The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Difference between revisions

The books, in order, are:

 

* ''[[Young Zaphod Plays It Safe]]'' (short story)

 

 

The series has also been adapted into stage shows, albums, comic books, and even a version printed on [[In Joke|a towel]]. There is also a website, created by Adams himself and originally run by the BBC, called [http://www.h2g2.com H2G2].

 

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=== This whole bunch of stuff provides examples of: ===

* [[Alternate Continuity]]: The official stance by fans is that the franchise has no canon, only suggestions. Each of the various formats the franchise covers (radio, novels, TV series, game, movie, etc.) directly contradicts all the others.

** Played with in the radio series: {{spoiler|"Many stories are told of Zaphod Beeblebrox's journey to the Frogstar. Ten percent of them are ninety-five percent true, fourteen percent of them are sixty-five percent true, thirty-five percent of them are only five percent true, and all the rest of them are told by Zaphod Beeblebrox"}}.

* [[Applied Phlebotinum]]

* [[Arc Number]]: 42. See also [[Memetic Number]] below.

* [[Fictional Colour]]: Hooloovoo is a supersmart shade of blue. And by "supersmart", we mean "sentient and intelligent."

* [[Fish Out of Water]]

** The part on Bartledan literature is foreshadowing on the use of foreshadowing in ''Mostly Harmless''. In the book Arthur reads, the main character dies of thirst just before the last chapter, because of some problem with the plumbing that is only referenced once at the beginning of the book. Arthur finds this exasperating. Of course, {{spoiler|the few clues that explain the [[Bolivian Army Ending]] are hidden the same way in Mostly Harmless. The reader finds this exasperating.}}

** The demolition of Arthur's house due to a huge bureaucratic cockup foreshadows Earth's fate.

*** Well, the partygoers were drunk and had the expertise to make the building do so.

*** And, as the book points out, the problem with a party that never ends is that all those things that only seem like good ideas at parties keep on seeming like good ideas...

* [[I Would Say If I Could Say]]

* [[The Jimmy Hart Version]]: Of "Tunnel of Love" by Dire Straits, in the radio adaptation of SLaTfAtF.

** The theme on the TV series and record albums is a BBC-re-orchestrated edition of the Eagles' "Journey Of The Sorceror."

* [[Just Ignore It]]: The Ravenous Blugbatter Beast of Traal.

* [[Large Ham]]: In most versions featuring audio of some sort, Zaphod is often played as a fresh large ham.

** The print version pretty much portray Zaphod this way as well. It's even more obvious when you know that when Douglas Adams wrote the original radio play, he based the character of Zaphod on similar characters played by actor Mark Wing-Davey, who played Zaphod in the radio show and television series. [[Large Ham]] is a quintessential part of Zaphod's nature.

* [[Multi Boobage]]: Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon VI.

* [[Nobody Poops]]: Lampshaded in the new radio series adaptation of Life, The Universe, and Everything. "You know, in all this time I have never once [[Sound Effect Bleep|''flush'']]".

** He's also not manically depressed, despite multiple people (including himself) referring to him as a "manically depressed robot".

* [[Noodle Implements]]: Twice in the book series: Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged became that way due to an accident involving a particle accelerator, a liquid lunch, and a pair of rubber bands. The other was due to an incident with a time machine and a contraceptive, maybe

* [[Once for Yes Twice For No]]: Zaphod makes Eddie do this after gagging him.

* [[Only Known By Their Nickname]]: The name Ford Prefect was born with is long since lost in the mists of time. Apparently he couldn't pronounce his own given name, causing his father to die of shame. Before he adopted the Ford Prefect moniker, he was known by the nickname Ix.

* [[Only Sane Man]]: After being convinced the entire universe is insane, Wonko the Sane built an inside-out house and named it "Outside the Asylum". If the outside of the house is on the "inside", then everything on the outside is also on the "inside" and thus safely contained. (If you know topology, this makes absolutely perfect sense -- see, he told you he was sane.)

* [[Outsourcing Fate]]: To the real President of the Galaxy, a little old man in a shed in the middle of nowhere. All he's interested in is feeding his cat, but occasionally people stop round and ask him what he thinks about certain things.

* [[Pieces of God]]

* [[Power Perversion Potential]]: The Improbability Device

* [[Promoted to Love Interest]]: Trillian in the movie. In the novels, the relationship between Trillian and Arthur is somewhat schizoid -- Arthur had a chance with her at one point before she became involved with Zaphod, but they get [[Ship Tease|Ship Teased]] in ''Life, the Universe, and Everything'', get [[Ship Sinking|sunk]] in ''So Long and Thanks For All the Fish'' when Arthur hooks up with Fenchurch, and actually have a daughter together (via sperm bank) in ''Mostly Harmless''.

* [[Puff of Logic]]: The [[Trope Namer]].

** [[The Movie]] even gave the dolphins a musical number as an opener, complete with a beautiful view of them shooting into the skies like rockets.

* [[Sapient Ship]]: The spaceship Heart Of Gold is maintained by Eddie, a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation computer with a sickeningly cheerful and optimistic programmed personality. Other equally unlikable computers have been installed to run other functions on the ship as well, right down to automated doors run by programs that live for the chance to open and close for someone. At one point Zaphod discovered that Eddie had an emergency backup personality - unfortunately, it was worse.

* [[Science Is Wrong]]

* [[Sealed Evil in A Can]]: Krikkit

* [[Seekers]]: Most of the core cast, really.

* [[Seen It All]]: Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged.

{{quote| Ford: I think this ship is brand new!<br />

Arthur: Why? Do you have some kind of alien technology for measuring the age of metal?<br />

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: Firmly cynical, with a brief one-book excursion to visit the idealistic side.

* [[The Slow Path]]: One of the ways in which the universe keeps kicking Marvin in the teeth is that he keeps getting sent back in time but never forward, resulting in him just waiting around to intersect with the rest of the cast again. {{spoiler|By the end of his life he is more than 37 times older than the universe itself}}

* [[Something Completely Different]]/[[Out of Genre Experience]]/[[Mood Whiplash]]: ''So Long And Thanks For All The Fish'' is radically different in story and tone from the other books in the series.

* [[Sound Effect Bleep]]: In the radio version of ''Life, The Universe And Everything'', "Most Gratuitous Use of the Word * engine roar* in a Serious Screenplay".

** He also talks a tank and a ''bridge'' to death.

*** Although the tank is a subversion, since he actually tricks it into sending itself plunging to its' doom, rather than making it suicidally depressed. The bridge, however, appears to have been intentional.

* [[Ted Baxter]]: Zaphod.

* [[Terrain Sculpting]]: Slartibartfast once won an award for his work on the fjords in Norway.

* [[Terminator Twosome]]: ''Mostly Harmless''. On the good side, Ford and Arthur. On the evil side, the Guide Mk II.

* [[Theory of Narrative Causality]]: Justified in-universe, first with the Infinite Improbability Drive, then the Mk II Guide's reverse temporal engineering.

* [[Think Nothing of It]]: Zaphod takes this literally.

* [[Thirteen Is Unlucky]]: The evil Guide-bird was kept on floor thirteen.

** It should be noted that the Guide itself doesn't even bother with the tenses, and simply mentions that they don't use the future perfect tense, [[Incredibly Lame Pun|because it was found not to be]].

*** The text gives some examples of the usage of the entirely correct tenses, for about one paragraph, following mentioning the book by Dr. Streetmentioner, and stopping before the note about dropping the 'future perfect' tense.

* [[Too Soon]]: An in-universe Too Soon: the sheer tastelessness of a genocidal war being reduced to an entertaining British ball game has caused most of the galaxy to shun humanity.

** Also, [[The BBC]] provided a content warning when the episode involving the air attack on the Guide offices (a giant H-shaped skyscraper) was aired shortly after 9/11 - to their credit they didn't postpone the broadcast altogether.

* [[Translator Microbes]]: Lampshaded with the Babel Fish.

* [[Tricksters]]: Zaphod and, to a lesser degree, Ford.

* [[Weirdness Censor]]: The "Somebody Else's Problem" field, which makes people dismiss anything unusual as "somebody else's problem". Much easier (and more power-efficient) that real [[Invisibility]].

* [[Weirdness Magnet]]: The luckless Arthur; more literally, the Infinite Improbability Drive, which ''creates'' weirdness.

* [[Widget Series]]: A Western example.

* [[The Wonka]]: Ford Prefect.

[[Category:index]]

[[Category:The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy]]