March 8: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

On this date in 1978 Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first broadcast on BBC radio. It has also been a series of novels, a TV series, a comic book, an audio book on vinyl and CD, a movie and even a stage play directed by Ken Campbell. The audience was limited to 80 per performance and was seated on an indoor Hovercraft. Here are ten more Hitchhikers facts.

1. Why is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything 42? Fans have come up with any number of complex theories including other number bases and Tibetan monks, but it was simply the first "ordinary, smallish number" that popped into Adams' head. By the way, if you type in, "what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?" (all lower case) into the Google calculator, you'll get the answer, "42"
2. Arthur Dent was originally going to be called Aleric B. Dent. It was changed to Arthur literally at the last minute, when Adams was in a taxi on his way to pitch the radio series to the BBC.
3. The original concept was called The Ends of the Earth, the premise being that the Earth would be destroyed in a different interesting way each week.
4. The Hitchhiker's series was the first comedy radio show on the BBC to be broadcast in stereo.
5. There are several proposed recipes for the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, the drink which is like "having your brains smashed in by a slice of Lemon wrapped round a large gold brick". You can find them here https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bartending/Cocktails/Pan_Galactic_Gargle_Blaster
6. One episode of the TV show featured both Darth Vader and Doctor Who - or actors who'd played them at any rate. The very tall bodyguard who keeps Ford away from galactic rock star Hotblack Desiato is Dave Prowse and the Pig that wanted to be eaten was Peter Davison. Adams himself appeared in early episodes in cameo roles himself - he was a drinker in a pub, a skinny dipper and a member of the Sirius Cybernetic Marketing Division.
7. In the universe of The Hitchhiker's Guide, the Babel fish is a tiny parasitic fish that travellers put in their ear. The fish will automatically translate any language in the galaxy to the native tongue of the host. Altavista's on-line translator is named Babel Fish after this same creature.
8. Peter Jones, William Franklin, Stephen Fry and Rula Lenska have all been the voice of the book in various adaptations.
9. If you think the plot seems like it has so many bizarre plot twists that someone must have been making it up as they went along, then you'd be right. Douglas Adams was doing exactly that. He was also famous for being a procrastinator and missing deadlines, to the extent he sometimes had to be locked in a room by producers who needed the manuscript yesterday. The first book ends rather abruptly because Adams was still writing when the courier turned up to pick up the script, and he had to just finish writing the page he was on before handing it over.
10. The Radiohead song, Paranoid Android is a reference to Marvin the Paranoid Android.

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