The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio series)
Encyclopedia
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy
Comic science fiction
Comic science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that exploits the genre's conventions for comic effect. Comic science fiction often mocks or satirizes standard SF conventions like alien invasion of Earth, interstellar travel, or futuristic technology....

 radio series written by Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

 (with some material in the first series provided by John Lloyd
John Lloyd (writer)
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...

). It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 in 1978, and afterwards on global short wave radio on the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...

, National Public Radio in the U.S. and CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...

 in Canada. The series was the first radio comedy programme to be produced in stereo, and was innovative in its use of music and sound effects, winning a number of awards.

The series follows the adventures of hapless Englishman
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 Arthur Dent
Arthur Dent
Arthur Philip Dent is a fictional character, the hapless protagonist and anti-hero in the comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....

 and his friend Ford Prefect
Ford Prefect (character)
Ford Prefect is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the British author Douglas Adams. He is the only character other than the protagonist, Arthur Dent, to appear throughout the entire Hitchhiker's saga.-Name:Although Ford had taken great care to blend into Earth...

, an alien who writes for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a pan-galactic encyclopedia and travel guide. After Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

 is destroyed in the first episode, Arthur and Ford find themselves aboard a stolen spaceship piloted by a motley crew
Motley crew
A motley crew is a cliché for a roughly organized assembly of characters. Typical examples of motley crews are pirates, Western posses, rag-tag mercenary bands or freedom fighters. They may align with, be , or include either the protagonist or the antagonist of the story.Motley crews are, by...

 including Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Zaphod Beeblebrox is a fictional character in the various versions of the humorous science fiction story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams who based him on his Cambridge contemporary, Johnny Simpson....

 (Ford's semi-cousin and Galactic President), the depressed robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

 Marvin
Marvin the Paranoid Android
Marvin, the Paranoid Android, is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold...

 and Trillian
Trillian (character)
Tricia McMillan, also known as Trillian Astra, is a fictional character from Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is most commonly referred to simply as "Trillian", a modification of her birth name, which she adopted because it sounded more "space-like". According to the...

, the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction.

A pilot programme was commissioned in March 1977, and was recorded by the end of the following June. A second series was commissioned in 1979, transmitted in 1980. Episodes of the first series were specially re-recorded for release on LP records and audio cassettes and Adams adapted the first series into a best-selling novel in 1979. After the 1980 transmissions of the second radio series, a second novel
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the second book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction trilogy of five by Douglas Adams. It was originally published by Pan Books as a paperback. The book was inspired by the song "Grand Hotel" by British rock band Procol Harum...

 was published and the first series was adapted for television
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy broadcast in January and February 1981 on BBC Two...

. This was followed in turn by three further novels, a computer game
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is an interactive fiction computer game based on the comedic science fiction series of the same name. It was designed by series creator Douglas Adams and Infocom's Steve Meretzky, and was first released in 1984 for the Apple II, Macintosh, Commodore 64, DOS,...

, and various other media formats
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...

.

Adams had considered writing a third radio series to be based on his novel Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by British writer Douglas Adams...

in 1993, but the project did not begin for another ten years until after Adams' death in May 2001. Dirk Maggs
Dirk Maggs
Dirk Maggs, a freelance writer and director working across all media, is principally known for his work in radio, where he evolved radio drama into "Audio Movies," a near-visual approach combining scripts, layered sound effects, cinematic music and cutting edge technology. He pioneered the use of...

, with whom Adams had discussed the new series, eventually directed and co-produced radio series adaptations of that novel, as well as So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" written by Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before it was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, as described in The...

and Mostly Harmless
Mostly Harmless
Mostly Harmless is a novel by Douglas Adams and the fifth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It is described on the cover of the first editions as "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers Trilogy"...

. These became the third, fourth and fifth radio series transmitted in 2004 and 2005.

Early development

Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

 had contributed comedy sketches for BBC radio programmes produced by Simon Brett
Simon Brett
Simon Brett is a prolific writer of whodunnits. The son of a chartered surveyor, he was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he got a first-class honours degree in English...

 (including The Burkiss Way
The Burkiss Way
The Burkiss Way was a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series broadcast from August 1976 to November 1980. It was written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, with additional material in early episodes by John Mason, Colin Bostock-Smith, Douglas Adams, John Lloyd and others. The show starred Denise...

and Week Ending
Week Ending
Week Ending... was a satirical radio current affairs sketch show, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, usually on Friday evenings. It was devised by writer/producers Simon Brett and David Hatch, and was originally hosted by Nationwide presenter Michael Barratt.The show's title was always announced as...

), and was asked to pitch a radio sitcom in February 1977. Adams initially pitched a "bedsit comedy" because that "seemed to be what most situation comedies tended to be about." Adams said in an interview that when Simon Brett proposed a radio science fiction comedy series, he "fell off his chair...because it was what I'd been fighting for all these years". Adams wrote his first outlines in February 1977.

Originally to be called The Ends of the Earth, each episode would have ended with the planet Earth meeting its demise in a different way. While writing the first episode, Adams realised that he needed a character who knew what was going to happen to Earth before the other characters. He decided to make this character an alien and, remembering an idea he supposedly had had while lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck
Innsbruck
- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...

, Austria in 1971, decided that this character would be a "roving reporter" for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Later recollections by his friends at the time indicate that Adams first spoke openly of the idea of "hitch-hiking
Hitchhiking
Hitchhiking is a means of transportation that is gained by asking people, usually strangers, for a ride in their automobile or other road vehicle to travel a distance that may either be short or long...

 around the galaxy" while on holiday in Greece in 1973.

As the first radio episode's writing progressed, the Guide became the central focus of his story, and he decided to base the whole series around it, with the initial destruction of Earth being the only hold-over from the "Ends of the Earth" proposal. In Adams' February 1977 outline, the character of Arthur Dent was initially called "Aleric B", the joke being that the audience initially assume the character is also an alien rather than a human. Adams later renamed the character for the pilot to "Arthur Dent". It has been proposed by Adams' biographer M. J. Simpson that the character was almost certainly named after the 17th century puritan writer Arthur Dent
Arthur Dent (Puritan)
Arthur Dent was the author of The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, first published in 1601. This was one of the two books that John Bunyan read before or during the four years of spiritual struggle that led eventually to his conversion, and his subsequent writing of Pilgrim's Progress. The other...

, author of The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven first published in 1601, although Adams himself claimed no recollection of consciously choosing the name.

Pilot and commissioning

A pilot episode was commissioned on 1 March 1977 and the recording was completed on 28 June 1977. Brett and Adams both later recounted different parts of the pilot episode's genesis, including convincing the BBC that such a programme could not be recorded with a studio audience, and insisting that the programme be recorded in stereo sound. To win this latter argument, Hitchhiker's was briefly classified internally as a drama instead of a comedy, as in 1977 BBC Radio Drama programmes were allowed to be recorded in stereo, and BBC Radio Comedy programmes were not.

A full series of six episodes (five new episodes, plus the pilot) was commissioned on 31 August 1977. However, Adams had in the meantime sent a copy of the Hitchhiker's pilot episode to the BBC's Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

production office, and was thus commissioned to write a four part Doctor Who serial ("The Pirate Planet
The Pirate Planet
The Pirate Planet is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 30 September to 21 October 1978. It forms the second serial of The Key to Time...

") a few weeks later. In addition, Simon Brett had left the BBC, and the final five episodes in the first series were produced by Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Howard Perkins was a comedy producer, writer and performer, and an important figure in British comedy broadcasting. This was recognised in December 2008 when he was awarded with an Outstanding Contribution to Comedy Award...

.

With conflicting writing commitments, Adams engaged his friend and flat-mate John Lloyd
John Lloyd (writer)
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...

 to assist in writing what became known as "Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth". Aside from the later Infocom computer game (and, arguably, the movie screenplay), this is the only co-writer credit in any form of the Hitchhiker's Guide. The second episode was produced in November 1977. The script of the last episode of the first series (which was later retitled "The Primary Phase") was completed in February 1978, and production (including sound mixing and effects) was completed on 3 March 1978.

Casting

Adams wrote both of the main parts of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect with actors Simon Jones
Simon Jones (actor)
Simon Jones is an English actor, most famous for his appearances in the television and radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role of Arthur Dent from 1978 to 2005...

 and Geoffrey McGivern
Geoffrey McGivern
Geoffrey McGivern is an English actor in film, radio, stage and television. He was born in Balham, South London and grew up in York. There he attended Archbishop Holgate's School, where he was made Head Boy...

 in mind. According to Jones, Adams telephoned him when he was writing the pilot to ask whether he would essentially play himself; Adams later stated that although Arthur Dent was not a portrayal of Simon Jones, he wrote the part to play to Jones's strengths as an actor.

The radio series (and the LP and TV versions) featured a narration by comedy actor Peter Jones
Peter Jones (actor)
Peter Jones was an English actor, screenwriter and broadcaster.-Early life and career:Jones was born in Wem, Shropshire and he was educated at the Wem Grammar School and Ellesmere College. He made his first appearance as an actor in Wolverhampton at the age of 16 and then appeared in repertory...

 as "The Book". He was cast after it was decided that a "Peter-Jonesy" sort of voice was required. This led to a three-month search for an actor with sonorous, avuncular tones who sounded exactly like Peter Jones, after which the producers eventually hired Peter Jones himself. Following another actor dropping out of the production, Bill Wallis
Bill Wallis
Bill Wallis is a British character actor and comedian who has appeared in numerous radio and television roles, as well as in the theatre....

 was called in at short notice to play two parts; Mr Prosser and Vogon Jeltz. One character appearing in the pilot who was dropped from subsequent incarnations of the story was Lady Cynthia, an aristocrat who helps demolish Dent's house, who was played by another ex-Cambridge Footlights actress, Jo Kendall
Jo Kendall
Jo Kendall is a British actress.She played Desdemona in a production of Othello at the A.D.C. Theatre, Cambridge in 1962.In August 1963 she appeared in the West End in London, New Zealand and Broadway, in the Cambridge University revue Cambridge Circus directed by Humphrey Barclay, alongside Graham...

.

The pilot only featured a small cast of characters, and following its commission into a series there was a need for additional characters. Many were picked for their roles in previous series, for example according to Adams, Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey
Mark Wing-Davey is a British actor and director.-Early life and career:The son of actor and actress Peter Davey and Anna Wing, Wing-Davey went to school at Woolverstone Hall School, before studying at Cambridge University where he was a member of the Footlights from 1967 to 1970.He had a featured...

 had played a character in The Glittering Prizes
The Glittering Prizes
The Glittering Prizes is a British television drama about the changing lives of a group of Cambridge students, starting in 1953 and following them through to middle age in the 1970s. It was first broadcast on BBC2 in 1976.-Cast:...

"who took advantage of people and was very trendy" making him suitable for the role of Zaphod. Meanwhile, Richard Vernon
Richard Vernon
Richard Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles...

, who was noted for his portrayal of "grandfatherly types", was chosen to be Slartibartfast. Other main characters included Susan Sheridan
Susan Sheridan
Susan Sheridan is a British actress. Her voice acting roles include Noddy in the Cosgrove Hall/BBC Television series Noddy's Toyland Adventures, Trillian in the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Princess Eilonwy in the animated film The Black Cauldron.She has also provided...

 as Trillian and Stephen Moore
Stephen Moore (actor)
Stephen Moore is an English actor, known for his work on British television since the 1980s. He is known for his appearances in Rock Follies and other TV series such as The Last Place on Earth, the children's series The Queen's Nose and the drama Mersey Beat and the British TV comedy series Solo,...

 as Marvin.

Plot

In the first series, Earthman Arthur Dent is going to have his house demolished to make way for a new road, but before work can start his friend Ford Prefect informs him that the world is going to be demolished by a Vogon
Vogon
The Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams, who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an intergalactic highway construction project. Vogons are slug-like but vaguely humanoid, are...

 constructor fleet "to make way for a hyperspace bypass" and that he is in fact an alien writer for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Hitching a ride aboard the Vogon ship which has just destroyed Earth, the pair eventually find themselves aboard a stolen spaceship called The Heart of Gold. Onboard is Ford's semi-cousin and President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, a woman Dent once met at a party called Trisha MacMillan (who has styled herself "Trillian") and a depressed robot called Marvin. Beeblebrox is searching for the mythical planet of Magrathea and the answer to the "Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything", which it turns out is "42". Dent and the others later find themselves at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and ultimately held captive aboard a Golgafrincham ship which is just about to crash-land on Prehistoric Earth.

In series two, Zaphod, wanted for stealing the Heart of Gold amongst other misdemeanors is attempting to contact the editor of The Guide while escaping mercenaries from Frogstar, "the most totally evil place in the Galaxy". Arthur and Ford are eventually rescued after being stranded on prehistoric Earth for years and eventually reunited aboard the Heart of Gold, where they are pursued by Vogons. Finding themselves on the planet of Brontitall, populated by a race of bird-people, they hear about the rudest word in the universe and the Shoe Event Horizon. Escaping from this planet using a 900-year old spaceship, the three eventually find themselves in the offices of the Guide editor, Zarniwoop, and we discover that it was Zaphod who accidentally signed off the Earth for destruction.

Production

One of Adams's stated goals was to be experimental in the use of sound. Being a fan of Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

 and The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 (and especially the experimental concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

s both bands produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s), Adams wanted the programme to have the feel of a "rock album...to convey the idea that you actually were on a spaceship or an alien planet — that sense of a huge aural landscape".

The first series was therefore the first BBC radio comedy to use stereophonic
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...

 techniques. Adams later said that before Hitchhiker's, stereo was deemed impossible for radio comedy and after it was made compulsory. Producer Geoffrey Perkins recalled that the technology available in 1978 for mixing sound effects at the BBC's Paris Theatre
Paris Theatre
The Paris Theatre was a former cinema located in Lower Regent Street, London, which was converted into a theatre by the BBC for radio broadcasts...

 radio studio was limited. The production had one eight track tape recorder
Multitrack recording
Multitrack recording is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole...

 at their disposal and so many of the effects in the programme were mixed "live" with tape loops of background sound effects strung around the recording studio. Actors whose speech needed to be modified in post-production by Radiophonic technicians, such as Stephen Moore's performance as Marvin the Android, were recorded in isolation from the main "humanoid" characters. Allegedly, Moore recorded most of his performance in a cupboard and only met the other actors after the first session was complete.

Sound and effects were created by Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggars Grammar School, Alton, in Hampshire, he joined the BBC as a tape editor before moving on to...

, Dick Mills
Dick Mills
Dick Mills is a British sound engineer, specialising in electronic sound effects which he produced at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop....

 and Harry Parker of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware...

. Several of the sound effects recorded by Dick Mills for the first series were released on the album BBC Sound Effects No. 26 - Sci-Fi Sound Effects
BBC Sound Effects No. 26 - Sci-Fi Sound Effects
BBC Sound Effects No. 26 - Sci-Fi Sound Effects was a 1981 compilation of sound effects and atmospheres created by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It was the second in the BBC Sound Effects series to be credited to the Workshop...

. Other BBC staff members who worked on the first two radio series included Alick Hale-Munro (chief sound engineer) and Anne Ling (production secretary) and the "Technical Team" is given as: Paul Hawdon, Lisa Braun (studio manager), Colin Duff (studio manager), Eric Young, Martha Knight, Max Alcock and John Whitehall.

The first radio series (first six episodes) was broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 in March and April, 1978. A seventh episode was broadcast on 24 December 1978. This seventh episode was commonly known as the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 Episode. This had nothing to do with Christmas except in an early draft (which would have had Marvin the Paranoid Android
Marvin the Paranoid Android
Marvin, the Paranoid Android, is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold...

 as the "star" that was followed by the Three Wise Men); it was called the Christmas Episode because it was first broadcast on Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...

.

Production on the second series was delayed several times. While Adams was meant to be working on scripts for a stage adaptation of Hitchhiker's in April 1979, he was also employed as the Script Editor for Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

and turned down an offer from John Lloyd to submit material for Not the Nine O'Clock News
Not the Nine O'Clock News
Not the Nine O'Clock News is a television comedy sketch show which was broadcast on BBC 2 from 1979 to 1982.Originally shown as a comedy "alternative" to the BBC Nine O'Clock News on BBC 1, it featured satirical sketches on current news stories and popular culture, as well as parody songs, comedy...

. The recording on the first day scheduled for the second radio series, 19 May 1979, was left incomplete because Adams had not yet finished the script. Further scheduled recordings on 11 July and 1 August of that year were also cancelled, this time due in part to Adams trying to work on the LP re-recordings of the first series, as well as its novelisation.

Further recording attempts were made on 23 October and 3 December. The recording of the final episode in the second series was completed on 13 January 1980: the audio mixing of the episode was not finished until 25 January, the day it was transmitted. The tape "arrived just a few minutes before transmission". The final five episodes, completing the second radio series, were broadcast in January 1980.

Music

The theme tune used for the radio series (and all subsequent adaptations) is "Journey of the Sorcerer", an instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....

 piece composed by Bernie Leadon
Bernie Leadon
Bernard Mathew "Bernie" Leadon, III is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the Eagles. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member of two pioneering and highly influential country rock bands, Dillard & Clark and the Flying Burrito Brothers...

 and recorded by The Eagles on their album One of These Nights
One of These Nights
One of These Nights is the fourth studio album by the Eagles, released in 1975. The record's title song became the group's second #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, in July of that year. The album released three Top 10 singles, "One Of These Nights", "Lyin' Eyes", and "Take It To The Limit". Those...

. Adams chose this song for its futuristic-sounding nature, but also for the fact that it had a banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 in it, which, as Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Perkins
Geoffrey Howard Perkins was a comedy producer, writer and performer, and an important figure in British comedy broadcasting. This was recognised in December 2008 when he was awarded with an Outstanding Contribution to Comedy Award...

 recalls, Adams said would give it an "on the road, hitch-hiking feel".

Adams also wanted to incorporate music from a variety of pop, rock and classical artists. Series one ("The Primary Phase") included an eclectic range of modern classical, experimental rock and electronic music. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts is a book, published in 1985, containing the scripts for the original radio series version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Text present in the original scripts but cut to meet time constraints is printed...

lists works including A Modern Mass for the Dead (Requiem) by György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

, A Rainbow in Curved Air
A Rainbow in Curved Air
A Rainbow in Curved Air is the third album by experimental music and classical minimalism pioneer Terry Riley. Through the use of overdubbing, the composer, a keyboard virtuoso, plays all the instruments on the title track: electric organ, electric harpsichord , dumbec , and tambourine...

by Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...

, Volumina by György Ligeti, Wind on Water by Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...

 and Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

, Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band by Terry Riley, Cachaca by Patrick Moraz
Patrick Moraz
Patrick Philippe Moraz is a progressive rock keyboard player. He is best known as the keyboardist for the progressive rock band Yes, from 1974 to 1976, and the Moody Blues from 1978 to 1991...

, Shine on You Crazy Diamond
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. The song is a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett, although it was not originally explicitly written with him in mind. It was first performed on their 1974 French...

(intro) by Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

, Rock and Roll Music
Rock and Roll Music
"Rock and Roll Music" is a song written and recorded by rock and roll icon Chuck Berry which became a hit single in 1957 and has been covered by many artists....

by The Beatles, Also sprach Zarathustra (intro) by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

, Katakomben by Gruppe Between, Space Theme by Stomu Yamashta
Stomu Yamashta
Stomu Yamashta Stomu Yamashta Stomu Yamashta (born is a Japanese percussionist, keyboardist and composer. He is sometimes credited as Stomu Yamash'ta. His father was the band director Kiyoharu Yamashita (1907–1991)....

, Oxygène
Oxygene
Oxygène is an album of instrumental electronic music composed, produced, and performed by the French composer Jean Michel Jarre. It was first released in France in December 1976, on Disques Dreyfus with license to Polydor. The album's international release was in summer 1977...

by Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...

, That's Entertainment
That's Entertainment! (song)
"That's Entertainment!" is a popular song with music written by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Howard Dietz. The song was published in 1952 and was written especially for the 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical film The Band Wagon...

by Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...

 and Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz
Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer.Schwartz supported his legal studies at New York University and postgraduate studies at Columbia University by playing piano before concentrating his talents on vaudeville, Broadway theatre and Hollywood.Among his Broadway musicals are The...

, Over Fire Island by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, Miracles of the Gods by Absolute Everywhere, Mikrophoniet by Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

, Melodien by György Ligeti, The Engulfed Cathedral by Isao Tomita
Isao Tomita
, often known simply as Tomita, is a Japanese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements...

, Volkstanz by Gruppe Between and What a Wonderful World
What a Wonderful World
"What a Wonderful World" is a song written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss. It was first recorded by Louis Armstrong and released as a single in 1968. Thiele and Weiss were both prominent in the music world . Armstrong's recording was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999...

by Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

.

This diverse range of music was only featured during the first series due to the difficulty in obtaining rights for commercial releases (leading to episodes of the first series being remade as an LP album without the proprietary background music in 1979). For series two Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggars Grammar School, Alton, in Hampshire, he joined the BBC as a tape editor before moving on to...

 was commissioned to provide background music and for the third to fifth series Paul 'Wix' Wickens
Paul Wickens
Paul "Wix" Wickens is a keyboardist and composer from Essex, United Kingdom. Wickens has worked with musicians such as Paul McCartney, Nik Kershaw, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bon Jovi and many other artists. Wickens has been a member of McCartney's touring band since 1989.-Career:Wickens began...

 was chosen.

International broadcasts and repeats

The series was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 10.30pm on Wednesday 8 March 1978. Simon Jones recalled that Adams was initially disappointed at the scheduling as the timeslot was allegedly guaranteed to turn a programme into a "cult" (i.e. a small but dedicated listenership). As it happened, the programme gained listeners through the lack of any competition elsewhere on television or radio, but primarily through word-of mouth; several Sunday newspapers included reviews and it was mentioned in Radio 4's Pick of the Week. As a result of its exposure through these reviews, the BBC received numerous requests for a repeat from people who had missed the initial episodes. A repeat of the series was broadcast on 23 April, only two weeks after the last episode had aired.

In the end, the complete first series was rebroadcast twice by the BBC in 1978 and once in 1979, as well as on the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...

. The complete second series was rebroadcast once in 1980, and the complete original run of 12 episodes was broadcast twice over a twelve-week period, once from April to June 1981 and the second time from the end of March to the start of June, 1983.

Broadcasting by National Public Radio in the United States followed in March 1981 with a repeat broadcast in September. This was one of their first transmissions in stereo. The following year, 1982, the series was carried by CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...

 (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

). A German radio version of the first six radio episodes, Per Anhalter ins All was transmitted in 1981 and the twelve original radio episodes have been translated and transmitted in Finland, France, The Netherlands and Sweden. (See The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as international phenomenon
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as international phenomenon
Within a couple of years after the original 1978 radio broadcasts in the UK, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy became a large international phenomenon. The original radio episodes have been broadcast in English, worldwide, and have been translated and adapted anew for radio in non-English...

).

All of the episodes, including those completed after Adams's death, are referred to as "Fits" after Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

's "The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark is usually thought of as a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll in 1874, when he was 42 years old...

: an Agony in Eight Fits". In 1981, upon a rebroadcast of the twelve episodes of the first two series, it was decided that the Christmas episode, which previously had no episode number, would be called "Fit the Seventh" and the episodes in the second series, which had first been billed as Fit the First through Fit the Fifth (representing five parts of the second series) would become Fit the Eighth through Fit the Twelfth.

Reception and awards

The first series was noted for its unusual concept, out-of-context parodies, "semantic and philosophical jokes", compressed prose and "groundbreaking deployment of sound effects and voice techniques".

The programme was a hit with listeners, although a BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...

 listener in India allegedly "strongly objected to 'Robots taking part in a comedy show'" and another in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...

 thought that "as a source of information it is misleading". One listener complained to the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...

that "In just about 50 years of radio and latterly TV listening and watching, this strikes me as the most fatuous, inane, childish, pointless, codswallopping drivel...It is not even remotely funny".

BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

's Critics Forum thought the show had "the sort of effect that a Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

programme actually has, of making everything that appears immediately after it on radio or television or whatever, seem absolutely ludicrous". By the time the sixth episode was broadcast, the show had become a cult hit.

The success of the series encouraged Adams to adapt it into a novel
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the title of the first of six books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "trilogy" by Douglas Adams . The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams's radio series of the same name. The novel was first published in...

, which was based on the first four Fits and released in the second week of October 1979. While the second radio series was being recorded in 1979, Adams was commissioned to deliver a pilot script for a television adaptation
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy broadcast in January and February 1981 on BBC Two...

, which, after a number of delays, was delivered by 1981. The storyline set out by the initial radio series has since appeared in numerous formats including a 1984 video game and a 2005 feature film
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 comic science fiction film based on the book of the same name by Douglas Adams. Shooting was completed in August 2004 and the movie was released on April 28, 2005 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and on the following day in Canada and the United...

.

The original series was the recipient of a number of awards including the Imperial Tobacco Award (1978), The Sony Award (1979), The Society of Authors/Pye Awards 'Best Programme for Young People' (1980) and the Mark Time Awards
Mark Time Awards
The Mark Time Awards are the most prominent radio drama awards worldwide in conjunction with the Ogle Awards. The awards are granted by the MISFITS Minnesota Society For Interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy and judged by a panel of five distinguished radio producers. Each year there are new...

 'Grand Master Award' (Adams) and 'Hall of Fame' (1998). It was the only radio show ever to be nominated for the Hugo science fiction awards
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...

, in 1979, in the 'Best Dramatic Presentation
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

' category.
As a result of the series, Douglas Adams was inducted into the Radio Academy
Radio Academy
The Radio Academy is a registered charity that is dedicated to 'the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production'....

's Hall of Fame.

Announcement

In November 2003, two years after Adams's death and 23 years after the production on the Secondary Phase had ceased, a new radio adaptation of Adam's unadapted novel Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by British writer Douglas Adams...

was announced. This would become the third series of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on radio. Dirk Maggs
Dirk Maggs
Dirk Maggs, a freelance writer and director working across all media, is principally known for his work in radio, where he evolved radio drama into "Audio Movies," a near-visual approach combining scripts, layered sound effects, cinematic music and cutting edge technology. He pioneered the use of...

, a friend of Adams, was chosen to create, direct and co-produce the adaptations. Maggs had previously consulted with Adams on potential radio adaptations for the final three books in 1993 and 1997. The project was re-started in September 2001 by Maggs, Helen Chattwell and Bruce Hyman, with help from Jane Belson and Ed Victor.

At the time of the announcement, it was stated that the original goal was to transmit the six part adaptation of the third novel starting in February 2004, with the remaining eight episodes comprising the final two novels. A fourth and fifth series based on So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" written by Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before it was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, as described in The...

and Mostly Harmless
Mostly Harmless
Mostly Harmless is a novel by Douglas Adams and the fifth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It is described on the cover of the first editions as "The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers Trilogy"...

were to have been transmitted in September 2004.

However, soon after the six episodes comprising the third series had been recorded by Above the Title Productions
Above the Title Productions
Above the Title Productions is a UK independent radio and TV production company based in London. The company specializes in the making of drama, music, comedy and feature programmes, principally for BBC Radio. The company's past works include adaptations of Agatha Christie mysteries, radio...

, a minor legal dispute over the online availability of episodes arose between the production company and The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

, which had started production on the Hitchhiker's movie
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 comic science fiction film based on the book of the same name by Douglas Adams. Shooting was completed in August 2004 and the movie was released on April 28, 2005 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and on the following day in Canada and the United...

, also in 2003. This led to a delay in transmitting the third series and an immediate cessation in the production of series four and five. Eventually a deal was worked out, and the Tertiary Phase was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 on 21 September 2004.

Adaptation

Maggs stated in the series' script book that he felt bound by his promise to Douglas Adams to allow the scripts of the Tertiary Phase to closely follow the plot of the third book; "I myself was willing to give the Tertiary Phase 7 out of 10 on the grounds that I was a little too reverential to the text and the pace suffered as a result." But in adapting the final two novels, the only instructions Maggs got from Adams was "They don't need more than four episodes each." Thus Maggs was able to use many of the major plot elements of the final two books (though not necessarily in the same order), and attempt to reconnect plot threads from all five radio series.

The new episodes reunited most of the living original cast. The parts of The Guide, Eddie the Computer and Slartibartfast were recast to replace actors now deceased, with William Franklyn
William Franklyn
William Leo Franklyn was a British actor, perhaps best known for voicing the "Schhh... You Know Who" adverts for Schweppes from 1965 to 1973...

, Roger Gregg and Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths, OBE is an English actor of stage, film and television. He has received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor...

 taking over these three roles, respectively. Peter Jones
Peter Jones (actor)
Peter Jones was an English actor, screenwriter and broadcaster.-Early life and career:Jones was born in Wem, Shropshire and he was educated at the Wem Grammar School and Ellesmere College. He made his first appearance as an actor in Wolverhampton at the age of 16 and then appeared in repertory...

, the original narrator, had died in 2000; Richard Vernon
Richard Vernon
Richard Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles...

, the original Slartibartfast, had died in 1997; and David Tate, who had voiced Eddie the Computer (among many other roles), had died in 1996.

Bill Wallis, who played Mr. Prosser and Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz in the original series, was unavailable, and Toby Longworth
Toby Longworth
Toby Longworth is a British actor who has appeared on film, radio and television. He is originally from Somerset, where he attended King Edward's School, Bath...

 took the role of Jeltz in the new series. John Marsh
John Marsh (newsreader)
John Marsh is a freelance newsreader on BBC Radio 2."Boggy", as he has been nicknamed by Terry Wogan, is from Sussex, and was originally a cameraman. However, a radio opportunity came up, and he ended up in BBC Radio 4. In 1982 he transferred to Radio 2. Marsh presented various radio shows, but...

, who had been the continuity announcer for Fits Two through Twelve, was rehired to reprise this role. There was also a posthumous cameo role by Adams as Agrajag, edited from his BBC audiobook recording of the novel.

Plot

In series 3, after the events of series 2 are revealed to be a hallucination, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect find themselves again stuck on prehistoric Earth. After being rescued, they find themselves transported to Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...

 just before it is destroyed by 11 white robots. Slartibartfast teaches Dent how cricket is based on the history of the worst wars in the galaxy, and the pair travel to Krikkit in order to prevent another war. In the final part, Dent and Trillian meet the computer behind the Supernova Bomb and there is another attempt to find the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe and Everything.

In the fourth series, Dent discovers that Earth has been recreated again and meets Fenchurch, the woman of his dreams. Meanwhile, a spaceship lands in Knightsbridge, God's Last Message to his Creation is discovered, and Marvin makes his last appearance. In the fifth series, a tenth planet in the solar system is discovered and Ford discovers that The Guide has become a much more sinister place to work. Arthur Dent discovers that he is a father and his new daughter, Random, flies to Earth to meet him. There are three potential endings to the series.

Broadcast

The third series ran on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 from Tuesday 21 September to 26 October 2004, with repeats on the following Thursdays. The series was also streamed
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

 in RealPlayer
RealPlayer
RealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...

 and Windows Media
Windows Media
Windows Media is a multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit with several application programming interfaces and a number of prebuilt technologies, and is the replacement of NetShow technologies.The Windows Media SDK...

 formats (including versions in a 5.1 surround mix
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...

) were made available on Radio 4's website until the following Thursday. In another continuity nod, the term "Fit" is still used in place of "episode"; episodes of the third series were subtitled Fits the Thirteenth to Eighteenth.

The six-part "Tertiary Phase" was broadcast in September and October 2004. The four-part "Quandary Phase" was broadcast in May 2005, and the four-part "Quintessential Phase" was broadcast immediately following, in May and June 2005. The names for these series were chosen because they sound "less daunting, more memorable and are a bit easier to spell" than the standard terms quaternary
Quaternary
The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...

 and quinary
Quinary
Quinary is a numeral system with five as the base. A possible origination of a quinary system is that there are five fingers on either hand. The base five is stated from 0-4...

.

Media releases

The first two series were first released on audio cassette and CD in 1988, marking the tenth anniversary of the first broadcast of the first episode. These were the first programmes of any kind released on CD by the BBC Radio Collection
BBC Radio Collection
The BBC Radio Collection was an imprint or record label used for audio books from the British Broadcasting Corporation, mainly of previously broadcast material...

. The two radio series were known simply as "the first series" and "the second series" until 1992 when the BBC made its first re-release in separate boxes as "The Primary Phase" and "The Secondary Phase". The episodes were released with those titles in 1993, and again in 1998, for the series' twentieth anniversary. In 2001, they became the first programmes of any kind re-released by the BBC Radio Collection in an MP3-CD format.

A 3-CD set of the Tertiary Phase was released in mid-October 2004, before the final episodes were broadcast. These CDs contain extended material, previously cut to make 27-minute episodes for radio. A 2-CD set of the Quandary Phase was released at the end of May 2005, and a 2-CD set of the Quintessential Phase was released at the end of June 2005. Both sets again include material that was originally cut for reasons of timing.

A script book for the final fourteen episodes was released in July 2005. The book is entitled The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts: The Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases. Dirk Maggs writes in his introduction that the "book is a companion volume to The Original Radio Scripts
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts is a book, published in 1985, containing the scripts for the original radio series version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Text present in the original scripts but cut to meet time constraints is printed...

...."

A box set entitled The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Radio Series was released on 3 October 2005. It contains fifteen CDs, subdivided per radio series, and bonus material exclusive to the box set. BBC Audio released a DVD version of the Tertiary Phase, featuring that series in 5.1 surround sound, in October 2006. Contrary to previous announcements, this was merely a DVD-Video
DVD-Video
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs, and is currently the dominant consumer video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and a MPEG-2 decoder...

 disc with Dolby Digital sound and other features, rather than a DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos....

 disc. While it had been stated that BBC Audio plans on also releasing the fourth and fifth radio series on DVD, no dates have been set.

Special editions of the Primary and Secondary Phases were released in November 2008. These have, according to the BBC, been given "a thorough clean-up and remaster" by Dirk Maggs. This includes using the new Philip Pope signature tune, so the material can be released worldwide, which has required John Marsh to re-record his announcements so they could be mixed in. Cleaning up the recordings aims to reduce the hiss produced by the overdubbing in the original and also re-levelling the episodes to produce a greater clarity in the sound.

Commercial rights issues

A number of scenes from Fit the Third were cut from commercially released recordings of the radio series because they featured copyrighted music. For example, in one scene Marvin
Marvin the Paranoid Android
Marvin, the Paranoid Android, is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold...

 "hums" like Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

, using the opening to "Shine on You Crazy Diamond
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
"Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a nine-part Pink Floyd composition written by Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and David Gilmour. The song is a tribute to former band member Syd Barrett, although it was not originally explicitly written with him in mind. It was first performed on their 1974 French...

", then "sings" "Rock and Roll Music
Rock and Roll Music
"Rock and Roll Music" is a song written and recorded by rock and roll icon Chuck Berry which became a hit single in 1957 and has been covered by many artists....

" by the Beatles, and finally the theme music from 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...

, the opening "Sunrise" movement from Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

's Also sprach Zarathustra. It would have been very cost prohibitive in the 1980s to get clearances to release a recording of Fit the Third with this music, though agreements were reached on most of the rest of the copyrighted music used during the first series. As a result, all commercial recordings of Fit the Third are about two minutes shorter than other episodes. Recordings of the original radio broadcasts still contain it.

For the CD and cassette releases of the Tertiary Phase in the United States, and all CD and cassette releases of the Quandary and Quintessential Phases, the instrumental title theme, "Journey of the Sorcerer," composed by Bernie Leadon
Bernie Leadon
Bernard Mathew "Bernie" Leadon, III is an American musician and songwriter, best known as a founding member of the Eagles. Prior to the Eagles, he was a member of two pioneering and highly influential country rock bands, Dillard & Clark and the Flying Burrito Brothers...

 and originally recorded by US country-rock band The Eagles, was re-interpreted by The Illegal Eagles, a tribute band
Tribute band
A tribute act is a music group, singer, or musician who specifically plays the music of a well-known music act - sometimes one which has disbanded, ceased touring or is deceased. Probably the largest class of tributes acts are Elvis impersonators, individual performers who mimic the songs and style...

, using an arrangement by Philip Pope
Philip Pope
Philip R. J. Pope is a British composer and actor. He was educated at Downside School and New College, Oxford.-Performer:He appeared in the Oxford Revue in Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1978 and 1979, both with Angus Deayton...

. This was done for licensing reasons (though the original track was used for the original radio transmissions and the on-demand downloads). In a 2005 interview with Simon Jones
Simon Jones (actor)
Simon Jones is an English actor, most famous for his appearances in the television and radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role of Arthur Dent from 1978 to 2005...

the use of this song was mentioned as a major cause for the delay in releasing recordings of the new series in the United States.

External links

(includes information on the new radio series)
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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