takes, has injected more memorable phrases into the English language than anything else in the past fifty years.

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DOUGLAS ADAMS (1952-2001)

“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.”

(On religion): “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

“Reality is frequently inaccurate.”

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.”

“I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

“It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, ‘As pretty as an airport.”

2000AD timeline 5: 1981

1981 (Progs: 193-244):

February (Prog 200): The 200th issue sees the launch of the epic Johnny Alpha origins story, Portrait of a Mutant in Strontium Dog (Grant/Ezquerra).

April (Prog 206): Dredd story Un-American Graffiti (Wagner/Ron Smith, Brett Ewins). First appearance of Marlon Shakespeare aka. Chopper.

June (Prog 216): Writer Peter Milligan debuts in the comic.

(Prog 217): Alan Moore and John Higgins’ famous Tharg’s Futureshock: The Last Rumble of the Platinum Horde! A rare instance of a Futureshock getting a cover (Cover art: Mike McMahon).

July (Prog 222): A major arrival: Nemesis the Warlock Book One begins (Mills/O’Neill). Two mini-stories appeared in 1980.

August (Prog 224): The Dark Judges arrive in Judge Death Lives! (Wagner and Grant/Bolland).

2000AD rises to 16p. It is now twice as much as it was when it started in 1977. This is not an unusual rate of increase for the time, however. Besides:, by 1981, the comic is undoubtedly enjoying a golden age.

A new Judge Dredd comic strip begins in the Daily Star newspaper this month, initially produced by John Wagner, Alan Grant and Ron Smith. It continues until 1998.

September (Prog 228): Rogue Trooper goes into battle for the first time (Finley-Day/Dave Gibbons). It becomes Gerry Finley-Day’s biggest hit and one of 2000AD’s most popular stories.

October (Prog 232): Ace Trucking Co. begins trading! It is one of the zaniest stories ever to appear in the comic. (Wagner and Grant/Belardinelli).

Other stories this year include: The Mean Arena, Meltdown Man (which ends in August after an unusually long fifty-issue run) and Return to Armageddon.

(Prog 236): Blockmania erupts in Judge Dredd! (Wagner and Grant/Boland, McMahon). This story leads directly into the Apocalypse War mega-epic which launches at the start of 1982.

Elsewhere:

January: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy TV series begins.

March: Tom Baker’s last outing as Doctor Who.

July: Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fantasy classic, Time Bandits is released in UK cinemas. So is Clash of the Titans.

September: John Carpenter’s Escape From New York is released. TV version of John Wyndham’s 1951 novel, The Day of the Triffids begins showing.

December: Blake’s Seven ends.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

2000AD timeline 3: 1979

1979 (Progs 94 – 145)

February: The 100th prog! The second part of Sam Slade’s classic Verdus adventure (Wagner/Gibson) now continues in 2000AD, the saga having been briefly interrupted by the Star Lord merger.

March: A new comic, Tornado sweeps into town. Ostensibly edited by a mysterious figure called ‘The Big E,’ 2000AD’s Kelvin Gosnell is also thought to be involved. Stories include Blackhawk (Gerry Finley-Day/Alfonso Azpiri) and The Mind of Wolfie Smith (Tom Tully) which had no connection to the character played by Robert Lindsay, also called Wolfie Smith appearing in BBC sitcom, Citizen Smith at this time.

April (Prog 109): A rare Dredd-free issue of 2000AD. He has just finished his long saga battling Judge Cal in The Day The Law Died. John Wagner has now become pretty much the permanent wrier on Dredd.

June (Prog 115): Ro-Busters ends. But fear not…(Prog 119): Hammerstein returns in The ABC Warriors (Mills/O’Neill)! Ro-Jaws does not appear, although remains a frequent guest star in the comic.

Bill Savage, star of Invasion! also returns in Disaster 1990 (Finley-Day/Carlos Pino). Although he now faces a catastrophic flood in Invasion! he previously battled the Volgan Empire: now the ABC Warriors’ enemy on Mars.

2000AD gets a new logo. The ‘Starlord’ bit is dropped from the title and it becomes just 2000AD again. At least, for a short while…

July (Prog 122): The cover price rises from 10p to 12p.

August (Prog 126): Once 2000AD’s lead story, Dan Dare ends on a cliff-hanger. It never returns to the comic.

(Prog 127): Tornado merges into 2000AD. Blackhawk, The Mind of Wolfie Smith and Captain Klep all move into 2000AD. As Tornado was not primarily a sci-fi comic, their storylines are all altered slightly to strengthen their sci-fi credentials. None last beyond September 1980, when Wolfie Smith ends and 2000AD and Tornado becomes just 2000AD again.

No other comics have merged into 2000AD in the forty-plus years since. This is in itself an achievement: well over 20 UK comics merged into each other in the 1980s alone.

November (Prog 140): Gerry Finley-Day’s new future war story, The VCs comes into land.

In an unusual but successful move, a new adaptation of US sci-fi author Harry Harrison’s light-hearted future crime novel, The Stainless Steel Rat begins (Gosnell/Ezquerra).

Stainless Steel Rat writer Kelvin Gosnell incidentally ceases to be 2000AD’s editor this year incidentally and is replaced by Steve MacManus. Other stories this year include: Flesh, Project Overkill and Angel.

The second and last 2000AD-related Dan Dare annual is released, dated 1980. Two later Dan Dare annuals appeared, dated 1987 and 1991 too, but both were linked to the revived Eagle comic (which started in 1982), not to 2000AD.

Elsewhere:

April: DC Thomson’s monthly sci-fi anthology, Starblazer begins. It lasts until 1991.

June: The space-themed James Bond film, Moonraker comes out.

September: Ridley’s Scott’s Alien opens in UK cinemas.

October: Douglas Adams’ book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is published. In the same month, a Tom Baker-era episode of Doctor Who scripted by Adams, achieves the highest ratings ever achieved by a Doctor Who episode before or since (16.1 million) partly due to a strike taking out ITV. Doctor Who Weekly also begins this month.

December: Star Trek: The Motion Picture is released. Disney’s The Black Hole comes out in the UK. It proves a massive flop at the box office.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

2000AD timeline 2: 1978

1978 (Progs 46 – 93)

April: Judge Dredd begins his first major mega-epic as he ventures into The Cursed Earth (Prog 61). The story (which at one point leads to a threatened lawsuit over its content) is mostly written by Pat Mills with art provided by Mike McMahon and Brian Bolland.

May: A new comic, Star Lord begins. Originally planned as a monthly sci-fi alternative to 2000AD, it in fact, is released as a weekly, just like its sister comic, 2000AD, a decision which ultimately dooms it from the start.

The quality is high, however. Readers are introduced to mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha in Strontium Dog (John Wagner/Carlos Ezquerra) while Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein form part of a 21st century android international rescue service in Pat Mills’ Ro-Busters. Other stories include Timequake and (later) Mind Wars.

Star Lord’s editor is actually called Star Lord himself and is engaged in an ongoing battle with the forces of the interstellar federation. Behind the scenes, 2000AD’s editor, Kelvin Gosnell helps out. The new comic is 12p. 2000AD is 9p, rising to 10p in September (Prog 83). Other 2000AD stories this year include Dan Dare, Flesh, The Visible Man, Ant Wars and MACH Zero.

October: After 22 issues, Star Lord merges into 2000AD (Prog 86). Strontium Dog becomes one of 2000AD’s most enduring and popular stories. Ro-Busters only lasts until 1979 (largely because writer Pat Mills has lost interest) although Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein continue to reappear in the comic for decades. Hammerstein even crops up in the 1995 Dredd film.

Another Star Lord story, Timequake briefly resurfaces in 2000AD in 1979.

November: (Prog 87): Having survived The Cursed Earth, Dredd launches almost immediately into another mega-epic, The Day The Law Died in which Mega City One is taken over by he tyrannical Chief Judge Cal, who models himself on the insane Roman emperor, Caligula.

The 2000AD annual and Sci-Fi Special are released as usual, alongside a new Dan Dare annual. Although the comic itself lasted less than six months, one Star Lord summer special (1978) and three annuals appear in the years ahead.

Elsewhere:

The first Space Invaders arcade games appear this year.

January: Blake’s 7 arrives on BBC1.

March: Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series is first aired.

UK premiere of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

May: The Incredible Hulk starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno debuts on UK TV.

June: Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds is released.

October: Omni magazine is launched. It continues until 1997.

December: Superman: The Movie starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman is released in UK cinemas.

Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines and websites including The Companion, Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle, Metalzoic and Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the past, he wrote for Metro.co.uk, Radio Times, DVD Monthly and Geeky Monkey. He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He also provided all the written content for the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars as well as for sections of the 2014 South Park annual and all the 2015 Transformers annual.

Book review: The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Jem Roberts

Frood, as in “There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is” is a word created by Douglas Adams himself. He would never have referred to himself as one of course and one wonders if the term which is defined as a “really amazing together guy” by no less an authority than The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy generally applied to Adams, a man who was, after all, notorious for missing deadlines. What’s not in dispute, thirty-five years after his first novel first appeared and thirteen years after his absurdly premature death is that Adams was a genius and among the top set of the best British comic writers of the twentieth century.

Adams was at his least “froody” only a short while before his greatest success. Six foot five inches tall and prone to taking day long baths while his housemate rising comedy producer legend John Lloyd went to work at the BBC, Adams despaired of ever being successful himself. This is odd as we are only talking 1976 here when Adams was still just 24. It is also a little odd as he had already achieved quite a bit such as working alongside his heroes Monty Python (by a strange coincidence appearing in one episode of Python, number 42).

But the next few years would see a period of frantic overwork for Adams: scripting for his dream show Doctor Who, writing a children’s cartoon Doctor Snuggles to make ends meet and, of course, scripting the radio series, TV shows and books of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The saga would make Adams a millionaire before he was thirty and would dominate the last twenty years of his life.

The Babel Fish. The number “42”. Marvin the paranoid android (a popular character, who, of course, was not actually especially paranoid, just depressed). Towels. Slartibartfast. Vogon poetry. The saga provided the perfect vehicle for Adam’s hugely inventive brain. Five novels were produced in total (though the fourth one So Long And Thanks For All The Fish was a bit of a dud) and Adams was behind numerous adaptations notably a memorable text based computer game and various attempts to launch Hitchhiker as a film. This was, of course, only finally realised after Adams’ death. The result by Garth Jennings in 2005 was a mixed bag as Roberts notes somewhere between a success and a failure. The closest Adams came to a film was a possible collaboration with future Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. This foundered over Adam’s script which left any director little creative leeway and the saga’s previous tendency to resist any sort of narrative structure.

Like Jem Roberts’ brilliantly exhaustive previous book The True History of the Black Adder, this is a superb well researched book, especially detailed on all the many side projects Adams embarked upon with varying degrees of success. It is truly as essential a guide for any fan of the saga as the actual Hitchhiker’s Guide was for Ford Prefect as he travelled across the universe.

It is a shock to realise Douglas Adams would be barely into his sixties if he were alive even now. This is a fitting tribute to a giant of comic literature, taken from us far too early.

13 books that would make the BBC’s Big Read list were it held in 2013

Ten years have passed since the BBC launched its “Big Read” with the aim of finding the nation’s best loved novel.

The results, drawn from three quarter of million votes, are repeated below. Voters could initially vote for any novel they wanted although the top 21 were then voted for again, on condition that one book per author was permitted for the top 21.

THE ORIGINAL BIG READ TOP 100 (2003)

1. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
7. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
18. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
20. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
25. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
26. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
31. The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion by Jane Austen
39. Dune by Frank Herbert
40. Emma by Jane Austen
41. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
42. Watership Down by Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm by George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
48. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
53. The Stand by Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
56. The BFG by Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
61. Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
63. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
65. Mort by Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
67. The Magus by John Fowles
68. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
69. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Perfume by Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda by Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
77. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses by James Joyce
79. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
80. Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits by Roald Dahl
82. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
83. Holes by Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
85. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
89. Magician by Raymond E. Feist
90. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
93. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine by Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

It’s hardly for me to pass judgement on the biggest survey of public reading thus held (although I am about to, anyway!). However, I do feel the list holds up pretty well in the age of the e-reader. The top 21 seems pretty solid. Some might question the presence of so many children’s books but these are often the “best-loved” books after all. I would be more inclined to question the decision to include the Narnia and His Dark Materials books as one book apiece while each of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books are included as separate entities.

Would the likes of The Thorn Birds and Goodnight Mr Tom have made the list today? It is not clear.

However, had the Big Read been conducted in 2013, I’m sure the following novels would have found a place somewhere:

1, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.

2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

4. The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night Time by Mark Haddon

5. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (and possibly the sequel, Bringing Up The Bodies)

6. One Day by David Nicholls

7. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (and sequels?)

8. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (and sequels?)

9. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (and sequels?)

10. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (and sequels?)

11. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

12. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

13. Life of Pi by Yann Martel.