junior radio producer himself, and felt, as he explained to me,
that, "Douglas was a talent without a niche. I'd encouraged him
to write for Weekending as he really didn't have any outlets for
his humour, but it wasn't his thing, it can be a restricting market.
Then I started The Burkiss Way for which he did a few sketches
- one was the Kamikaze Briefing, another was a parody of Von
Daniken, about the world being created by fluffy kittens in bow
ties singing `Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head'."
Brett had the wit to see that Douglas needed a show of his
own, rather than to try to cram his own strange talent into
someone else's format and on 4th February 1977 Douglas
travelled up from Dorset to see Simon, who wanted to know if he
had any ideas for a comedy show.
While Douglas had promoted the idea of a comedy science
fiction series to all manner of unimpressed television producers,
he had not even thought about it as a radio possibility, feeling
that radio was too conservative a medium ever to be interested in
science fiction. So, initially, the ideas he suggested to Simon were
very conservative. And then...
And then history differs. As far as Douglas remembers,
Simon Brett said, "Yes, those ideas are all very well, but what I
always wanted to do was a science fiction comedy." According to
Brett it was Douglas who suggested it, and he who agreed. It
doesn't much matter, really. The subject was broached, both were
enthusiastic, and Douglas went off to come up with an idea.
The initial idea was one that Douglas had had lying around
for a while: "It was about this guy's house being demolished and
then the Earth being demolished for the same reason. I decided to
do a series of six shows, each of which would deal with the
destruction of the Earth for a completely different reason.
"It was going to be called The Ends ofthe Earth. It's still not
a bad idea.
"But it was while I was tinkering with the story idea for the
first one that I thought, to give the story perspective there really
ought to be somebody on Earth who is an alien who knows
what's going on.
"Then I remembered this title I'd thought of while lying in a
field in Innsbruck in 1971 and thought, `OK, he's a roving
researcher for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. And the
more I thought about it, the more that seemed to be a promising
idea for a continuing story, as opposed to The Ends of the Earth,
which would have been a series of different stories."
Adams did a three-page outline for the first episode of The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with an additional page of
future plans for the show (as can be seen, almost nothing remains
the same from the arrival in the Vogon hold onwards) (see Appendix 1). The
outline, with the name `Aleric B' crossed out and the last-minute
replacement. `Arthur Dent', written in above it went to the BBC
programme development group. Douglas was lucky in having
two allies in the group: Simon Brett; and producer John
Simmonds, the chief producer, who was, although fairly
conservative, a big fan of Douglas's Kamikaze Briefing sketch for
The Burkiss Way.
****************************************
KAMIKAZE
FX WILD FLURRY OF FLAMENCO MUSIC
WHICH CONTINUES FOR SOME TIME.
VOICE: Japan 1945
FLAMENCO RESUMES.
Japan!
FLAMENCO MUSIC CONTINUES. WE
VAGUELY SEE THE NARRATOR GOING
INTO THE BAND AND, FOR INSTANCE,
ATTACKING THE PIANO. JAPANESE MUSIC
STARTS RELUCTANTLY AND STOPS VERY
SOON.
VOICE: Thank you. Japan 1945. The war was moving into
its final stage. The Japanese nation was in a desperate
situation... I didn't say stop the music. (HE GOES
BACK TO THE BAND AGAIN.) Now look, what
is it? Is it the money, come on. (FLAMENCO
STARTS AGAIN.) No, flamenco won't do! What
do you mean the chords are easier? Look, we've got
all these Japanese instruments for you, why don't
you play something on this lot? (QUICK
FLAMENCO RIFF ON JAPANESE
INSTRUMENTS.) Alright, we're going to have a
chat about this. You lot (characters now on stage)
carry on.
SET CONSISTS OF A BENCH IN A BRIEFING
ROOM ON WHICH SITS ONE KAMIKAZE
PILOT WITH HIS GEAR AND HEADBAND
ON. ON THE BENCH ARE LAID OUT THE
HEADBANDS OF MANY OTHER
PRESUMABLY DECEASED KAMIKAZE
PILOTS. A COMMANDER STANDS TO
ADDRESS THE `MEETING ON WHICH SITS
ONE KAMIKAZE PILOT WITH HIS GEAR
AND HEADBAND ON. ON THE BENCH
ARE LAID OUT THE HEADBANDS OF
MANY OTHER PRESUMABLY DECEASED
KAMIKAZE PILOTS. A COMMANDER
STANDS TO ADDRESS THE `MEETING'.
COMM: Now, you all know the purpose of this mission. It is
a kamikaze mission. Your sacred task is to destroy
the ships of the American fleet in the Pacific. This
will involve the deaths of each and everyone of you.
Including you.
PILOT: Me sir?
CoMM: Yes you. You are a kamikaze pilot?
PILOT: Yes sir.
COMM: What are you?
PILOT: A kamikaze pilot sir.
COMM: And what is your function as a kamikaze pilot?
PILoT: To lay down my life for the Emperor sir!
COMM: How many missions have you flown on?
PILOT: Nineteen sir.
COMM: Yes, I have the reports on your previous missions
here. (FLIPS THROUGH EACH ONE.) Let's see.
Couldn't find target, couldn't find target, got lost,
couldn't find target, forgot to take headband,
couldn't find target, couldn't find target, headband
slipped over eyes, couldn't find target, came back
with headache...
PILOT: Headband too tight sir.
COMM: Vertigo, couldn't find target all the rest, couldn't
find target. Now I don't think you've been looking
very hard.
PILOT: Yes I have sir, I've looked all over the place!
COMM: You see, it's not actually that difficult bearing in
mind that we do have a highly sophisticated
reconnaissance unit whose job it is to tell you where
to find the targets.
PILOT: Well, it's not always accurate sir, sometimes one can
search for hours and not see a single aircraft carrier.
COMM: Well, where exactly have you been looking for these
aircraft carriers?
PILOT: Er, well sir...
COMM: (FLIPPING THROUGH NOTES.)... I mean, I
notice for instance that you seem to have more or
less ignored the sea. I would have thought that the
sea was quite a promising area.
PILOT: Yes sir...
COMM: And that the airspace directly above Tokyo was not.
And another thing...
PILOT: Yes sir?
COMM: Skip the victory rolls.
PILOT: Sir, you're being unfair, I have flown over the sea lots
of times. I actually attacked an aircraft carrier once.
COMM: Ah yes, I have the details of
your `attack' here.
Mission nineteen. Let's see. Take off 0500 hours
proceeded to target area, nice start. Target spotted
0520 hours, good, climbed to a height of 6000ft,
prepared for attack, went into a power dive, and
successfully... landed on target.
PILOT: I had to go wee wees sir. Caught short. But I took off
again immediately sir. Good job too - one of our lads
crashed straight into it. Poor devil didn't stand a chance.
COMM: What?
PILOT: No sir - and that really got me upset, and I was
going to let `em really have it -I was going to whip
it straight out, fly in low and lob it straight through
the dining room porthole - that would have sorted
them out.
COMM: You were going to do what?
PILOT: Cut it straight out and let `em have it, whee splat
right in the middle of their breakfast. They'd have
known we meant business then alright sir.
COMM: What were you going to cut straight out and throw
into their breakfast?
PILOT: My stomach sir. Oh yes, I'd like to see the
expressions on their faces when the great squelchy
mass plummetted right into. . .
COMM: Wait. . . wait a moment, let me just get this clear in
my mind. You were going to cut out...
PILOT: My stomach, yes sir, kamikaze... (DOES HARA-
KIRI GESTURE.)
COMM: You were going to cut out your stomach and...
throw it at the enemy?
PILOT: Yes sir, straight at them.
COMM: Any particular reason?
PILOT: Die for the Emperor sir.
COMM: And what purpose would that serve?
PILOT: Make the enemy feel guilty sir.
*****************************************************************
The BBC approved the making of the pilot on 1st March 1977,
and by 4th April Douglas had finished the first script: it was
essentially the Hitchhiker's script that we know now - with a
couple of exceptions, the longest and most striking of which is
the `parallel universes' speech of Ford's (see pages 43-44), which
gives the gradually eroded rationale for Ford rescuing Arthur in
the first place. (Originally, it should be noted, he liked Arthur
and wanted to enlist him as a fellow reporter for the Guide; by
the time Douglas came to write the computer game, all Ford
wanted to do was return Arthur's towel and get out before the
planet was demolished.) There was also a much longer dialogue
between Arthur and Prosser, the Council representative, which
was wisely cut, as the style of humour owed more to Monty
Python than to Adams himself.
*************************************************************
PROSSER: But you found the notice, didn't you?
ARTHUR: Yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked
filingcabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign
on the door saying `Beware of the Leopard'. Ever
thought of going into advertising?
PROSSER: It's not as if it's a particularly nice house anyway.
ARTHUR: I happen rather to like it.
PROSSER: Mr Dent, you may choose to scoff at Local
Government.
ARTHUR: Me? I wasn't scoffing.
PROSSER: I said you may choose to scoff at Local
Government.
ARTHUR: Alright, maybe I was a bit.
PROSSER: May I continue?
ARTHUR: Yes alright.
PROSSER: You may choose to scoff at Local Government...
ARTHUR: Is this you continuing?
PROSSER: Yes! I said....
ARTHUR: Ah, I'm sorry, it's just that it sounded more like you
saying the same thing again.
PROSSER: Mr Dent!
ARTHUR: Hello? Yes?
PROSSER: Have you any idea how much damage that
bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight
over you?
ARTHUR: How much?
PROSSER: None at all.
- Hitchhiker's pilot radio script.
***************************************************************
From April to August there were a number of delays. The pilot
episode was made, but after that it was mainly a waiting game-
the waiting in question being caused by the upper echelons of the
BBC taking summer holidays, which meant that the committees,
bodies and groups who were to give the go-ahed to Hitchhiker's
were unavailable. This had the effect of driving Douglas half-mad,
and not paying him any money; it also had the effect of making
him send the pilot script to the script editor of Dr Who, to see if
any money might be forthcoming from that direction.
However, on the last day of August 1977, word came down
from the BBC hierarchy that the series of six episodes had been
commissioned. Simon Brett would not be producing it: he was
leaving the BBC to go to London Weekend Television as a
producer. He recommended that Geoffrey Perkins, the most
junior of the department's producers, be given the job. And
luckily for everybody concerned, he was. .
6
Radio, Radio
*****************************************************************
NARRATOR: On this particular Thursday, something was moving
quietly through the ionosphere miles above the
surface of the planet. Only two people on the
surface of the planet were aware of it. One was a
deaf and dumb lunatic in the Amazon basin who
now leapt off a fifty-foot cliff in horror, and the
other was Ford Prefect.
- Hitchhiker's pilot radio script.
*****************************************************************
One thing that everyone involved in the creation of Hitchhiker's
is clear on is how definite Douglas Adams was on what kind of
show it was he wanted: how it would sound, what it would be.
(Another thing they are clear on is that he had no idea where it
was all going). But he was sure that it would be full of ideas, full
of detail, experimental - a `sound collage', unlike anything done
on radio before. Epoch-making. A milestone in radio comedy.
But first he had to write it.
This was not to prove as easy as it may sound.
Douglas Adams's introduction to the radio scripts book
gives an impression of this time, a period that he described as "six
months of baths and peanut-butter sandwiches". Six months
spent at his mother's house in Dorset filling waste-paper baskets
with sheets of half-typed paper, of relentless self-editing, of
depression. He would leave notes around for himself to find with
messages such as:
"If you ever get the chance to do a proper, regular job... take
it."
"This is not an occupation for a healthy, growing lad" and
underneath those notes, other notes, reminding him:
"This is not written after a bad day. This is written after an
average day."
After producing the pilot, Simon Brett had gone to London
Weekend Television, leaving Geoffrey Perkins in control.
Perkins, a 25-year-old Oxford graduate, had been rescued from a
life in the shipping industry by an invitation to come and work in
radio, and was the most junior of th
e Light Entertainment
producers. He knew Douglas vaguely, mainly as an
"embarrassment to the BBC at the time", but was interested
enough in the show to make a pitch for it, and, slightly to his
surprise, he got it. Possibly because no one else had much idea of
what the show was about, nor how to do it.
Geoffrey himself had no idea how to go about producing
Hitchhiker's, but was relieved to discover, over a meal with
Douglas before the second show, that neither of them knew what
they were doing. This made things much easier.
Douglas, for his part, was nervous of changing producers so
soon. But if on that second show (their first) they were wary of
each other, they quickly discovered that, as far as putting the
show together went, their minds worked very much on the same
lines, complementing each other, and working well together.
They also became good friends.
Was there anything that Douglas had panicularly wanted to
say during the first series of Hitchhiker's? "I just wanted to do
stuff I thought was funny. But on the other hand, whatever I find
funny is going to be conditioned by what I think about, what my
concerns or preoccupations are. You may not set out to make a
point, but points probably come across because they tend to be
the things that preoccupy you, and therefore find a way into your
writing.
"I wanted to - I say this in the introduction to the script
book - I felt you could do a great deal more with sound than I
had heard being done of late. The people who were exploring and
exploiting where you could go with sound were people in the
rock world - The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and so on.
"I had the idea of scenes of sound. That there would never be
a moment at which the alien world would let up, that you would
be in it for half an hour. I'm not saying we necessarily achieved
that, but I think that what we achieved came about as a result of
striving after that.
"We did spend an awfully long time getting the effects right,
and the background atmosphere, and morchestrating all the little
effects - the way Marvin spoke, and all that kind of stuff. It was
taking so long we were continually having to steal studio time
from other shows and pretending we were actually doing far less
than we were: there was no way we could justify using that
amount of time (time doesn't actually equal money to the BBC,
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