All The Tropes

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series): Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series) (view source)

Revision as of 04:56, 8 August 2014

28 bytes removed ,  9 years ago
m
revise quote template spacing
VisualWikitext
(restored header as text in first tropelist, added second tropelist)
m (revise quote template spacing)
Line 12:
* [[Deadly Euphemism]]: Played with.
** Slartibartfast threatens Arthur that, unless Arthur comes with him promptly, he will be late -- as in "the late [[The Name Is Bond, James Bond|Dent Arthur Dent]]".
{{quote| "[[Don't Explain the Joke|It's a sort of threat, you see...]]"}}
** Hig Hurtenflurst explains his use of "revoked" to Arthur by spelling it out as "k-i-l-l-e-d". A subsequent episode reveals that this is part of a larger legal wrangle where (for various reasons) the representatives of a cloning agency were trying to get murder redefined in law. They'd managed to have the word legally changed, but not the spelling.
* [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming]]: Fit the First, Fit the Second, etc. This is a reference to [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[The Hunting of the Snark]]''.
** [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming|Idiosyncratic Season Naming]]: Primary Phase, Secondary Phase, etc.
* [[I Need a Freaking Drink]]: When it's established that (due to the effects of the Infinite Improbability Drive) Ford and Trillian are the only two members of the core cast who haven't coincidentally met before:
{{quote| '''Zaphod''': Oh, god. ''[rapidly]'' Ford, this is Trillian, Hi. Trillian, this is my semi-cousin Ford who shares three of the same mothers as me. Hi. ''[...]'' Zaphod Beeblebrox, this is a very large drink. ''Hi.''}}
* [[Large Ham]]: Zaphod, played by Mark Wing-Davey, was written as such [[Typecasting|specifically because he was played by Mark Wing-Davey.]]
* [[Message in a Bottle]]: Arthur and Ford are stranded on prehistoric Earth, and attempt to attract the attention of a passing spaceship by waving a towel at it. A volcano then erupts, covering the towel with lava. When the Earth is blown up six million years later, the now-fossilized towel gets launched into space and found by Zaphod Beeblebrox in the spaceship Heart Of Gold, who travels back in time and rescues them. Things like this tend to happen whenever you use the Heart Of Gold's "Infinite Improbability" drive.
Line 25:
* [[Shaped Like Itself]]: Zaphod and Ford find themselves in a cave made out of marble, very slippery marble. Zaphod tries to compare it to the slipperiest thing Ford can think of. Unfortunately, the slipperiest thing Ford can think of is the marble, leading to the statement "This marble is as slippery as this marble."
* [[Unstable Genetic Code]]:
{{quote| ''The Haggunenons of Vicissitus Three have the most impatient chromosomes of any life form in the Galaxy. Whereas most races are content to evolve slowly and carefully over thousands of generations, discarding a prehensile toe here, nervously hazarding another nostril there, the Haggunenons would do for Charles Darwin what a squadron of Arcturan stunt apples would have done for Sir Isaac Newton. Their genetic structure, based on the quadruple sterated octohelix, is so chronically unstable that, far from passing their basic shape onto their children, they will quite frequently evolve several times over lunch.'' }}
* [[What Does This Button Do?]]: Lampshaded.
{{quote| '''Arthur Dent''': What happens if I press this button?<br />
'''Ford Prefect''': I wouldn't--<br />
'''Arthur Dent''': Oh.<br />
'''Ford Prefect''': What happened?<br />
'''Arthur Dent''': A sign lit up, saying "Please do not press this button again." }}
 
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1095979"