h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I remember hearing it on the original Radio 4 series, - must have been about 1979 or 1980 I suppose. And I've always liked that particular version - which has considerable differences in the plot to the other media (Series 1 is the same whatever the media, but series 2 and onward differ considerably.)

My favourite bit is the radio version of the black-ship scene (in the books the ship is owned by a member of rock band Disaster-Area, but on the radio it was owned by Hagunennons (sp) - hyper-evolutionary beings that re-evolve in a matter of seconds.)

I didn't get it first time around but got the first repeats.

A kid at School I beleive called Jeremy Spence was the only person my age who seemed to listen to Radio 4 and heard this series on the first time through. he knew I loved Sci-fi and told me that they were repeating this great radio series. So I sneaked one of my parents radios big thing with knobs and leather casing this was the 70s after all up to my room in eager antici.........pation (sorry wrong sci-fi) and was hooked from the first resonance of Peter Jones voice.

The rest as they say is history, unlike Abi I was old enough to watch the TV series when it first aired but was very upset that Zaphod just didn't seem to work. And then I progressed to buy all the books and the book read by DNA on tape and the video et al.

One of my friend's Dad taped the original radio broadcasts. We nicked the tapes off of him and played them incessantly. Looking back my favourite parts were in the second series. Particularly the Lentilla/Allitnel characters; the massive paper cup in the sky and the accompanying shoe event horizon.

When the BBC finally made the TV shows I was hugely disappointed. I guess it was a case of BBC special effects not being able to match up to a teenager's sense of imagination.

Roll on the film, if they ever get around to making it now that Douglas has gone.

I also remember listening when hitch-hikers was first broadcast. I also remember finding it on bbc world services once, in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. I liked Marvin voice best, especially when he fell into the deep hole. The sound effects were great.