In January 1980, five new episodes of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy were broadcast on BBC Radio, all in one week, bringing the total number to twelve episodes.
In the fall of 1980, the second Hitchhiker book was published in England, around the same time that Harmony Books published the first book in the United States. It was a very substantially reworked, reedited and contracted version of episodes 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 5 and 6 (in that order) of the radio series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. In case that seemed too straightforward, the book was called The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , because it included the material from radio episodes of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, which was set in a restaurant called Milliways, otherwise known as the Restaurant at the End of the Universe .
At roughly the same time, a second record album was made featuring a heavily rewritten and expanded version of episodes 5 and 6 of the radio series. This record album was also called The Restaurant at the End of the Universe .
Meanwhile, a series of six television episodes of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was made by the BBC and broadcast in January 1981. This was based, more or less, on the first six episodes of the radio series. In other words, it incorporated most of the book The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the second half of the book The Restaurant at be End of the Universe. Therefore, though it followed the basic structure of the radio series, it incorporated revisions from the books, which didnt.
In January 1982 Harmony Books published The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in the United States.
In the summer of 1982, a third Hitchhiker book was published simultaneously in England and the United States, called Life, the Universe and Everything . This was not based on anything that had already been heard or seen on radio or television. In fact it flatly contradicted episodes 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 of the radio series. These episodes of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you will remember, had already been incorporated in revised form in the book called The Restaurant at the End of the Universe .
At this point I went to America to write a film screenplay which was completely inconsistent with most of what has gone on so far, and since that film was then delayed in the making (a rumor currently has it that filming will start shortly before the Last Trump), I wrote a fourth and last book in the trilogy, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish . This was published in Britain and the USA in the fall of 1984 and it effectively contradicted everything to date, up to and including itself.
As if this all were not enough I wrote a computer game for Infocom called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ,
which bore only fleeting resemblances to anything that had previously gone under that title, and in collaboration with Geoffrey Perkins assembled The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts (published in England and the USA in 1985). Now this was an interesting venture. The book is, as the title suggests, a collection of all the radio scripts, as broadcast, and it is therefore the only example of one Hitchhiker publication accurately and consistently reflecting another. I feel a little uncomfortable with thiswhich is why the introduction to that book was written after the final and definitive one you are now reading and, of course, flatly contradicts it.
People often ask me how they can leave the planet, so I have prepared some brief notes.
2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House(202) 456-1414to have a word on your behalf with the guys at NASA.
3. If you dont have any friends in the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the overseas operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They dont have any friends there either (at least, none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try.
4. If that also fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible.
5. If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that its vitally important you get away before your phone bill arrives.
Douglas Adams
Los Angeles 1983 and London 1985/1986
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet hasor rather hada problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasnt the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.