The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • "You'll need to have this fish in your ear."
  • The entire "whale and petunia falling to the planet" sequence.
    • "I wonder if it'll be friends with me?"
    • "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."
  • Arthur and Ford imprisoned in the Vogon ship.

Arthur: It's at times like this I wish I'd listened to what my mother told me.
Ford: Why, what did she tell you?
Arthur: I don't know, I didn't listen.

  • And of course the scene with Zaphod and the Total Perspective Vortex. "Hey, is that a piece of fairy cake?"
    • "If I told you how much I needed this," he said ravenously, "I wouldn't have time to eat it." He ate it.
  • Just the name 'Dr. Dan Streetmentioner'.
  • Oolon Coluphid's Trilogy of Philosophical Blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God person anyway?
    • Well that about wraps it up for God.
  • "They found only an old man who claimed that nothing was true, although he was later discovered to be lying".
  • "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't".
  • "Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."

Ford: That's beside the point! The point is that I'm turning into a "perfectly safe" penguin, and my colleague here is rapidly running out of limbs!
Arthur: Oh, that's all right, I've got them all back now...admittedly, they're a little longer than I'm used to.

  • Ford trying to retain his intellectuality and explain the universe while hammered!
  • BELGIUM!
  • This troper busted a gut twice in the Frogstar Scout Robot scene. First time:
  • scout robot whizzes past*

Zaphod: What was that?
Hitchiker: Frogstar scout robot class A looking for you.

  • larger scout robot whizzes past*

Zaphod: And that was...
Hitchiker: Frogstar scout robot class B looking for you.
Zaphod: And that?
Hitchiker: Frogstar scout robot class C looking for you.
Zaphod: Hey, pretty stupid robots eh?

  • gigantic tank-shaped robot rumbles into view and demolishes nearby building with its tracks*

Zaphod: Holy photon, what's that?

Hitchiker: A tank. Frogstar scout robot class D come to get you.

    • This bit becomes even funnier in the radio version, where it's revealed that the scout robots actually knew Zaphod was there, and called the Frogstar tank to get him.
    • Second time: Marvin has been left alone with no weapons to deal with this tank-robot. After a long guessing game in which the tank tries to discover what they've armed Marvin with to stop him, he finds out they didn't give him anything.

Marvin: I'll tell you what they gave me to protect myself with shall I?
Tank: Yes, alright.
Marvin: Nothing.
Tank (angrily): Nothing?
Marvin: Nothing at all, not an electronic sausage.

      • The tank, after ranting some more, decides to take out his anger:

Tank: I think I'll smash the wall down! *does so* I think I'll shoot down their bloody ceiling as well! *does so*
Marvin: That's very impressive.
Tank: You ain't seen nothing yet, I'll take out this floor too, no trouble! *does so and falls down*
Tank: Hell's bells! *smashes itself to bits on the ground fifteen stories below*
Marvin: What a depressingly stupid machine.

  • "For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."


Specific to the books

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

  • Oh sweet Jesus, everything. Just in the first few pages there's the bit about the word 'bulldozer' going through Arthur's head, Arthur in the mud, Genghis Khan, putting a bag over your head when the world is ending . . . trying to describe it all would barely be shorter than simply posting the entire thing.
  • The foreman in the first book, who is distantly descended from Genghis Khan and repeatedly has urges to go tearing around the countryside doing the standard maim pillage burn routine.

"...with two large axes crossed over the front door. His wife wanted hanging roses, but he wanted axes. He didn't know why, he just liked axes."

  • I've always been partial to this little bit of dialogue, partly because it's a fantastic commentary on the human condition, but mostly because it causes me to gasp for air anytime I hear it. It's delivered absolutely perfectly in the television version.

"I'd rather be happy than right."
"And are you?"
"No. That's where it all falls down, of course."

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

  • In the second book, The Heart of Gold was being attacked by a Vogon ship and they couldn't move because the ship computer was too busy trying to make tea. The force-shield started blistering and cracking under the sudden, unexpected attack. Ford thought it would probably hold for about four minutes...

"Three minutes and fifty seconds," he said a short while later.
"Forty-five seconds," he added at the appropriate time. He flicked idly at some useless switches, then gave Arthur an unfriendly look.
"Dying for a cup of tea, eh?" he said. "Three minutes and forty seconds."
"Will you stop counting!" snarled Zaphod.
"Yes," said Ford Prefect, "In three minutes and thirty-five seconds."

    • The original version of that exchange (in the radio program) was also hilarious:

Arthur: I'm sorry, it's just that I was dying for a cup of tea!
Zaphod: You soon will be, baby!

  • The Dangers Of Teleportation

I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.

  • The first thing that hit their eyes was what appeared to be a coffin. [pause] And the next four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine things that hit their eyes were also coffins.

Life, the Universe and Everything

  • I found the whole "Eddies in the space-time continuum." confusion to be hilarious, for some reason.
    • I found Ford's elaboration on his temporary madness right before it even better.

Arthur: I thought you must be dead...
Ford: So did I for a while, and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. I kept myself amused all that time jumping in and out of a gin and tonic.
Arthur: Where did you...?
Ford: Find a gin and tonic? I found a small lake that thought it was a gin and tonic, and jumped in and out of that. At least, I think it thought it was a gin and tonic. I may have been imagining it.

  • "There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
  • "...except for your sudden obsession with whelks."
  • The entire Agrajag sequence is quite possibly the funniest segment ever put to prose.
    • Not to mention the fact that it is the punch line of the funniest Brick Joke in literature.

So Long & Thanks for All the Fish

Mostly Harmless

  • Arthur and Ford catching up in the woods. The entire scene.
  • Ford delibrately running up huge expenses as a restaurant critic, culminating in trying to charge the purchase of London Zoo and the entire hotel he is staying in to room service.

And Another Thing

  • Whatever else you may have to say about And Another Thing, most of the business with the cows desperate to be eaten were pretty funny, especially the "I'll track down your entire family and not eat them!" bit.


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