Earliest Hitch Hiker Memory?

mike65

Mine was from the start or rather nearly the start, the BBC radio 4 radio series had been a suprise smash hit and was no sooner broadcast than it was repeated (mid-late 1978), this was when I caught it and more to the point taped it. I must have listened an episode every night before sleep for months until the second series arrived

Mike.

Zaph

The original BBC tv series, although I did have a friend who listened to the radio series who told me about it. We couldn't get Radio 4 very well on our radio so I wasn't able to tune in.

dr.bollocko

Someone told me that joke, the one about the biscuits at the train station, where they are both aggressively eating each others biscuits, because one thinks the other is eating his biscuits. I still think that that's comic genius.
Nice idea for a forum.
Must be a bitch to mod.

mike65

Indeed (wtf?).

Mike.

dr.bollocko

U remember the tale. Was from Hitchhiker or one of Douglas Adams writings. Its been a while.
He is waiting at a train station for the train to come.
He has a bit of time to kill so gets himself some biscuits and a cup of tea to read the paper with in the cafe in the station.

There are few places in the cafe, so he sits next to another feller and starts reading the paper.
When he looks up, he sees the other chap eating a biscuit, and realises, looking down, that the guy has opened up the pack of biscuits he just bought and is essentially, stealing a biscuit from him. What's worse, its from an unopened pack!
So obviously, social situation, what do you do? He picks up one of his biscuits, and starts eating it, staring down the other guy, total stranger.
The other guy, not to be beaten, takes another of his biscuits, and so they have a biscuit standoff until all the biscuits are finished.
Of course, the guy gets up and leaves abruptly after the last biscuit is gone, Arthur picks up his paper, and sees one full packet of biscuits hiding under his newspaper.
Great stuff.
so. Whats the furthest anyone has ever gotten in the Hitchhikers guide Text RPG?
Anyone get further than being run over by the diggers? Goddamn that game was annoying.

CathyMoran

Listening to it in the car in 1978 and reading the books in 1980 (when I was 6)...my brother used to quote it all the time. I loved Zaphoid Beetlebrox (sp) when I was a kid.

The Werewolf

Listening to the books on tape at night before bed when I was about 8. Looking forward all day to the nights when I could listen to the books on tape when I was about 8. And looking back regretfully that I had listened to the whole saga and the disappointing fact that there was no more when I was about 9.

Goodshape

I started with the books. Earliest memory is my Dad bringing back the 'Trilogy in Five Parts' bumper book from the 'States and telling me to give it a read. And it pretty much defined my sense of humour for ever after.

After that was the BBC TV series, which I thought was equally as brilliant, and then the radio show.

They're all great but for me the books will always be the definitive edition.

Zaph

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Nice idea for a forum.
Must be a bitch to mod.

I sincerely hope not! Why do you say that?

Queen-Mise

oh the books are my first memory. I would have given my left arm as a kid, for a copy of the guide itself.

mike65

Surely the great missed publishing oppotunity of the 80s? These days someone would write the "real" HHGTTG and it would be be a Xmas best seller.

Mike.

nkay1985

Late enough in life, in that I was about 12 when I first read them. I remember my brother mentioning them so when I was next in a book shop in town I found them. Once I saw "Book five in the increasingly inaccurately named trilogy" I knew they were for me. Read all five in a couple of weeks if memory serves. Listened to the radio series while in college. MP3s for FTW.

Goodshape

mike65 wrote: »

Surely the great missed publishing oppotunity of the 80s? These days someone would write the "real" HHGTTG and it would be be a Xmas best seller.

I've always thought of The Guide as a foreshadowing of Wikipedia, or even the world wide web as a whole

"In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica B]or Britannica?[/B as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. "

The BBC also put together a 'real' Guide, which I think pre-dates Wikipedia -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2

And if Google's calmingly minimalist landing page isn't the modern day / real world equivalent of "Don't Panic" than I don't know what is

leninbenjamin

Goodshape wrote: »

The BBC also put together a 'real' Guide, which I think pre-dates Wikipedia -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2

I stumbled across that recently enough. Twas really weird and strange in a deja vu way, basically an encyclopaedia compiled entirely by Sci-Fi nuts from what i could see. Admirable effort though.

my first memory is the books themselves. was too young for any of the radio or TV sh*te the BBC did.

KnifeWRENCH

I bought the book out of sheer curiosity. Knew nothing about it, just that it was meant to be good.
And it was!!

K!LL!@N

Some people are saying they were old at 12 when they first read it.
I was probably around 20 when I read the series.
My younger brother had bought the box set.

I had many a "laugh out loud" moment on the Dart to college.

takola

I'm new to the Guide. I was introduced to it 3 years ago by my other half who has a tendency to reciten whole passages of it to me. When we'd first started going out I was reading Conversations with God by Neale Walsch. I was telling him about it when he asked if I'd read Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters "Where God Went Wrong", "Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes" and "Who is this God Person Anyway?".

At the time, I thought he was taking the piss of me. Three years later and I'm sure he was taking the piss of me!

I have to admit, it was much more fun for me to listen to him recite the books word for word than for me to actually read them myself. Bit like listening to the radio show!

nkay1985

takola wrote: »

I'm new to the Guide. I was introduced to it 3 years ago by my other half who has a tendency to reciten whole passages of it to me. When we'd first started going out I was reading Conversations with God by Neale Walsch. I was telling him about it when he asked if I'd read Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters "Where God Went Wrong", "Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes" and "Who is this God Person Anyway?".

At the time, I thought he was taking the piss of me. Three years later and I'm sure he was taking the piss of me!

I have to admit, it was much more fun for me to listen to him recite the books word for word than for me to actually read them myself. Bit like listening to the radio show!

My girlfriend is like that about Monty Python movies and sketches. When myself and my brother are stepping through them she finds it hilarious, but not so much when she watches them. Maybe my comic delivery is better....
/tumbleweed
Anyway, the Guide is brilliant.

CreepingDeath

First memory of the Guide... watching the BBC TV series when I was a very young lad and admiring Sandra Dickenson in her skimpy costume.

A guy I used to work, who also writes sci-fi novels for a living, used to drive a taxi around London many, many years/decades ago. A couple of times he got an order to deliver pizza to Douglas Adams himself.

ArthurDent

Old enough to have seen the series on BBC and bought all the books and bored everyone to tears with quotes from then on. Even put the bit by Frankie mouse about research at the start of my thesis ( my supervisor wasn't too impressed!):rolleyes:

As you can tell from my username I'm a wee bit of a fan

Zaph

ArthurDent wrote: »

As you can tell from my username I'm a wee bit of a fan

I very nearly signed up here as DentArthurDent, but decided to stick with Zaph as I was using it elsewhere (and Zaphod was taken).

ArthurDent

Zaph wrote: »

I very nearly signed up here as DentArthurDent, but decided to stick with Zaph as I was using it elsewhere (and Zaphod was taken).

I toyed with Slartibartfast or even Dirk Gently (not HHGTTG - Holistic Detective Agency) , but stuck with AD - and wouldn't dream of changing it now.

Steve

I am struggling to remember how I got into it. I remember reading the books as they came out - the best was the long awaited 4th in the trilogy..

Can anyone give me a time frame on when the books came out (sadly they're long lost).

Too many sambucas at RATEOTU ftw...:rolleyes:

Zaph

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - published 1979
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - published 1980
Life, the Universe and Everything - published 1982
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - published 1984
Mostly Harmless - published 1995

Steve

Ta Zaph, kinda ties in with my theory that I got into it about '82 or '83 would've been in 1st / 2nd year then (showing my age - not good ).

Alun

I listened to the first ever broadcast on Radio 4 back in 1978, and recorded every episode on tape, which I still had until recently, when the tapes got lost during a house move.

I was working in England at the time, and a colleague of mine was heavily into it too. We stuck a sticker saying "brown liquid almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea" over the "Tea" button on the vending machine, which made us snigger, but went down like a lead balloon for everyone else

stevenmu

My dad gave me a well worn copy of the book to read when I was around 10/12-ish. I started reading through it but not really paying much attention untill I got to the part where it described the vogon constructor ships as "floating in mid-air in much the same way that bricks don't" (or something like that). I must have read that paragraph a good ten times in a row in fits laughing. I knew then that I'd found something special.

Nevyn

Listening to a tape of the radio show.