The New Hitchhiker Radio Scripts
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
NARRATOR: What does the future hold for our heroes now? What does the past or present hold for that matter?
Will Arthur Dent now embark on a terrible and protracted vendetta against Zaphod Beeblebrox? Will he be all right alone in the universe with only the Infinite Improbability Drive Ship, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Lintilla the archaeologist, Eddie the shipboard computer, a lot of chatty doors, and a battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for company?
Who will Ford Prefect ally himself with -- Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox, or a large Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
Will there ever be another series of that wholely remarkable and mystifying entity The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? . . . Find out if you can!*
My goal: six new episodes (or "fits") of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series. The rules are very simple:
Narrator: Several interesting things have been happening. First, Earth was demolished, ostensibly to make way for a hyperspace bypass, but actually so that its function, to discover the meaning of life, would never be fulfilled. There are two survivors: Arthur Dent, a worried man with for a friend a hitch-hiking Betelgeusan, called Ford Prefect, who is working on updating that remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The other is Tricia MacMillan, who was beamed off Earth six months earlier by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the on-the-lam three-armed, two-headed ex-President of the galaxy. Zaphod had stolen a ship which used an Infinite Improbability Drive to get around. It comes with an annoying computer named Eddie and an even more annoying, and much more depressed, robot named Marvin.
Anyway, Arthur has subsequently met a woman named Lintilla, and Zaphod has met a man named Zarniwoop. Zarniwoop has taken them all to the home -- a shack -- of the Man who Rules the Universe, while Lintilla stayed onboard the ship. She is expecting that the others were having a deep discussion with the Man who Rules the Universe, she is expecting that the others will be onboard the ship within the week, and she is expecting that Arthur Dent will not suddenly board the ship and start banging his head against the wall. She is wrong on all three counts.
FX - ARTHUR BANGING HIS HEAD AGAINST A WALL
LINTILLA: Arthur! What's going on?
ARTHUR:(furious) Computer!
EDDIE the COMPUTER(cheerful) Hi there!
ARTHUR: Just take off and head, oh I don't know, go to Earth! (under breath) Or where it would be if it hadn't been for that ...
E the C: Sure thing!
FX - ENGINES STARTING
LINTILLA:(same as above) Arthur! What's going on?
ARTHUR: It's Zaphod who ordered the destruction of my homeworld! That miserable -- when I get my hands on his necks --
LINTILLA: Calm down, Arthur, it cant't be as bad as all that!
ARTHUR:(Quite obviously, he is hopping mad) Oh?? How would you know?? Has your planet been demolished??
LINTILLA:(quietly) Yes.
ARTHUR:(He sputters) Wh-what?
FX - SIX OTHER SHIPS
E the C: Hey, guys, there's six other ships coming here!
ARTHUR and LINTILLA:(nearly simultaneous) What!?
ARTHUR: Get us out of here!
FX - IMPROB. OUT
Will Arthur Dent now embark on a terrible and protracted vendetta against Zaphod Beeblebrox? Will he be all right alone in the universe with only the Infinite Improbability Drive Ship, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Lintilla the archaeologist, Eddie the shipboard computer, a lot of chatty doors, and a battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for company?
Who will Ford Prefect ally himself with -- Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox, or a large Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
Will there ever be another series of that wholely remarkable and mystifying entity The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? . . . Find out if you can!*
Well let's find out!
My goal: six new episodes (or "fits") of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series. The rules are very simple:
- Something must be done about Trillian, who was carried off and forcibly married to the President of the Algolian Chapter of the Galactic Rotary Club in Fit the Seventh.
Marvin can't ever be happy.
Follow the storyline from the radio series, not the books, and don't use stuff from the books unless absolutely necessary. (This includes The Missing Chapters of SLaTfAtF.)
The eventual plot must use the following: the messages in the weather, the Chinese meal with the guardian of the grubby red and white check table cloth, the river with a different attitude to time, and spider pornography.
Don't contradict anyone without a very good reason.
Not a rule, but here's some ideas I'd like to use:
- The Altair Gamelien 2, the Rafu Mindset, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's Y-Sphere, and the Ojoufoep Hypercube: four rivaling 16,777,216-bit game systems, satirising the Playstation 2, the Sega Dreamcast, the Microsoft X-Box, and the Nintendo Gamecube, respectively.
Trillian's husband (I'll call him Veet Astra) invites them all over and tries to give Marvin an emotion chip, which is almost immediately shot out of his hand.
The Return of Allitnil and Poodoo!
Galactic President Election: between Sask Fonweld and Forin X. Tree; screw-up and recount (satirizing Al Gore and George W. Bush, respectively).
Arthur and Lintilla each keep saving the other from certain death until either a) they get involved in some sort of romance, b) Marvin saves them both, or c) both of the above.
- (Very fast)"AUBAGHEMMAHUBADUMMAWUMBI!" "What??" "You heard me! Auba ghemma huba dumma wumbi!"
"Arthur, why are you looking at the Tri-D set like it's a three-month dead crab?" "Oh, is that what it is?"
"I have a bad feeling about this." "I have a bad feeliong we're next!" "I have a bad feeling in the diodes all down my left side."
"Holy Zarquon's singing fish! He does have singing fish!"
"Her nicname is Trillian. It's also a very big number." "You've spelt it wrong." "Sorry."
Fit the Thirteenth
In which Arthur makes off with the Infinite Improbability Drive Ship and Lintilla has some surprisesGRAMS - NARRATOR BACKGROUNDNarrator: Several interesting things have been happening. First, Earth was demolished, ostensibly to make way for a hyperspace bypass, but actually so that its function, to discover the meaning of life, would never be fulfilled. There are two survivors: Arthur Dent, a worried man with for a friend a hitch-hiking Betelgeusan, called Ford Prefect, who is working on updating that remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The other is Tricia MacMillan, who was beamed off Earth six months earlier by Zaphod Beeblebrox, the on-the-lam three-armed, two-headed ex-President of the galaxy. Zaphod had stolen a ship which used an Infinite Improbability Drive to get around. It comes with an annoying computer named Eddie and an even more annoying, and much more depressed, robot named Marvin.
Anyway, Arthur has subsequently met a woman named Lintilla, and Zaphod has met a man named Zarniwoop. Zarniwoop has taken them all to the home -- a shack -- of the Man who Rules the Universe, while Lintilla stayed onboard the ship. She is expecting that the others were having a deep discussion with the Man who Rules the Universe, she is expecting that the others will be onboard the ship within the week, and she is expecting that Arthur Dent will not suddenly board the ship and start banging his head against the wall. She is wrong on all three counts.
FX - ARTHUR BANGING HIS HEAD AGAINST A WALL
LINTILLA: Arthur! What's going on?
ARTHUR:(furious) Computer!
EDDIE the COMPUTER(cheerful) Hi there!
ARTHUR: Just take off and head, oh I don't know, go to Earth! (under breath) Or where it would be if it hadn't been for that ...
E the C: Sure thing!
FX - ENGINES STARTING
LINTILLA:(same as above) Arthur! What's going on?
ARTHUR: It's Zaphod who ordered the destruction of my homeworld! That miserable -- when I get my hands on his necks --
LINTILLA: Calm down, Arthur, it cant't be as bad as all that!
ARTHUR:(Quite obviously, he is hopping mad) Oh?? How would you know?? Has your planet been demolished??
LINTILLA:(quietly) Yes.
ARTHUR:(He sputters) Wh-what?
FX - SIX OTHER SHIPS
E the C: Hey, guys, there's six other ships coming here!
ARTHUR and LINTILLA:(nearly simultaneous) What!?
ARTHUR: Get us out of here!
FX - IMPROB. OUT
