In the late 1980s, I had a writing assignment and decided to write about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I recently found this document and decided to share it. It was written in Deskmate for the Radio Shack Color Computer.
Today we know far, far more about Douglas Adams and his life and writings, so I am curious to see what we “thought we knew” back then.
R.I.P., Douglas Adams. You are still missed.
The Hitchhiker Phenomenon
This is the story of Douglas Adams’ now famous “Hitchhiker Trilogy.” It is a story of amazing success, and it all began very simply. It began with a field.
In the early seventies, Douglas Adams was less than the successful writer he is today. A native of England, he was hitchhiking his way around Europe. One evening he found himself lying drunk in a field near Innsbruck. He had been carrying with him “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe” by Ken Walsh, and as the world spun lightly around him, he thought someone should write a hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy as well.
This idea stayed in the back of his mind for the next six years while he straightened himself up and got an education at Cambridge. After getting “educated,” he would soon find employment in such various fields as chicken shed cleaning, body guarding, and eventually a script writer for such BBC television programs as Monty Python and Dr. Who. His work on these shows displayed his ability for comedy and science fiction writing, which he would soon combine.
Adams was directing a Cambridge Footlights show when he met Geoffrey Perkins, who worked at BBC radio. The link between BBC and Adams now had been made. He had an idea, and he had an opportunity.
He originally wanted to do a series about “The Ends of the Earth” just to see how many ways of destruction he could devise. This would require a character to be there to explain what was going on. To explain why the character was there, Adams decided to make him a researcher for a book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. His idea had now evolved into something useful. Now all that had to be done was to get it approved by the BBC Radio Light Entertainment Department.
His idea was submitted, and approved. “…The script was commissioned in the first place not out of a burning desire to do a sci-fi comedy but because the Chief Producer at the time was rather taken with a sketch Douglas had written…about a Kamikaze pilot being briefed for his ninteenth mission.” (Scripts/P.32) Now all Adams had to do was make it.
Radio series at that time were still primitive. Adams knew exactly what he wanted from the start. He wanted Hitchhiker’s to sound like a rock ablum. “I wanted the voices and the effects and the music to be so seamlessly orchestrated as to create a coherent picture of a whole other world…” (Scripts/P.14) he recalls. Even the theme was planned. He wanted an electronic tune with a banjo in it, so the choice of the Eagles “Journey of the Sorcerer” seemed perfect
Sound effects produced for the series are still some of the greatest ever created. (The radio crew spent more time making sounds than other shows spent on their whole program!) Finally, after all of the sounds, music, and actors had been assembled, the story was ready to be told. On March 8, 1978 the first episode was aired.
The story followed the adventures of Arthur Dent. He is rescued by his friend Ford Prefect when the Earth is destroyed to make way for an interstellar bypass, and Arthur begins his cosmic journey. They meet up with Zaphod Beeblebrox, ex-president of the Galaxy, and his companian Trillian, a sexy space-cadet originally from Earth, as well as Marvin, a depressed robot.
This newly assembled crew sets out on a fantastic adventure which reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything, which is fourty-two, and the ancient quest to discover what the actual question is. The question was to be calculated by a giant computer called the Earth, which was built and ran for mice.
Zaphod was also on a mission that he didn’t know about. He was going to find the man who rulled the Universe. Detours along the way take them to the legendary planet of Magrathea, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and the evil planet Frogstar.
This exciting adventure is hampered and assisted by amazing plot twists. Adams would decide to have his characters flushed out unprotected into space just to see what would happen. Many of his throw-away jokes, such as a robot with personality disorders, were so popular that he kept them. In fact, the whole story soon gained tremendous following in England, and the BBC had to fight to win back the rights for merchandising.
Suprisingly, many of the subjects written about were not as far-fetched as they might seem. “I…find things that…are self-defeating are funny,” (Zest/P.28) Adams recalls. For instance, a wasteland planet which is encountered in the series was a victim of an economic phenomen known as the Shoe Event Horizon. The whole economy mutated into nothing but shoe shops causing a total colapse. Adams claims to have gotten this concept from Oxford Street in London where he once spent three days trying to buy a pair of shoes. “You cannont hurl a brick…without hitting half a dozen shoe shops,” (Scripts/P.227) Adams claims. He says that “shop after shop, all virtually next to each other, carried exactly the same range, and were all out of stock of exactly the same styles and sizes.” (Scripts/P.227)
On this same planet, a delayed spaship in encountered. It is delayed by over nine-hundred years because it couldn’t take off until the supplies of lemon-soaked paper napkins were loaded. Again, this came from a real Adams experience. He was trying to make an important journey from London to Leeds, which he would have made by train if time were not important. Due to the bar not being loaded, the plane sat doing nothing for a half-hour, making the journey take more time than by train, and thus defeating the whole point of taking it. Adams reasons that in order for a plane to fly, it has to have “a pilot,…a couple of wings,…enough fuel,…coffee and biscuits.” (Zest/P.28)
The original radio series projected Adams into a spotlight. He was asked to write a book version. Adams never thought he “would have have the sheer tenacity or bloody-mindedness required to sit down and write a full length novel,” (Zest/P.22) but he did and the books all became instant best-sellers. A seven episode television show followed, and then a two-record album. The Hitchhiker Phenomenon was rolling.
Each form it took was slightly different. Some major events were drastically altered by Adams, but the basic story line manages to end up the same. This made Hitchhiker’s new to old fans each time they experienced a different telling. When the long rumored movie is produced, Adams plans to tell the story once again from a different perspective.
Recent updates to the Hitchhiker series include a fourth book, and the original radio series and TV shows are being broadcast on public radio and television stations all over America. A computer game has also been created, and another is planned. A fifth book has been publically denied by Adams, which means he’s working on one.
The Hitchhiker Phenomenon has been around for almost ten years and shows no sign of slowing. Fans all over the world appear at standing-room-only autograph sessions sporting their Hitchhiker towels and Don’t Panic buttons. The devoted fans are out there, and his following will continue to grow. Douglas Adams didn’t create a simple story – he created an incredible phenomenon.