One night in 1971 a 19 year old English hitchhiker named Douglas Adams lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria. He had with him a borrowed copy of Hitch Hiker's Guide to Europe by Ken Walsh. "... and when the stars came out it occurred to me that if only someone would write a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as well, then I for one would be off like a shot."
Seven years later he wrote it himself. After completing a BA in English Literature and working on various writing and performance projects (including Dr Who), Douglas started working on a science fiction/comedy radio series. Originally, he had the idea of writing a series called 'Ends of the Earth' in which the world was destroyed in various ways. However, as he began to write the first episode he introduced an alien named Ford Prefect and in a flash of inspiration decided that he should be a researcher for the fictitious Guide, and the series was renamed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The producer of the first episode was Simon Brett but he left and was succeeded by Geoffrey Perkins. "Douglas Adams knew from the start that he wanted to do something very different with the sound of the show. He wanted to apply the kind of production techniques used on, say, a Pink Floyd album to a radio show," reads an unattributed quote on the BBC website, probably by Geoffrey Perkins. Douglas recalled spending weeks in an underground studio with Geoffrey and the sound engineers, sometimes taking as long on a single sound effect as other people took on a whole series. Douglas later said, "... I felt that myself and the other people working on it... all created something that really felt groundbreaking at the time. Or rather, it felt like we were completely mad at the time." Geoffrey Perkins also commented, "Douglas went into it with a whole load of ideas but very little notion of what the story would be. He was writing it in an almost Dickensian mode of episodic weekly instalments without quite knowing how it would end."
The main character in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an Englishman named Arthur Dent, who wakes up one morning to discover that his house is about to be bulldozed by the local council to build a bypass. His problems rapidly increase, however, as he discovers that the entire Earth is about to be demolished by aliens called Vogons, ostensibly to make way for a hyperspatial express route. He escapes with help from his friend Ford Prefect and soon meets up with Ford's semi-cousin, two-headed three-armed ex-Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox, as well as an astrophysicist named Trillian (or Tricia McMillian) and a chronically depressed robot named Marvin. They all explore the universe in a stolen starship powered by an Infinite Improbability Drive, and learn the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything, only to be perplexed by what the actual question is.
One of the themes of the series is the importance of towels. "A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have... any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with," says the Guide. Douglas explained where the idea came from: "I was vacationing with friends in Greece some years back. Every morning they'd have to sit around and wait for me because I couldn't find my blessed towel... I came to feel that someone really together, one who was well organised, would always know where his towel is."
There were originally six episodes (or 'fits' as they were known) in the radio series, which were broadcast on 8 March, 15 March, 22 March, 29 March, 5 April and 12 April 1978. Douglas' friend John Lloyd co-wrote the fifth and sixth episodes. Later that year, a seventh episode was recorded and it was broadcast on 24 December. It became known as the 'Christmas episode' although it didn't contain any references to Christmas. In later replays of the radio shows and releases of recordings, it was bundled in with episodes from the second series.
Simon Jones played Arthur Dent, Geoffrey McGiven played Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey played Zaphod Beeblebrox, Susan Sheridan played Trillian, Stephen Moore played Marvin and the famous character actor Peter Jones was the voice of the Guide. Paddy Kingsland provided music and sound effects for the series, including the theme music, a reworking of 'The Journey of the Sorcerer' by The Eagles.
The show rapidly grew in popularity. It won three awards: the Imperial Tobacco Award in 1978, the Sony Award in 1979 and the Society of Authors/Pye Awards 'Best Programme for Young People' in 1980. It was also the only radio show ever to be nominated for the Hugo science fiction awards, in 1979, in the 'Dramatic Presentation' category.
An English publisher, Pan Books, became interested in the series and commissioned Douglas to write a book based on it. Like many writers, he suffered from writer's block and found it very difficult to get going: "After a lot of procrastination and hiding and inventing excuses and having baths, I managed to get about two thirds of it done." At this point he ended it as he had already passed many deadlines. It was an expanded version of the first four episodes of the radio series, with some changes. It was published in September 1979 and soon reached number one on the Sunday Times mass market best-seller list. Douglas was just 27 years old.
By 1984, 1,000,000 copies of the book had been sold and he received an award from his publisher, a 'Golden Pan'. The book was translated into a number of languages: Dutch, German, Hebrew, Finnish, French and Swedish. In 1996, it was selected by Waterstone's Books/Channel Four for their list of the 'One Hundred Greatest Books of the Century', at number 24.
In early 1980 Douglas Adams created another five radio episodes, continuing on from where the previous series had left off. They were again broadcast on BBC Radio 4, on January 13, 21, 22, 24 and 25. Unlike the first series, which had received no publicity, it was advertised on the front cover of Radio Times. Despite the name of the publication, it was almost unheard of for it to promote a radio series on its cover. The journalist Nicholas Wroe wrote, "It is possible to track the movement of Adams's life even between the first and second series of the radio show. In the first there were a lot of jokes about pubs and being without any money. The second had more jokes about expensive restaurants and accountants."
The first series had ended with the two main characters Arthur and Ford trapped on prehistoric Earth. Using Ford's towel they escape and rejoin the others on the starship. The listeners discover the real reason the Earth was destroyed, Zaphod finds out why he convinced himself to run for Galactic President and he, Arthur and Ford meet the real ruler of the universe.
Douglas wrote a second book titled The Restaurant at the end of the Universe which was published towards the end of 1980. It was based on episodes from both radio series: seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, five and six (in that order). The title refers to an extravagantly expensive restaurant that the characters visit in which they watch the universe explode for their pleasure (episode five of the radio series). That idea came from a song, 'Grand Hotel' by Procol Harlem. The book ends with the characters splitting up and Ford and Arthur being trapped on prehistoric Earth with a group of unwanted hairdressers, management consultants, telephone sanitizers etc from another planet (episode six of the radio series). The book was as successful as the first one. Douglas received another 'Golden Pan' award for it and it was translated into five foreign languages.
In January 1981 the BBC broadcast a television mini-series of six shows based on the first six episodes of the radio series. Alan Bell produced it while John Lloyd was the associate producer. Some of the actors from the radio series appeared on the television shows too. Arthur, Zaphod and the voice of the Guide were played by the same people. This time David Dixon played Ford Prefect, Sandra Dickinson played Trillian and David Learner and Stephen Moore played Marvin's body and voice respectively. Also appearing were Richard Vernon as the planet architect Slartibartfast, Peter Davison as a talking cow and Douglas Adams himself as a man who gives up on modern life and returns to the sea. Music was once again provided by Paddy Kingsland. The series won three BAFTA (British Association of Film and Television Arts) awards for 'Best TV Graphics', 'Best VTR Editing' and 'Best Sound'.
In 1982 Douglas' third book, Life, the Universe, and Everything, was simultaneously published in England and the USA. The book is mainly about Arthur and Ford, however, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin appear in it too. It has a strong cricket theme. In the book, Arthur and Ford escape from prehistoric Earth by jumping on a passing Chesterfield sofa and meet up with their friend Slartibartfast, vice president of the Campaign for Real Time. They travel around the universe searching for parts of the Wikket Gate to save the universe from destruction by robots from the planet Krikkit. By the end of the year the book and the previous two books were all on the New York Times and Publishers' Weekly bestseller lists. Douglas received another 'Golden Pan' award and the book was translated into six foreign languages.
Two years later Infocom, the computer game company, released a text adventure game based on the first Hitchhiker's book. Douglas developed the ideas and program flow while Infocom's Steve Meretzky did the coding. It was the company's first game based on a novel and was very successful, selling 350,000 copies and winning an award from Thames TV the following year. Its difficulty level is 'extreme' and it requires much lateral thinking. The game starts with the player taking on the role of Arthur Dent waking up just as a bulldozer arrives to demolish his house. The gameplay later diverges from the plot of the book and the player can take on the role of other characters. The game was written as a data file which could be read by an interpreter program. Interpreters were developed for a number of different computers: Acorn, Apple, Atari, Commodore, Gameboy, IBM PC (DOS, OS/2 and Windows), UNIX systems etc. Internet versions were also developed and can be found at www.douglasadams.com/creations/ infocomjava.html.
A fourth book, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish was published in late 1984. With typical humour Douglas still called the series a 'trilogy'. This time round, Arthur Dent arrives on a version of the Earth that dolphins have retrieved from another dimension to replace the one that has been destroyed. Most of the book is about Arthur's relationship with his new girlfriend Fenchurch rather than the wild and zany galactic adventures of the previous books. It ends with Arthur, Fenchurch, Ford and Marvin visiting another planet to view God's final message to his creation. Douglas wrote the book because he had been asked to but said a few years later, "... to be honest, I really shouldn't have written [it], and I felt that when I was writing it. I did the best I could, but it wasn't, you know, really from the heart."
Douglas took a break from Hitchhiker's to work on other things, but eventually wrote a fifth book in the 'trilogy', Mostly Harmless, which was published in 1992. In it we meet two versions of Trillian: one living on Earth in an alternative reality and one working as a time-travelling galactic reporter. Arthur wanders around the universe lost before settling down on a planet to make sandwiches, only to be confronted by a daughter whom he didn't know he had. Meanwhile, Ford attempts to stop the Vogons from using a corrupted version of the Guide to destroy all of the parallel Earths across the dimensions. The book has a sad ending. Douglas said of it: "... it was a bleak book. The reason for that is very simple - I was having a lousy year, for all sorts of personal reasons that I don't want to go into..."
In 1999, Douglas Adams and two friends, Robbie Stamp and Richard Creasey, set up the website 'H2G2'. (H2G2 is more or less an abbreviation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.) Their aim was to create a real-life version of the Guide. In February 2001 they handed over control of it to the BBC. It's now found at www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide. People all over the world can register as 'researchers' and write short articles ('entries') on different topics. Examples of existing topics are: 'Etiquette for Chess Spectators', 'Evil from a Western Perspective', 'Alaskan Fish Plants' and 'How Soap Works'.
To date, over 15 million copies of Douglas' books have been sold worldwide, including the Hitchhiker's 'trilogy' and five non-Hitchhiker books. Versions of Hitchhiker's have appeared in a number of other forms: record albums, a book of the radio scripts, stage adaptations, cassette recordings read by Stephen Moore and Douglas Adams, CDs, videos and DVDs of the TV shows, comics (including electronic versions) by DC Comics and even a bath towel.
When Douglas was asked by a fan club in 1998 the reason for the enduring appeal of Hitchhiker's he said, "Well, I don't know. All I know is that I worked very hard at it... I suspect that the amount that people have liked it is not unrelated to the amount of work I put into it." One reviewer, Christopher Cerf, said, "He seamlessly blended world-class intelligence - and a daunting knowledge about an impossible variety of subjects... - with transcendental silliness; technophobia with a lust for, and fascination with, every high tech toy imaginable; deep cynicism about virtually everything with an effusively joyful spirit; and one of the quickest wits on the planet with a relentless perfectionism in pursuing his craft." Douglas' friend Stephen Fry said, "Douglas has in common with certain rare artists... the ability to make the beholder feel that he is addressing them and them alone: I think this in part explains the immense strength and fervour of his 'fan base'..." A fan, James Cullen, said, "Hitchhiker's Guide has entered into the collective consciousness." What he liked most about the book was "the use of language to enable strangeness to seem quite possible and perhaps probable. There was a strong sense that it was founded in a real understanding of physics."
Sadly, Douglas Adams passed away on 11 May, 2001 following a sudden heart attack. He was 49 years old. He left behind his wife Jane and six year old daughter Polly. As news of his death spread around the world, thousands of people posted tributes on the message forum of his own website (www.douglasadams.com), his 'Personal Space' on H2G2 and on numerous other websites, e-mail lists, newsletters, newspapers, magazines etc. Fans suggested that a day be declared Towel Day in his honour, and May 25 was chosen, fairly arbitrarily. Memorial parties were held in a number of countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA.
Douglas had been working on a new novel at the time of his death, provisionally titled The Salmon of Doubt. He originally intended it to be one of his spoof detective novels, but decided that it wasn't working and considered using the material in a sixth Hitchhiker's book instead. That will never happen, however, some of Douglas' friends and associates put together a book titled The Salmon of Doubt which was published in 2002 as a posthumous tribute. It contains a biography, speeches and articles Douglas wrote on various topics, a short story he wrote about Zaphod and some of the material from drafts of his novel.
In September, 2004, a new radio series was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the UK. It was an adaptation of the remaining Hitchhiker's books, and featured most of the cast from the original radio series, but with William Franklyn replacing the late Peter Jones as the voice of the Guide. It was produced and directed by Dirk Maggs.
One form in which Hitchhiker's struggled for many years to appear in is film. Douglas travelled to Los Angeles in 1983 to write a script for one, based on the first book. He wrote many versions over the years, discussed the project with a number of people in Hollywood and tried hard to get it produced but without success. He moved to Santa Barbara with his family in 1999 and was working on the project at the time of his death. He once compared the process of having a Hollywood film made to "trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it." However, after his death, his former agent Ed Victor said, "Ironically since Douglas's death things have started to look better for the film because a lot of people like me have determined that this film must be made in some kind of honour to him..."
The film was finally released in April 2005. It was directed by Garth Jennings and stars Martin Freeman as Arthur, Sam Rockwell as Zaphod, Mos Def as Ford and Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. Warwick Davis wears Marvin's costume while Alan Rickman provides his voice. Stephen Fry is the voice of the Guide. Much of the material comes from the first book, however, there are also new characters and plotlines introduced and it has a happy ending. It was based on one of Douglas' scripts, with some changes made by Karey Kirkpatrick. The credits, of course, start with the words: 'FOR DOUGLAS'.