BANG BANG: (Shouting) You still there?
ZAPHOD/FORD/ARTHUR/TRILLIAN: Yes.
SHOOTY: (Shouting) We didn’t enjoy doing that at all!
FORD: (Shouting) We could tell! (Aside) Zaphod, have you any ideas on how we’re going to deal with these loonies?
BANG BANG: (Shouting) Now listen to this, Beeblebrox, and you’d better listen good.
ZAPHOD: Why?
BANG BANG: Because it’s going to be very intelligent, and quite interesting and humane.
ZAPHOD: O.K. Fire away . . . No, I mean . . .
F/X: ANOTHER FUSILLADE OF SHOTS
SHOOTY: Sorry, misunderstanding there.
FORD: Nice one, Zaphod.
BANG BANG: Beeblebrox, either you all give yourselves up now and let us beat you up a bit, though not very much of course because we are firmly opposed to needless violence, or we blow up this entire planet and possibly one or two others we noticed on our way here.
TRILLIAN: (Suddenly getting seriously upset about it) But that’s crazy. You wouldn’t blow up this entire planet just to get a bloody spaceship back!
BANG BANG: Yes we would. I think we would, wouldn’t we?
SHOOTY: Oh yes, we’d have to, no question.
TRILLIAN: But why?
SHOOTY: Tell her!
BANG BANG: (Shouting) Because there are some things you’ve got to do even if you are an enlightened liberal cop who knows all about sensitivity and everything.
ZAPHOD: I just don’t believe these guys.
SHOOTY: Shall we shoot them again for a bit?
BANG BANG: Yeah, why not?
F/X: ANOTHER FUSILLADE OF VICIOUS ELECTRIC ZAPPING. AS IT CONTINUES:
TRILLIAN: We’re not going to be safe behind this computer bank for much longer, fellas. It’s been really nice knowing you, I just want to say that.
FORD: Yeah, it’s really been great. And it was really nice bumping into you again, Zaphod.
ZAPHOD: I wish I hadn’t dropped my adrenalin pills.
FORD: The computer bank is absorbing a hell of a lot of energy. I think it’s about to blow.
F/X: HEAVY OSCILLATING HUM BUILDS UP WITH THE ENERGY BEING PUMPED INTO IT BY THE CONTINUING GUNFIRE
ARTHUR: It’s a shame we never managed to get the work done revising the book, I thought it looked rather promising.
ZAPHOD: Yeah. What book?
ARTHUR: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
ZAPHOD: Oh, that thing.
FORD: Look, I hate to say this but this thing really is going to blow up.
ZAPHOD: OK, OK.
F/X: YET ANOTHER DEVASTATING EXPLOSION, BUT AN EXTREMELY WEIRD SOUNDING ONE
GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND
NARRATOR: (Signature tune) Assuming our heroes survive this latest reversal in their fortunes, will they find somewhere reasonably interesting to go now? Will Arthur Dent or Trillian manage to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer? Who will they meet at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe? Find out in next week’s exciting instalment of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
ANNOUNCER: The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything was revealed by kind permission of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Professional Thinking Persons.
FOOTNOTE
This show was recorded on 20 December 1977. Jonathan Adams played the Cheerleader and Majikthise (one listener wrote to say that she had seen the graffiti ‘Majikthise rules OK’ in the ladies loo of the MCC). Peter Hawkins played Frankie Mouse and the ubiquitous David Tate played Benjy Mouse; while Geoff McGivern showed his versatility by playing Deep Thought. Jeremy Browne played the Second Computer Programmer, American stand up comic Ray Hassett played the First Computer Programmer and Bang Bang while Jim Broadbent played Vroomfondel and Shooty. Douglas adds this on the origins of Shooty and Bang Bang.
Shooty and Bang Bang
Another section inspired by American TV – this time Starsky and Hutch. In this show the heroes claimed that they did care about people being shot, so they crashed their cars into them instead. (DNA)
Slartibartfast says he knows ‘little’ of these early sixties sitcoms, just suggesting that he does, in fact, know something.
Many people have asked whether the choice of forty two as the Ultimate Answer came from Lewis Carroll or perhaps from an ancient Tibetan mystical cult where it is the symbol of truth. ‘In fact it was simply chosen because it was a completely ordinary number, a number not just divisible by two but also by six and seven. In fact it’s the sort of number that you could, without any fear, introduce to your parents.’ (DA) But a learned letter in the New Scientist suggested that Deep Thought may well have been right since forty two is the atomic number of Molybdenum – a chemical that could have been vital in creating organic life. Even more importantly the Answer gave its number to a rock group (Level 42, not UB40).
Several people noticed that the voice treatment on the mice was changed after the first broadcast. This was because we originally attempted to create the effect by having the actors speaking normally and then using the harmoniser to turn them into squeaky rodents, but the result was both too mechanical and also difficult to understand. Given the pressure of time we were unable to solve the problem for the first transmission but we subsequently re-did the mice (but left the rest of the actors as originally recorded). For the re-make we got the actors to record the lines very slowly, doubled the speed and then harmonised them slightly down. This was done superbly by the actors who, while doing the lines at half speed, had to pace them evenly with all the right inflections. The result was, we felt, better in every way, but it showed the fanaticism of many of the people who caught the show right from the start as several of them who spotted the change wrote in to say that they preferred the voices as they were originally.
Music Details
A Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley
(Used in the opening story-so-far speech)
Miracles of the Gods from In Search of Ancient Gods by Absolute Everywhere
(Used in speech about the building of the super-computer)
Mikrophoniet by Stockhausen
(Used for the Vl’hurg/G’Guvunt speech, except at the end where it goes back into Rainbow in Curved Air)
FIT THE FIFTH
Sent to find the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe and Everything, Arthur Dent and his companions have been cornered by two humane cops who, nevertheless, have left them in a certain-death situation.
GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND
NARRATOR: The story so far.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Many races believe that it was created by some sort of God, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle Six firmly believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they called The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.
However, the Great Green Arkleseizure theory was not widely accepted outside Viltvodle Six, and so one day a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings built themselves a gigantic supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate once and for all the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. For seven and a half million years Deep Thought computed and calculated and eventually announced that the answer was in fact forty two, and so another even bigger computer had to be built to find out what the actual question was. And this computer, which was called The Earth, was so large that it was frequently mistaken for a planet – particularly by the strange ape like beings who roamed its surface totally unaware that they were simply part of a gigantic computer programme. And this is very odd because without that fairly simple and obvious piece of knowledge nothing that ever happened on Ear
th could possibly make the slightest bit of sense.
However, at the critical moment of readout the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and the only hope of finding the Ultimate Question now lies buried deep in the minds of Arthur Dent and Trillian, the only native Earth People to have survived the demolition.
Unfortunately, they and their strange companions from Betelgeuse are at the moment being shot at behind a computer bank on the lost planet of Magrathea. This is what the computer bank is about to do:
F/X: DEVASTATING EXPLOSION, BUT AN EXTREMELY WEIRD SOUNDING ONE
NARRATOR: And the time at which it is going to do it is twenty seconds from now.
FORD: The computer bank is absorbing a hell of a lot of energy – I think it’s about to blow up!
F/X: HEAVY OSCILATING HUM BUILDS UP WITH THE ENERGY BEING PUMPED INTO IT BY CONTINUING GUNFIRE
ARTHUR: It’s a shame we never managed to get the work done on revising the book, I thought it looked rather promising.
ZAPHOD: Yes. What book?
ARTHUR: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
ZAPHOD: Oh, that thing.
FORD: Guys, I hate to say this, but this thing really is going to blow up.
ZAPHOD: OK, OK.
F/X: REPEAT THE EXPLOSION FROM THE END OF THE NARRATOR’S SPEECH. RUSHING SOUND OF LOTS OF LITTLE UNIDENTIFIED NOISES WHIZZING FROM THE OUTSIDE EDGES OF THE SOUND PICTURE RECEDING INTO THE CENTRE. IT SUDDENLY STOPS WITH A CRASH.
ALMOST INSTANTLY WE HEAR THE QUIET BACKGROUND OF A LARGE RESTAURANT WITH CABARET MUSIC PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND.
GARKBIT THE WAITER SPEAKS ALMOST IMMEDIATELY
ALL: (General gasps)
GARKBIT: Good evening gentlemen, madam. Do you have a reservation?
FORD: Reservation?
GARKBIT: Yes, sir.
FORD: So you need a reservation for the afterlife?
GARKBIT: The afterlife, sir?
ARTHUR: This is the afterlife?
FORD: Well I assume so, I mean there’s no way we could have survived that blast is there?
ARTHUR: No.
TRILLIAN: None at all.
ARTHUR: I was dead.
ZAPHOD: I certainly didn’t survive, I was a total goner. Wham, bang and that was it.
FORD: We didn’t stand a chance, we must have been blown to bits. Arms, legs, everywhere.
ZAPHOD: Yeah.
(Pause)
GARKBIT: (Coughing politely) If you would care to order drinks . . .?
ZAPHOD: (Ignoring and interrupting him) Kerpow, splat, instantaneously zonked into our component molecules. Hey, did you get that amazing thing of your whole life flashing before you?
FORD: Yeah, you got that too did you? Your whole life?
ZAPHOD: Yeah. At least I assume it was mine. I spend a lot of time out of my skulls you know.
FORD: So what?
ZAPHOD: Here we are, lying dead . . .
TRILLIAN: Standing . . .
ZAPHOD: Standing dead in this er . . . desolate . . .
ARTHUR: Restaurant . . .
ZAPHOD: Standing dead in this desolate . . .
ARTHUR: Five star . . .
ZAPHOD: Five star restaurant.
FORD: Odd, isn’t it?
ZAPHOD: Er, yeah.
TRILLIAN: Nice chandeliers, though.
ARTHUR: It’s not so much an afterlife, more a sort of après vie.
ZAPHOD: Hey, hang about . . . I think we’re missing something important here, something really important that somebody just said . . . What was it? Hey, you.
GARKBIT: Sir?
ZAPHOD: Did you say something about drinks?
GARKBIT: Certainly, sir. If the lady and gentlemen would care to take drinks before dinner . . .
ZAPHOD: Yeah, great.
GARKBIT: And the Universe will explode later for your pleasure.
ZAPHOD: Hey, what?
FORD: Wow, what sort of drinks do you serve here?
GARKBIT: (Laughing) Ah, I think sir has perhaps misunderstood me.
FORD: I hope not.
GARKBIT: It is not unusual for our customers to be a little disorientated by the time journey, so if I might suggest . . .
TRILLIAN: Time journey?
FORD: (Virtually together) What time journey?
ARTHUR: You mean this isn’t the afterlife?
GARKBIT: Afterlife sir? No, sir.
ARTHUR: And we’re not dead?
GARKBIT: Aha, ha, no sir. Sir is most evidently alive, otherwise I would not attempt to serve sir.
FORD: Then where the photon are we?
ZAPHOD: (Suddenly) Hey, I’ve sussed it. This must be Milliways!
FORD: Milliways!
GARKBIT: Yes, this is Milliways, the Restaurant at the end of the Universe.
ARTHUR: End of what?
GARKBIT: The Universe.
ARTHUR: When did that end?
GARKBIT: In just a few minutes, sir. Now, if you would care to order drinks I’ll show you to your table.
GRAMS: NARRATOR BACKGROUND
NARRATOR: The Restaurant at the end of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. A vast time bubble has been projected into the future to the precise moment of the End of the Universe. This is, of course, impossible.
In it, guests take their places at table and eat sumptuous meals whilst watching the whole of creation explode about them. This is, of course, impossible. You can arrive for any sitting you like without prior reservation because you can book retrospectively as it were when you return to your own time. This is, of course, impossible.
At the Restaurant you can meet and dine with a fascinating cross-section of the entire population of space and time. This is of course impossible. You can visit it as many times as you like and be sure of never meeting yourself – because of the embarrassment that usually causes. This is of course impossible.
All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the end of time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for. This is of course impossible.
Which is why the advertising executives of the Star System of Bastablon came up with this slogan –
‘If you’ve done six impossible things this morning why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?’
GRAMS: MUSIC AND GENERAL RESTAURANT BACKGROUND
COMPERE: (Speaking on a PA mike over the music and general restaurant atmosphere. It’s clearly a PA mike because there is the occasional pop or bit of feedback or sound of the mike being knocked)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I am your host for tonight, Max Quordlepleen, and I’ve just come straight from the other end of time where I’ve been hosting the show at the Big Bang Burger Chef, where we had a real way hay hay of an evening ladies and gentlemen, and I will be with you right through this tremendous historic occasion, the end of history itself.
F/X: AUDIENCE APPLAUSE
COMPERE: Thank you ladies and gentlemen, take your places at table, the candles are lit, the band is playing, and as the force shielded dome above us fades into transparency revealing a dark and sullen sky hung heavy with the ancient light of livid swollen stars I can see we’re in for a fabulous evening’s apocalypse.
Thank you very much.
ARTHUR: Do you do Take-Ways?
GARKBIT: Ah ha, no sir, here at Milliways we only serve the very finest in Ultracuisine.
ZAPHOD: (With disgust) Ultracuisine? Don’t give me head pains. Look at this . . . Algolian Zylbatburger smothered in a hint of Vulcan Dodo spit.
GARKBIT: Saliva, sir, saliva. The salivary gland of the Vulcan UltraDodo is a delicacy much sought after.
ZAPHOD: Not by me.
ARTHUR: What is an Algolian Zylbatburger anyway?
FORD: They’re a kind of meatburger made from the most unpleasant parts of
a creature well known for its total lack of any pleasant parts.
ARTHUR: So you mean that the Universe does actually end not with a bang but with a Wimpy?
GARKBIT: Believe me, sir, the Universe ends with a very big bang indeed, and the food here is the ultimate gastronomic experience.
FORD: Yes, but is it good?
ARTHUR: But look, surely, if the Universe is about to end here and now, don’t we go with it?
FORD: No look, as soon as you come into this dive I think you get held in this sort of amazing force shielded temporal warp thing. Look I’ll show you. Now imagine this napkin as the temporal universe, right, and this spoon as a transductional mode in the matter curve.
ARTHUR: That’s the spoon I was eating with.
FORD: All right, imagine this spoon is the transductional mode in the matter curve, no better still this fork . . .
ZAPHOD: Hey could you let go of my fork please?
FORD: Look, why don’t we say this wine glass is the temporal universe . . . so if I . . .
F/X: GLASS SMASHES ON FLOOR
FORD: Forget that, I mean, do you know how the Universe began for a kick off?
ARTHUR: Er, probably not.
FORD: All right, imagine this. You get a large round bath made of ebony . . .
ARTHUR: Where from? Harrods was destroyed by the Vogons.
FORD: Doesn’t matter . . .
ARTHUR: So you keep saying.
FORD: No listen, just imagine that you’ve got this ebony bath, OK? And it’s conical . . .
ARTHUR: Conical? What kind of . . .
FORD: Sshh . . . It’s conical. So what you do, you fill it with fine white sand, right, or sugar, anything like that . . . and when it’s full you pull the plug out and it all just twirls down out of the plug hole.
ARTHUR: Why?
FORD: But the thing is, the clever bit, is that you film it happening, you get a movie camera from somewhere and actually film it, but then you thread the film in the projector backwards . . .
ARTHUR: Backwards?
FORD: Yeah, neat you see, so what happens is you sit and watch it and then everything appears to spiral upwards out of the plug hole and fill the bath. See?
ARTHUR: And that’s how the Universe began?
FORD: No, but it’s a marvellous way to relax.
TRILLIAN: Funny man.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Original Radio Scripts Page 11