F/X: BACKGROUND ATMOSPHERE OF WIDE OPEN SPACES, A LITTLE WIND, A FEW BITS OF BIRDSONG, SOME MONKEYS CHATTERING
FADE UP OVER F/X SOUND OF A CONFUSION OF VOICES ALL TALKING TOGETHER
CAPTAIN: (Over it all) All right, I’d like to call this meeting to some sort of order if that’s at all possible
HAIRDRESSER: Care for a light trim, sir?
CAPTAIN: Not now, I’m in the bath.
FORD: Hey come on, shut up everybody, there’s some important news, we’ve made a discovery.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: Is it on the agenda?
FORD: Oh don’t give me that.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: Well, I’m sorry, but speaking as a fully trained management consultant I must insist on the importance of observing the committee structure . . .
FORD: On a prehistoric planet . . . !
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: Address the chair!
FORD: There isn’t a chair, there’s only a rock.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: Well, call it a chair.
FORD: Why not call it a rock?
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: You obviously have no conception of modern business methods.
FORD: And you have no conception of where the hell you are!
MARKETING GIRL: Look, shut up you two, I want to table a motion.
HAIRDRESSER: Boulder a motion you mean.
FORD: Thank you, I’ve made that point. Now, listen . . .
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: Order, order!
FORD: Oh God.
CAPTAIN: I would like to call to order the five hundred and seventy-third meeting of the colonization committee of the planet of Fintlewoodlewix . . .
FORD: Oh this is futile. Five hundred and seventy-three committee meetings and you haven’t even discovered fire yet.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: If you would care to look at the agenda sheet.
HAIRDRESSER: (Beginning to enjoy himself) Agenda rock . . .
FORD: Go and back comb something will you?
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: . . .you will see that we are about to have a report from the hairdresser’s fire development sub-committee today.
HAIRDRESSER: That’s me.
FORD: Yeah, well you know what they’ve done don’t you? You gave them a couple of sticks and they’ve developed them into a pair of bloody scissors. You’re going to die out, you know that?
MARKETING GIRL: Well, you’re obviously being totally naïve of course. When you’ve been in marketing as long as I have you’ll know that before any new product can be developed it has to be properly researched. We’ve got to find out what people want from fire, how they relate to it, the image it . . .
FORD: Oh stick it up your nose.
MARKETING GIRL: Which is precisely the sort of thing we need to know. Do people want fire that can be fitted nasally?
CAPTAIN: And the wheel, what about this wheel thing? It sounds a terribly interesting project.
MARKETING GIRL: Ah, well we’re having a little difficulty there.
FORD: Difficulty! It’s the single simplest machine in the entire Universe!
MARKETING GIRL: All right Mr Wiseguy, if you’re so clever, you tell us what colour it should be.
FORD: Oh, almighty Zarquon, has no one done anything? Well?
NUMBER TWO: I have declared war on the next continent.
FORD: Declared war! There’s no one even living there!
NUMBER TWO: Yes, but there will be one day, so we’ve left a sort of open-ended ultimatum.
FORD: What?
NUMBER TWO: And blown up a few military installations.
CAPTAIN: Military installations, Number Two?
NUMBER TWO: Yes sir, well, potential military installations. All right, trees. And we interrogated a gazelle.
(Slightly embarrassed pause)
MARKETING GIRL: And of course Finlon the producer has rescued a camera from the wreckage girl of the ship and is making a fascinating documentary on the indigenous cavemen of the area . . .
FORD: Yes, and they’re dying out, have you noticed that?
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: Yes, we must make a note to stop selling them life insurance.
FORD: But don’t you understand? Just since we’ve arrived they’ve started dying out.
MARKETING GIRL: Yes and this comes over terribly well in the film he’s making.
MARKETING GIRL: I gather he wants to make a documentary about you next, captain . . .
CAPTAIN: Oh really? That’s awfully nice.
MARKETING GIRL: He’s got a very strong angle on it, you know, the burden of responsibility, the loneliness of command . . .
CAPTAIN: Ah, well I wouldn’t overstress that angle you know, one’s never alone with a rubber duck. Weeeee . . .
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: Er, Sir . . . Skipper . . .
F/X: HE SPLASHES ABOUT A BIT
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: If we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy . . .
FORD: Fiscal policy! How can you have money, if none of you actually produce anything – it doesn’t grow on trees you know.
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: If you would allow me to continue . . . since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt leaves as legal tender we have of course all become immensely rich . . .
ALL: (General murmuring of yes, very good, lovely etc . . .)
MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: . . . but we have also run into a small inflation problem on account of the consultant high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three major deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut. So in order to obviate this problem, and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on an extensive defoliation campaign and, er . . . burn down all the forests. I think that’s a sensible move, don’t you?
ALL: (General murmurs of agreement. Phrases like ‘Fiscally shrewd’, ‘Certainly makes economic sense’ and ‘Cut prices at a stroke’ ‘Increase the value of the leaf in your pocket’ etc . . .)
FORD: You’re absolutely barmy, you’re a bunch of raving nutters.
MARKETING GIRL: Is it perhaps in order to inquire what you’ve been doing all this time? You and that other interloper have been missing for months.
FORD: Yeah, well, with respect, we’ve been travelling around trying to find out something about this planet.
MARKETING GIRL: Well that doesn’t sound very productive. I thought you . . .
FORD: No, well have I got news for you. It doesn’t matter a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys what you all choose to do from now on, burn down the forests, anything, it won’t make a scrap of difference. Two million years you’ve got, and that’s it. At the end of that your race will be dead, gone and good riddance to you. Remember that, two million years.
CAPTAIN: Ah, just time for another bath. Pass me the sponge somebody . . .
(Fade)
F/X: FADE UP SAME BACKGROUND AS LAST SCENE. MEETING IS CONTINUING VERY FAINTLY IN THE BACKGROUND. IN THE FOREGROUND SOME CAVEMEN GRUNTING
ARTHUR: No, Q scores ten you see, and it’s on a triple word score, so . . . I’m sorry but I explained the rules . . . no, no, look please put down that jaw bone . . . all right, we’ll start again. And try to concentrate this time.
FORD: (Approaching wearily) Oh, what are you doing, Arthur?
ARTHUR: Trying to teach the cavemen to play Scrabble. It’s uphill work, the only word they know is grunt and they can’t spell it.
FORD: And would you please tell me what that is supposed to achieve?
ARTHUR: We’ve got to encourage them to evolve, Ford. Can you imagine what a world is going to be like that descends from those cretins over there?
FORD: We don’t have to imagine, let’s face it, we already know what it’s like, we’ve seen it, there’s no escape.
ARTHUR: Did you tell them what we’d discovered?
FORD: Slartibartfast’s signature on the glacier? No, what’s the point? Why should they listen? What’s it to them that this planet happens to be called the Earth?
ARTHUR: A
nd that it happens to be my original home.
FORD: Yes, but you won’t even be born for nearly two million years, so they’re likely to feel that it’s not a lot of your business. Face up to it Arthur, those zeebs over there are your ancestors, not these cavemen. Put the Scrabble away, it won’t save the human race because Mr Ugg here is not destined to be the human race. The human race is currently sitting round that rock over there making documentaries about themselves.
ARTHUR: But there must be something we can do . . .
FORD: No, nothing, really nothing, because it’s all been done. Listen, we’ve been backwards and forwards through time and ended up here, two million years behind where we started, but that doesn’t change the future, because we’ve seen it. Wise up kid, there’s nothing you can do to change it because it’s already happened.
ARTHUR: And all because we arrived here with the Golgafrinchams in their B Ark.
FORD: Yes.
CAVEMAN: Ugh ugh ugh grrrrrr ugh.
ARTHUR: Poor bloody caveman. It’s all been a bit of a waste of time for you hasn’t it? You’ve been out-evolved by a telephone sanitizer.
CAVEMAN: Ugh ugh ugh ugh greeeeerrrrr.
FORD: He’s pointing at the Scrabble Board.
ARTHUR: Oh, he’s probably spelt library with one ‘r’ again, poor bastard.
FORD: No he hasn’t.
ARTHUR: Hey, no look, it says forty two . . . The Experiment. It’s something to do with the computer programme to find the Ultimate Question.
FORD: Hey, you know what this means don’t you?
ARTHUR: What?
FORD: It must have gone wrong . . . If the computer matrix was set up to follow the evolution of the human race through from the cavemen, and then we’ve arrived and caused them to die out . . .
ARTHUR: And actually replaced them . . .
FORD: . . . then the whole thing is cocked up . . .
ARTHUR: So whatever it was that Marvin spotted in my brain wave patterns is in fact the wrong question.
FORD: Yeah. It might be right, but it’s probably wrong. If only we could find out what it is.
ARTHUR: Well how about . . . look, if it’s printed in my brain wave patterns but I don’t know how to reach it . . . supposing we introduce some random element which can be shaped by that pattern?
FORD: Like?
ARTHUR: Pulling out letters from the Scrabble bag.
FORD: Brilliant. That’s bloody brilliant.
ARTHUR: Right, first four letters . . .
FORD: W.H.A.T . . . . What.
ARTHUR: Two more . . .
FORD: D.O. . . . Do. It’s working. Hey this is terrific, it’s really coming. Y.O.U. . . . G.E.T. . . . What do you get . . .
ARTHUR: More here . . .
FORD: I.F. . . . YOU . . . MULTIPLY . . . I’m beginning to get sinking feelings about this . . . IF YOU MULTIPLY SIX . . . BY . . . BY . . . BY NINE? By nine. Is that it?
ARTHUR: That’s it. Six by nine. Forty two. Something’s certainly got screwed up somewhere. I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the Universe. So what do we do now?
FORD: I guess we just swallow our pride and go and join the human race.
ARTHUR: Yes.
CAVEMAN: Yuch!
ARTHUR: Right. Yuch!
F/X: FROM THIS POINT A LONG SLOW FADE ON THE DIALOGUE, WHILST THE BACKGROUND SOUNDS OF WIND EVENTUALLY RISE TO COVER IT
ARTHUR: It’s sad though. Just at the moment it is a very beautiful planet.
FORD: It is, it is indeed. The rich primal greens, the river snaking off into the distance, the burning trees . . .
ARTHUR: And in two million years, bang, it gets destroyed by the Vogons.
ARTHUR: What a life for a young planet to look forward to.
FORD: Well, better than some. I read of one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole, killed ten billion people.
ARTHUR: Mmm, total madness.
FORD: Yeah, only scored thirty points, too.
ARTHUR: Where did you read that?
FORD: Oh, a book.
ARTHUR: Which book was that?
FORD: The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
ARTHUR: Oh, that thing.
GRAMS: WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD, LOUIS ARMSTRONG
FOOTNOTES
This final programme in the first series was recorded on 28 February 1978.
The pressures of the final deadline were evident from the fact that we no longer had time for even the smallest large meal, and were forced to discuss the ideas for the show over a hurried pint in a pub round the corner from the BBC. (Where incidentally some years before Dylan Thomas was reputed to have accidentally left the manuscript of Under Milk Wood while under the influence of one too many Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters. It’s a pity we didn’t find it, since we could have used some of the ideas.)
Comic actor David Jason was cast as the Captain of the B Ark because at the time he was regularly protraying Dr David Owen (then Foreign Secretary and now leader of the SDP) on the satirical show Week Ending, where Dr Owen was constantly in a bath (for reasons that have become clouded, but not necessarily more amusing, in the mists of time).
Jonathan Cecil played his Number One, while Aubrey Woods was his Number Two and the Hairdresser. Beth Porter was cast as the Marketing Girl, after seeing her in the television show Rock Follies (and the same show also featured Simon Jones and provided the spur for casting Stephen Moore as Marvin since in it Stephen Moore played the almost terminally depressed boyfriend of one of the lead characters).
The various ghastly roars of the Haggunenon were made by recording someone shouting and then simply slowing their voice down and adding the traditional pinch of echo. The effects directions on page 124 are clearly nonsense. It shows a typical perversity that with an incredibly tight script deadline large amounts of time still went into writing things that had nothing to do with what would actually be heard on the radio!
The line ‘Pas de problème’ was ad libbed by Mark during the recording and when questioned about it came up with a rather quaint little theory about Zaphod’s second head speaking French. This idea was never subsequently developed, but here it is anyway in case anyone else would like to develop it (and risk the harsh and savage retribution from Douglas’ lawyer that would inevitably follow).
The line ‘A chance? As far as I can see you might as well lower haystacks off the boatdeck of the Lusitania’ was probably thought by all of us to be terribly clever at the time but Douglas no longer has the faintest idea what it means.
The B Ark scene in fact pre-dated everything in Hitch-Hiker’s, having originally been written for a Ringo Starr show some years before which never got made. The comic possibilities of telephone sanitizers had also been touched on before by Douglas in a sketch called The Telephone Sanitizers of Navarone’ in which a group of heroic telephone sanitizers heroically stormed the castle simply in order to clean their phones.
Interestingly we received several letters from telephone sanitizers saying they resented being singled out for attack but congratulating us for having a go at those dreadful management consultants. Curiously we also received some letters from management consultants complaining about our attack on them but thanking us for lampooning telephone sanitizers.
Tired TV Directors was a mis-print for Tri-D but we left it in because we thought there should be some tired TV Directors on the B Ark anyway.
The Captain’s duck was subsequently to find itself on the cover of the second Hitch-Hikers album. The bare legs that accompany it in the bath on that cover incidentally belong to Stephen Moore and the plastic duck itself now belongs to Douglas Adams. The duck motif was carried beyond logical extemes when, to publicize the album, a dozen live ducks were placed in the window of the HMV Record Shop in Oxford St, where they wandered around unhappily until the record company removed them under the possible threat of prosecution from the RSPCA.
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Some would-be clever people wrote in to point out that six times nine actually equals fifty four and didn’t we know how to do elementary mathematics? Some would-be even cleverer people wrote in to point out that six times nine does indeed equal forty-two if calculated in base thirteen. (What no one so far has spotted is that if you play a part of one of the episodes backwards you’ll hear Bob Dylan explaining just what’s gone wrong with Paul McCartney’s career.)
Douglas was obsessed by the fact that the last scene should sound like a cinematic pull back from the figures of Ford and Arthur until they disappeared completely from view. He demonstrated this theory with much waving around of his arms and knocking over of tea cups. Not having any actual cameras to pull back with we finally overcame the problem by bringing the wind up a bit.
Music Details
Oxygene by Jean Michel Jarre
(Used in the opening speech and the escape capsule speech)
Volumina by Ligeti
(Used in the Haggunenon speech)
Volkstanz from the LP Einsteig by Gruppe Between
(Used in the Circling Poets of Arium speech)
FIT THE SEVENTH
The show that began with the end of the world continues with Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect stranded on prehistoric Earth, and Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin thoroughly devoured by a carbon-copy of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
GRAMS: JOURNEY OF THE SORCERER STARTS
NARRATOR: There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable.
GRAMS: PEAK MUSIC ON ENTRY OF BASS
NARRATOR: There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
GRAMS: PEAK MUSIC AGAIN
NARRATOR: There is yet a third theory which suggests that both of the first two theories were concocted by a wily editor of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in order to increase the level of universal uncertainty and paranoia and so boost the sales of the Guide. This last theory is of course the most convincing, because The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the only book in the whole of the known Universe to have the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on the cover.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Original Radio Scripts Page 15