The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Original Radio Scripts

by Douglas Adams

  F/X: SOUND OF SPERM WHALE HITTING THE GROUND AT SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES PER HOUR

  (Pause)

  GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND

  NARRATOR: Curiously enough the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was ‘Oh no, not again’. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

  Meanwhile, the starship has landed on the surface of Magrathea and Trillian is about to make one of the most important statements of her life. Its importance is not immediately recognised by her companions.

  TRILLIAN: Hey, my white mice have escaped.

  ZAPHOD: Nuts to your white mice.

  NARRATOR: It is possible that Trillian’s observation would have commanded greater attention had it been generally realized that human beings were only the third most intelligent life forms on the planet Earth instead of as was generally thought by most independent observers, the second.

  ZAPHOD: (Very efficiently) OK, run atmospheric checks on the planets.

  F/X: FLURRY OF VERY FAST COMPUTER VOICES RINGING AROUND THE SHIP IN WONDERFUL STEREO, REELING OFF MOSTLY LISTS OF INCOMPREHENSIBLE NUMBERS: A FEW RECOGNISABLE WORDS LIKE ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION, OXYGEN, NITROGEN, CARBON DIOXIDE, ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE, GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALIES ETC.

  (Meanwhile the others continue talking)

  FORD: Are we taking this robot?

  MARVIN: (Dejectedly) Don’t feel you have to take any notice of me please.

  ZAPHOD: Oh, Marvin the Paranoid Android, yeah, we’ll take him.

  TRILLIAN: What are you supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?

  MARVIN: You think you’ve got problems. What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don’t try and answer that, I’m fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don’t know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level.

  F/X: ALL THE COMPUTER VOICES SUDDENLY STOP TOGETHER

  ZAPHOD: Well? What’s the result?

  VOICES: (All together) It’s OK but it smells a bit.

  ZAPHOD: OK everybody, let’s go.

  E the C: (His voice has undergone a radical change and now sounds like a prep school matron) Good afternoon boys.

  ARTHUR: What’s that?

  ZAPHOD: Oh. That’s the computer. I discovered it had an emergency back up personality which I thought might be marginally preferable.

  E the C: Now, this is going to be your first day on a strange planet, so I want you all wrapped up snug and warm and no playing with any naughty bug-eyed monsters.

  ZAPHOD: I’m sorry, I think we’d be better off with a slide rule.

  E the C: Right, who said that?

  ZAPHOD: Will you open up the exit hatch please, computer?

  E the C: Not until whoever said that owns up.

  FORD: Oh God.

  E the C: Come on.

  ZAPHOD: Computer . . .

  E the C: I’m waiting. I can wait all day if necessary.

  ZAPHOD: Computer, if you don’t open that exit hatch this moment I shall go straight to your major data banks with a very large axe and give you a reprogramming you’ll never forget, is that clear?

  (Pause)

  E the C: I can see this relationship is something we’re all going to have to work at.

  F/X: EXIT HATCH OPENS. FAINT SOUND OF WIND

  ZAPHOD: Thank you, let’s go.

  F/X: THEY EXIT

  E the C: It’ll all end in tears, I know it.

  F/X: HATCH CLOSES LEAVING TOTAL SILENCE. WIND

  GRAMS: PINK FLOYD ‘SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND’ INTRO. FROM THE ALBUM ‘WISH YOU WERE HERE’

  (They all have to shout into the wind)

  ARTHUR: It’s fantastic!

  FORD: Desolate hole if you ask me.

  TRILLIAN: It’s bloody cold. It all looks so stark and dreary.

  ARTHUR: I think it’s absolutely fantastic!

  ARTHUR: It’s only just getting through to me . . . a whole alien world, millions of light years from home. Pity it’s such a dump though. Where’s Zaphod?

  ZAPHOD: (Calling from a distance) Hey! Just beyond this ridge you can see the remains of an ancient city.

  FORD: What does it look like?

  ZAPHOD: Bit of a dump. Come on over. Oh and watch out for all the bits of whalemeat.

  GRAMS: THEY ARE ALL WALKING OFF AND THEIR VOICES FADE, WITH THE MUSIC

  ARTHUR: Do you realize that robot can hum like Pink Floyd? What else can you do Marvin?

  MARVIN: Rock and roll?

  F/X: GRAMS AS THEY FADE INTO THE DISTANCE THE PINK FLOYD MUSIC CHANGES ABRUPTLY INTO ‘ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC’ BY THE FAB FOUR WITH JUST A SLIGHT ELECTRONIC DISTORT AND ECHO TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THE ROBOT IS IN FACT SINGING IT

  TRILLIAN: I wish I knew where my mice were.

  ZAPHOD: (Approaching) OK, I’ve found a way in.

  ARTHUR: In? In what?

  ZAPHOD: Down to the interior of the planet – that’s where we have to go. Where no man has trod these five million years, into the very depths of time itself . . .

  GRAMS: THEME MUSIC FROM 2001 (ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA) HAS BEEN BUILDING UP UNDER THIS AND NOW REACHES A CLIMAX

  ZAPHOD: Can it, Marvin.

  GRAMS: 2001 THEME STOPS ABRUPTLY

  ARTHUR: Why underground?

  ZAPHOD: Well according to the legends the Magratheans lived most of their lives underground.

  ARTHUR: Why, did the surface become too polluted or overpopulated?

  ZAPHOD: No, I think they just didn’t like it very much.

  TRILLIAN: Zaphod, are you sure you know what you’re doing? We’ve been attacked once already you know.

  ZAPHOD: Look, I promise you, the live population of this planet is nil plus the four of us.

  TRILLIAN: And two white mice.

  ZAPHOD: And two white mice if you insist.

  FORD: Come on, let’s go if we’re going.

  ZAPHOD: Er, hey, Earthman . . .

  ARTHUR: Arthur.

  ZAPHOD: Could you sort of keep the robot with you and guard this end of the passageway, OK?

  ARTHUR: Guard, what from? You just said there’s no one here.

  ZAPHOD: Yeah, well just for safety OK?

  ARTHUR: Whose? Yours or mine?

  ZAPHOD: Good lad. OK, here we go.

  F/X: THEY SET OFF AGAIN. THE SOUND PICTURE STAYS WITH THEM SO THAT ARTHUR’S LINE AND MARVIN’S LINE SOUND SLIGHTLY FURTHER AWAY THIS TIME

  ARTHUR: Well I hope you all have a really miserable time.

  MARVIN: Don’t worry, they will.

  F/X: DROP WIND SOUND AS THEY ENTER TUNNEL. SLIGHTLY EERIE BUT TINKLY MUSIC IN BACKGROUND . . . HEAVY SUBWAY ECHO

  TRILLIAN: This is really spooky.

  FORD: Any idea what these strange symbols on the wall are, Zaphod?

  ZAPHOD: I think they’re probably just strange symbols of some kind.

  FORD: Look at all these galleries of derelict equipment just lying about . . . does anyone know what happened to this place in the end? Why did the Magratheans die out?

  ZAPHOD: Something to do I suppose.

  FORD: I wish I had two heads like yours, Zaphod. I could have hours of fun banging them against a wall.

  TRILLIAN: Shine the torch over here.

  ZAPHOD: Where, here?

  TRILLIAN: Well, we aren’t the first beings to go down this corridor in five million years then.

  ZAPHOD: What do you mean?

  TRILLIAN: Look, fresh mouse droppings.

  ZAPHOD: Oh, your bloody mice.

  TRILLIAN: (Nervous) What’s that light down the corridor?

  ZAPHOD: It’s just torch reflection.

  FORD: This stuff must be worth millions you know, even if we don’t find any actual money . . .

  ZAPHOD: It’ll be there. Trust me.

  FORD: Trust you? Zaphod my old mate, I’d trust you from about as far as I could comfortably take yo
ur appendix out.

  TRILLIAN: There’s definitely something happening down there . . .

  ZAPHOD: No . . .

  TRILLIAN: Listen!

  F/X: SUDDEN ELECTRONIC ZAP. CRIES FROM ZAPHOD, FORD AND TRILLIAN, SLUMP OF BODIES. UNIDENTIFIABLE SOUNDS . . . OF MOVEMENT AROUND THEM. FADE. FADE UP WIND

  GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND

  NARRATOR: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a very unevenly edited book and contains many passages which simply seemed to its editors like a good idea at the time.

  One of these supposedly relates the experiences of one Veet Voojagig, a quiet young student at the University of Maximegalon, who pursued a brilliant academic career studying ancient philology, transformational ethics and the wave harmonic theory of historical perception, and then, after a night of drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod Beeblebrox, became increasingly obsessed with the problem of what had happened to all the biros he’d bought over the past few years.

  There followed a long period of painstaking research during which he visited all the major centres of biro loss throughout the galaxy and eventually came up with a rather quaint little theory which quite caught the public imagination at the time. Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the colour blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to biro life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended biros would make their way, slipping quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely biroid lifestyle, responding to highly biro-orientated stimuli . . . in fact leading the biro equivalent of the good life.

  And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractables, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book, and was finally sent into tax exile which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make a fool of themselves in public.

  When one day an expedition was sent to the spatial coordinates that Voojagig had claimed for this planet they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.

  There did, however, remain the question of both the mysterious sixty thousand Altairian dollars paid yearly into his Brantisvogan bank account, and of course Zaphod Beeblebrox’s highly profitable second-hand biro business.

  Meanwhile, on the surface of Magrathea, two suns have just set.

  ARTHUR: Night’s falling. Look robot, the stars are coming out.

  MARVIN: I know, wretched isn’t it.

  ARTHUR: But that sunset. I’ve never seen anything like it in my wildest dreams . . . the two suns . . . it was like mountains of fire boiling into space.

  MARVIN: I’ve seen it. It’s rubbish.

  ARTHUR: We only ever had the one sun at home. I came from a planet called Earth you know.

  MARVIN: I know, you keep going on about it. It sounds awful.

  ARTHUR: Ah no, it was a beautiful place.

  MARVIN: Did it have oceans?

  ARTHUR: Oh yes, great wide rolling blue oceans.

  MARVIN: Can’t bear oceans.

  ARTHUR: (Sigh) Tell me, do you get on well with other robots?

  MARVIN: Hate them. Where are you going?

  ARTHUR: I think I’ll just take a short walk.

  MARVIN: Don’t blame you.

  SLARTIBARTFAST: Good evening.

  ARTHUR: . . . Aaaah! Who . . .?

  (The next speaker is a man called Slartibartfast. He is getting on for elderly and speaks quietly, not unkindly. He is not quite as vague as he pretends)

  SLARTI: You choose a cold night to visit our dead planet . . .

  ARTHUR: Who . . . who are you?

  SLARTI: My name is not important.

  ARTHUR: I . . . er . . . you startled me.

  SLARTI: Do not be alarmed, I will not harm you.

  ARTHUR: But you shot at us. There were missiles.

  SLARTI: Merely an automatic system. Ancient computers ranged in the long caves deep in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millenia, and the ages hang heavy on their dusty data banks. I think they take the occasional pot shot to relieve the monotony. I’m a great fan of science you know.

  ARTHUR: Really . . .?

  SLARTI: Oh yes.

  ARTHUR: Ah. Er . . . (He can’t work out who’s meant to take the lead in this conversation)

  SLARTI: You seem ill at ease.

  ARTHUR: Yes. No disrespect, but I gathered you were all dead.

  SLARTI: Dead? No, we have but slept.

  ARTHUR: Slept!

  SLARTI: Yes, through the economic recession you see.

  ARTHUR: What?

  SLARTI: Well five million years ago the Galactic economy collapsed, and seeing that custom built planets are something of a luxury commodity, you see . . . you know we built planets do you?

  ARTHUR: Well yes, I’d sort of gathered . . .

  SLARTI: Fascinating trade . . . doing the coastlines was always my favourite, used to have endless fun doing all the little fiddly bits in fjords . . . so anyway, the recession came so we decided to sleep through it. We just programmed the computers to revive us when it was all over . . . they were index linked to the Galactic stock market prices you see, so that we’d be revived when everybody else had rebuilt the economy enough to be able to afford our rather expensive services again.

  ARTHUR: Good God, that’s a pretty unpleasant way to behave isn’t it?

  SLARTI: Is it? I’m sorry, I’m a bit out of touch. Is this robot yours?

  MARVIN:No, I’m mine.

  ARTHUR: If you call it a robot. It’s more a sort of electronic sulking machine.

  SLARTI: Bring it.

  ARTHUR: What?

  SLARTI: You must come with me, great things are afoot . . . you must come now or you will be late.

  ARTHUR: Late? What for?

  SLARTI: What is your name, human?

  ARTHUR: Dent. Arthur Dent.

  SLARTI: Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent. It’s a sort of threat you see. Never been very good at them myself, but I’m told they can be terribly effective.

  ARTHUR: All right, where do we go?

  SLARTI: In my aircar. We are going deep into the bowels of the planet, where even now our race is being revived from its five million year slumber. Magrathea awakes.

  F/X: AIRCAR SHOOTS FORWARD . . . OH, BY THE WAY, WE’VE ALSO HAD THE SOUND OF THEM GETTING INTO IT DURING THE PRECEDING SPEECH

  ARTHUR: Excuse me, what is your name by the way?

  SLARTI: My name is . . . my name is Slartibartfast.

  ARTHUR: (Trying not to laugh) I . . . I beg your pardon?

  SLARTI: Slartibartfast. (Fading)

  ARTHUR: Slartibartfast?

  SLARTI: I said it wasn’t important. (Fade out)

  GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND

  NARRATOR: It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance – on the planet Earth Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much . . . the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. Curiously enough the dolphins had long known of the impending demolition of Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger, but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for titbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.

  The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double backwards somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the ‘Star Spangled Banner’, but in fact the message was this: ‘So long and thanks for all
the fish.’ In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioural research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that man once again completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans. Arthur Dent’s current favourite fact is that life is full of surprises.

  GRAMS: THE KYRIE FROM LIGETI’S REQUIEM (QUIETLY AT FIRST)

  F/X: HUM OF THE AIRCAR IN FLIGHT THROUGH UNDERGROUND PASSAGES. IT SLOWS DOWN

  SLARTI: Earthman, we are now deep in the heart of Magrathea. I should warn you that the chamber we are about to pass into does not literally exist within our planet. It is simply the gateway into a vast tract of hyperspace. It may disturb you.

  ARTHUR: (Nervously) Oh . . .

  SLARTI: It scares the willies out of me. Hold tight.

  F/X: ACCELERATION OF AIRCAR, HATCHWAY OPENING

  GRAMS: SHARP INCREASE IN MUSIC VOLUME AS IF THE SOUND IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE CHAMBER

  F/X: CAR SHOOTS INTO AN UNIMAGINABLY VAST CAVERNOUS SPACE

  ARTHUR: (Gasp of terror)

  SLARTI: Welcome to our factory floor!

  ARTHUR: Aaah! The light . . .

  SLARTI: This is where we make most of our planets, you see.

  ARTHUR: Does this mean you’re starting it all up again now?