The Hitchhiker's Guide began as a radio pitch about destroying Earth six times
Douglas Adams first proposed a radio series called The Ends of the Earth, six episodes each finishing with the planet wiped out in a new way. While drafting the first, he needed an alien on Earth to explain things. That alien became a researcher for a remarkable guidebook, and a comedy franchise was born.
Adams liked to say the title struck him in 1971, sprawled tipsy on the grass outside Innsbruck, a European hitch-hiking handbook beside him, staring at the night sky. He later admitted he may have rebuilt that memory from retelling it so often. The first radio series launched quietly on BBC Radio 4 at 10:30 pm on Wednesday 8 March 1978. Its six episodes were called Fits, borrowing from Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, and it drew glowing reviews and a huge response, with two repeats that same year. A second series in 1980 brought the total to 12 episodes.
The production was ambitious. It was the first comedy series recorded in stereo, and Adams wanted it to sound like a modern rock album, so much of the budget went on effects from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Peter Jones voiced the Book after a three-month search in which several actors, Michael Palin among them, turned the part down. The theme, Journey of the Sorcerer, came from the Eagles' 1975 album One of These Nights.
The plot follows Arthur Dent, a luckless Englishman rescued by his friend Ford Prefect, an alien researcher, moments before bureaucratic Vogons demolish Earth for a hyperspace bypass. Their companions include Zaphod Beeblebrox, the Galactic President who stole a ship powered by an Infinite Improbability Drive, the gloomy robot Marvin, and Trillian, the only other human survivor. Arthur learns Earth was a supercomputer built to find the Question whose Answer, computed by Deep Thought, was 42.
Adams rewrote the story for each format, so versions contradict one another. Radio led to novels, then television in 1981, a computer text adventure in 1984, theatre productions and finally a feature film in 2005. By 2005 the books had been translated into more than 30 languages, and the first novel, from 1979, ranked fourth in the BBC's Big Read poll. Even the title's spelling varies between editions, though Adams reportedly decided in 2000 that it should be one word without a hyphen.
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
