From TARDIS Index File, the free Doctor Who reference.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a series of books from the 20th century that was referenced by the Doctor on a few occasions.

The Doctor once asked, rhetorically, who had said that "Earthmen rarely invite their ancestors to dinner", which comes from the series. (DW: Ghost Light) The Doctor once compared himself to Arthur Dent after saving the Earth from invasion in a dressing gown (Dent's trademark dress), and after being awoken from his post-regenerative coma by tea, the character's favourite drink. (DW: The Christmas Invasion) The number 42, which in the Hitchhiker's books was the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything, was one of the numbers the Doctor guessed when trying to find out the security protocol for the the Host. (DW: Voyage of the Damned)

Behind the Scenes

Real World connections

Hitchhikers creator Douglas Adams wrote a number of Doctor Who serials and served as its script editor during Season 17. Consequently, lines from Hitchhiker's Guide found their way into The Pirate Planet, while Hitchhiker's character Oolon Coluphid gets a mention in Destiny of the Daleks, which Adams script-edited (the Doctor is seen reading one of Caluphid's books, Origins of the Universe. Shada, also written by Douglas Adams, involves a Ford Prefect car. The storyline of Adams' Life, the Universe and Everything was based on a rejected Doctor Who script called Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen.

See Douglas Adams

Just prior to becoming the Doctor, Peter Davison made a cameo appearance in the BBC's 1981 adaptation of the first book as the "Dish of the Day". His wife, Sandra Dickinson, played Trillian in the miniseries.

Bill Nighy, who played a role in the 2005 film, was seriously considered for the role of the Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor, he expressed interest in all three roles. Stephen Fry, an actor with some connection to the Who franchise, narrated the film.

The number 42, made famous in the series, was given a nod by Doctor Who when it was used as the title for an episode during Series 3.

Metafictional parallels and references

• The plot of Voyage of the Damned is similar (but not identical) to that of "Starship Titanic", a video game authored by Adams which was published in 1998. [1] Both feature a large luxury spaceship/cruiseliner named "Titanic" which goes out of control and whose computers must be manipulated to fix the ship. The video game was based on a brief mention of the ship in the first Guide book, which was unable to send out its first and only message - an S.O.S. - during its launch before suffering a "total existence failure".
• 42 shares its title with the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, as revealed in Adams' Hitchhiker's series. As with the spaceship stolen by Arthur Dent and friends in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the ship in 42 is on its way to crashing into a star, leaving its passengers with no escape.
• The reference to Oolon Coluphid has raised speculation as to whether the Doctor Who Universe and that of the Hitchhiker's Guide are one and the same. The BBC's viral marketing website Defending the Earth! included a forum posting by a man named Arthur Dent who wrote, "This rather odd man was lying down in front of a bulldozer in front of my home."[2] Another matter blurring the lines between the Hitchhiker's universe and the Whoniverse is the Tenth Doctor's early reference to Arthur Dent being a "nice man" who saved the universe in "his jim-jams"; it's left ambiguous as to whether he's referring to a fictional character or a real person. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)
• Perhaps by a coincidence, the scene in the third book of the quintilogy (later adapted into a radio script of the same name) Life, the Universe, and Everything, in which Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, materialise in Lord's Cricket Ground, is similar to a similar scene in The Daleks' Master Plan in which the Doctor materialised his TARDIS at The Oval.
• On the second disk of  The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, during the opening credits you can see the TARDIS there.
• One of the spaceships in BBCR:Max Warp is described as a "Lazlar Lyricon custom job". This is how one of the spaceships in the Milliways car park in episode 5 of HHGG was described.

Wikipedia has a more detailed and comprehensive article on

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

From Muppet Wiki

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the feature film version of Douglas Adams' franchise, previously incarnated as a series of radio programs, books, and a television series. Jim Henson's Creature Shop supplied creature effects for such characters as Marvin the Paranoid Android, the Vogons, the Whale, and the Scintillating Jeweled Scuttling Crabs. Jamie Courtier was the project supervisor for the Creature Shop.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the story of a man named Arthur Dent, a man who finds himself caught up in events beyond his imagining. He frets over the destruction of his home, only to then end up on Vogon spaceship following the destruction of the planet Earth. Furthermore, he learns that his long-time friend Ford Prefect isn't even actually from Earth, but is instead a roving reporter for the Guide from Betelgeuse. Now, Arthur finds himself on an adventure that challenges everything he ever thought was true about the universe.

Cast

• Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent
• Mos Def as Ford Prefect
• Zooey Deschanel as Trillian
• Sam Rockwell as Zaphod Beeblebrox
• Warwick Davis as Marvin the Paranoid Android
• Alan Rickman as Marvin the Paranoid Android (voice)
• Stephen Fry as the Guide (voice)
• John Malkovich as Humma Kavula
• Helen Mirren as Deep Thought (voice)
• Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast
• Anna Chancellor as Questular Rontok
• Richard Griffiths as Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (voice)
• Bill Bailey as the Whale
• Mark Gatiss as Additional Vogon Voices
• Mak Wilson as Vogon Interogator (voice)

Creature Performers

• Mason Ball
• Sarah Bennett
• Danny Blackner
• Hayley Burroughs
• Cecily Faye
• Aron Freeman
• Ian Kay
• Nikki McInness
• Mohsen Nouri
• Ollie Parham
• Nigel Plaskitt
• Lynne Robertson Bruce

Puppeteers

• Sue Beattie
• Simon Buckley
• Richard Coombs
• Phil Eason
• Andy Heath
• Brian Herring
• Mark Jefferis
• Rebecca Nagan
• Katherine Smee
• William Todd Jones
• Rob Tygner
• Mak Wilson
• Sarah Wright

Muppet Mentions

Prior to the release of the film, in 2004 BBC Radio launched a new radio series, adapting the last three of Adams' books, in three "phases." In the six part "Tertiary Phase" series, adapting Life, the Universe, and Everything, the announcer's closing gag for the October 19, 2004 broadcast (episode five), referenced the sponsorship closings on Sesame Street: "This week's program was brought to you by the letters F, Gamma, and the hexadecimal number 3 cosine D bracket to the power of 8... sorry, 9... no, 8.... actually, can I get back to you?"

Connections

Many people who have appeared in Muppet/Henson productions have connections to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio and TV series.

• John Baddeley played Bird Two and the Footwarrior in the second radio series.
• Jim Broadbent played Vroomfondel and Shooty in the first radio series.
• Ken Campbell played Poodoo in the second radio series.
• Neil Gaiman wrote a 1988 book, Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion.
• Peter Hawkins played Frankie Mouse in the first radio series.
• Jane Horrocks played Fenchurch in the fourth radio series.
• Chris Langham played Prak in the third radio series.
• Joanna Lumley played the Woman with the Sydney Opera House Head in the third radio series.
• Miriam Margolyes played Smelly Photocopier Woman in the fifth radio series.
• Bill Paterson played Arcturan Number One in the second radio series, and Rob McKenna in the fourth.
• Jonathan Pryce played Autopilot in the second radio series, and Zarniwoop in the second and fifth.
• Richard Vernon played Slartibartfast in the first radio series and TV show.

External Links

• IMDb
• Movie Tome