The first episode was screened to a selected audience at the National Film Theatre, and featured a specially recorded introduction by voice-of-the-book Peter Jones -- his only on-screen appearance in his 'Hitchhiker's' Capacity. (The 'laughter-track' idea was dropped after this one episode experiment).
Arthur Dent, a perfectly ordinary Earthman, is surprised to wake up one day to find bulldozers outside his house with orders to knock it down to build a by-pass. He is even more surprised later on in the pub when his best friend Ford Prefect reveals himself to be from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. The two are forced to hitch a lift on one of the advancing Vogon spacecraft which proceed to blow up the Earth to make way for an interspace bypass. Our two heroes find themselves trapped in a storage room in hyperspace, with only a menacing Vogon guard for company.
Arthur and Ford have been discovered. Vogon Captain Jeltz tortures them by reading his poetry. He then has Arthur and Ford thrown off his ship, to what must be certain death - except for one improbable miracle. At the last second, an infinite-improbability prototype ship (which can pass through every point in the Universe) rescues them. What is rather surprising is that Zaphod Beeblebrox, the hip cat who stole the spaceship, is vaguely familiar to Arthur. And so is Zaphod's companion, Trillian.
The final minutes of studio recording for Episode Two on Saturday, November 8, 1980 were a fraught affair, with time seriously running out. A 15-minute overrun was formally agreed but it still meant lights-out at 10:15 P.M., whether the scene was completed or not. Watch the timecode as it counts down towards the cut-off point of 22:15:00 and you'll begin to feel some of the tension experienced by all concerned...
The starship Heart of Gold is headed for the planet Magrathea, a planet which it is generally agreed does not exist. In trying to land on Magrathea's surface, the crew faces an ancient nuclear missile defence system, escaping only when Arthur turns on the Infinite Improbability Drive. This helpfully replaces the missiles with a bowl of petunias and a very surprised sperm whale, who learns about the ground before he hits it. Later on, deep in the core of the planet, an unknown enemy attacks Trillian, Zaphod and Ford while Arthur meets Slartibartfast, an old man who designs planets for a living. Slartibartfast takes Arthur on a tour of the factory floor, showing off his latest project - Planet Earth, Mark Two.
Arthur learns about the Great Project - the second most powerful computer in existence, called Deep Thought, created to answer the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. The computer comes back online much later on to give its final answer - 42. The scientists are understandably hacked off, even more so when Deep Thought cannot tell them what the Ultimate Question is, and a new computer, called the Earth, has to be built for that purpose. The current owners of the Great Project, Trillian's pet mice, want to cut open Arthur's head to find the Question, but when the crew are all trapped behind a bank of exploding computers, all appears lost.
Arthur, Ford and the gang arrive at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe on Magrathea, built on the ruins of a planet-building complex, transported there by the exploding computers. Here, thanks to compound interest, you can enjoy a vast five-course meal and cabaret at no cost whatever while the universe collapses and dies around you. Arthur and Ford are surprised to find Marvin still waiting for them in the restaurant's star-ship park. He has been there rather a long time. They decide to steal a space-ship, but unfortunately it turns out to be the stunt ship of <I>Disaster Area</I>, the loudest rock band of all time, and is programmed to plunge directly into the sun. So what next?
Fortune is on the crews' side - the transporter on the ship is still working, but needs someone to manually operate it. Marvin is therefore pressed into volunteering to sacrifice himself so the rest of the group can escape. Arthur and Ford get separated from Zaphod and Trillian and find themselves on board a space ship about to crashland into the prehistoric past of a planet that the two of them find strangely familiar. If this is indeed Earth, then history as they know it is about to be changed - and so is the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe and Everything....
Kevin Davies' hour-long documentary from 1993. Packed with unbroadcast and archive material, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Simon Jones, David Dixon, Mark Wing Davey, Sandra Dickinson, Douglas Adams and Alan J. W. Bell.
Kevin Davies revisits his footage from "The Making of..." documentary, to bring together a further 20 minutes of interviews and other material that didn't make it into the final program.
BAFTA award winning graphics from the show.
Douglas Adams talks about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game on BBC 2's Micro Live. Originally broadcast on 8th March 1985.
The first public glimpse of the new TV series was during this Nationwide clip when presenter Sue Cook interviewed Douglas Adams.
A quaint book programme where host Robert Kee makes plain directly to Douglas Adams’ face, his obvious disregard for the author’s second novel.
BBC Engineering film - The proto-digital world of audio production is examined here in a technical explanation of the BBC’s latest SYPHER dubbing suite, featuring the BAFTA-winning sound supervisor Mike McCarthy at work on Hitchhiker.
Unique behind-the-scenes footage from the rehearsal rooms and the studio floor, showing the cast and crew grappling with the scenery, the props and the text of the Hitchhiker TV series.
From the personal archives of producer, Kevin Davies, featuring Douglas Adams and imagery from the TV series and elsewhere. Includes two exclusive reports on the movie from the World premiere in Leicester Square.
Elements of the main series now available in HD.
The story of Hitchhiker’s difficult birth, taken from exclusive interviews conducted in 2007 and 2012. Douglas’ brother James shares personal memories of his big brother back in ‘77, struggling to write at the family home in Dorset. Nick Webb, a witty, avuncular friend of Douglas’ who later became his official biographer, was also the publisher who in 1978 commissioned the best-selling novel, upon hearing the original radio broadcasts.
Douglas Adams explains to Minnette Marin his ideas for interactive CD-Rom audio drama, while in Birmingham, the fans gather for a Hitchhiker-themed games convention.
BBC Breakfast welcomed Arthur Dent (Simon Jones) to their sofa on Towel Day 2012 to plug the theatrical summer tour of The Hitchhiker’s Guide Radio Show Live.
The Paranoid Android launched his 1981 bid for pop stardom on the Children’s TV favourite Blue Peter and then told the presenters how he didn’t even want to talk about it.
The inimitable original voice of Marvin was brought back to life by Stephen Moore for the Tertiary Phase in 2003, when he shared swamp duties with a mattress called Zem.
The earliest known filmed interview with Douglas Adams, talking about his awkward childhood.
The Radio Times magazine announced their first and only Hitchhiker cover article in this televised trailer for the second radio series, featuring a super-intelligent shade of the colour blue, plus unique narration by Peter Jones.
Animator Rod Lord’s BAFTA award-winning graphic sequences from the TV series are presented in HD for the first time, allowing a more detailed appreciation of Babel Fish guts, Deep Thought’s equations and Vogon sex.
The surviving members of the radio cast re-assembled in 2003 for the long overdue radio adaptation of the third Hitchhiker book, Life, The Universe And Everything.
A star-studded trailer for the Quandary and Quintessential Phases radio series based on the fourth and fifth Hitchhiker novels.
Online trailer for Radio 4 - the latest (and possibly final series ever) of Hitchhiker in its original medium, is based on the 2009 novel by Eoin Colfer with snippets of unpublished material from Douglas Adams’ archives. The surviving members of the original cast plus guests such as Lenny Henry and Ed Byrne, gathered in October 2017 to record the series which premiered in March 2018 on Radio 4.
35mm widescreen animation sequences used for back-projection on the set.
A profile of the late Douglas Adams - creator of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Features contributions from many of his famous collaborators and friends, such as Stephen Fry, Terry Jones, Clive Anderson and Griff Rhys Jones.
Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Documentary charting the rise of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from its original guise as a radio series through to becoming a Hollywood blockbuster.