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

I can't remember whether it was Ford or Arthur in the Sirius Cybernetics lift on Kricket - fearful of attracting armed guards he told the lift that when the door opened it was NOT to say "Thank you for using ....etc"

The lift silently opened its doors and as our hero crept out, said loudly "Was that alright, sir"


(My memory may be faulty on the detail, but I think the general drift is there.)

i love the sirius cybernetics corperation, or at least most descriptions that emerge from it...

"a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the the first against the wall when the revolution comes..."

"you plastic pal who is fun to be with"

"Go stick you head in a pig."

"Share and enjoy
share and enjoy
journey through life
with a plastic girl
or boy by your side..."
(The intentionally ghastly sound always raises a giggle...)

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so".

I put that one at the front of my 6000 word art essay. For no good reason.

"Is that a piece of fairy cake? My stomach's just completely out to lunch..." - Zaphod Beeblebrox (2nd series of the radio programme - just after the end credits of the 2nd episode. I think.)

That one where Trillian goes on about having a degree in something-or-other and another in astrophysics, so it was either that or back to the dole queue on Monday...

"It's enough to give you the screeeeaming heeby jeebies... if you know what I mean." (add sinister squeaky mouse noise as appropriate)

"Mr. Beeblebrox, you're so weird you should be in pictures."
"Yeah baby, and you should be in real life."

"Four rare steaks please, and hurry. We haven't eaten in five hundred and seventy-six thousand million years."

The whole concept of Bistromatics really explains a lot about the universe, but my favourite line apart from "I never could get the hang of Thursdays" has to be -

The Idea had never even begun to express the merest possibility of crossing my mind

"A big hello to all intelligent life out there, and to everyone else: the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys."

-- a radio announcer... (probably not the exact quote, but still damned funny).

More fun qoutes!

Trillian: Zaphod, take that hand off me. And the other. And the other.
Zaphod: But I grew that one especially for you!

"Zaphod's just this guy, you know..."
--Gag Halfrunt

"Do you realize how much damage this bulldozer would suffer if I just let it run over you? Absolutely none."
--Prosser

"We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
--Vroomfondel the philosopher

"You're a load of useless bloody loonies!"
--Ford to the Golgafrincham captain

And possibly the best excuse in the world: "Look, I've been making sandwiches for Bob's sake!"

"Zaphod... he's just zis guy, you know?" Got to be *the* greatest quote. Sorry. Just imagine the slightly gormless voice, and you'll see what I mean.

Bugger it, Gelfling. What did you have to go and do that for?

I still find the "Share and Enjoy" song funny every time I hear it. The novel says it's hard to believe quite how bad it sounds, and the thing is that, even having heard it loads of times, I'm still surprised every time to find that it's worse than I remember.

I'm going to make two nominations for my favorite quote, both of them in the radio plays but not the books.

One from the very end of the second series:

(Ford and Zaphod have just been stranded on an isolated planet by Arthur, and they both know it's Zaphod's fault)

Ford: Zaphod, I want you to know that I respect you.
Zaphod: Great.
Ford: Just not very much, that's all.

And the bit that really sticks in my mind, from the very start (in fact, from before the start). The moment when the radio announcer gave us the first hint that what followed would not be like anything we'd heard before:

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
(short pause)
Starring Peter Jones ... as the book.
(cue music)

Pure genius.

Lux

Has anyone mentioned Shooty and Bang-Bang yet? Those are the names (given in the credits) of the two "intellectual" cops who corner our heroes on Magarathea.

"Listen up, Beeblebrox, and you better listen good."
"Why?"
"Because it's going to be very intelligent, quite interesting and humane. Now either you surrender right now and let us beat you up a bit, though not very much as we are firmly opposed to needless violence..."
"Dead against it."
...or we blow up this planet and possibly one or two others we noticed on our way out here"

etc.

I've just remembered the creation of the Infinite Inprobability Drive, how the student physicist or whatever realises that the creation of the hitherto-unfeasible Improb. drive is in itself a finite probablility, and feeds it into the Finite Probability generator with its Brownian motion generator (a particularly hot cup of tea) and hey presto! An Infinite Improbability Drive!

And then he gets lynched by all the other physicists after an awards ceremony as the one think they discovered they couldn't stand was a smart-arse. Gets me grinning every time.

Apologies for the hazy quote - running from memory here.

do what?

"Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."

I like
"Have a nice diurnal anomaly"
and
"If you want a breath of fresh air in New York City, open a window and stick your head inside a building".

I think they are both from "Mostly Harmless".

I just love when Arthur sits on an updraft and unpacks his suitcase, and then gets hit in the back by a cocktail party.

And now my Dad want's olive oil, retinsa and a postcard of Santorini as a present from my holiday

In particular (from memory so excuse errors)

How many escape pods are there?
None
Have you counted them?
Twice.

I just love the way that when you press a button labelled in black on a black background, a light lights up in black to tell you what's happened.

"Eddies in the space-time continuum..."
"...and this is his sofa is it?"

"What a wonderfully exciting cough, do you mind if I join you?"

"I want you to imagine that I have a large blaster in my hand."
"You do have a blaster in your hand."
"Well, I didn't want to overtax your imagination."

Sorry... just thought of some more...

"The fourth? Zaphod Beeblebrox the fourth?"
"Yes. I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, my father was Zaphod Beeblebrox the second, my gradfather was Zaphod Beeblebrox the third..."
"What?"
"There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine, I can't explain now..."

"A ghostly voice gave me the answer. Why does the Earthman like tea? Because he's an ignorant monkey who doesn't know any better. Cute, huh?"

Come on, we could quote all the words in every book, they're all great. Although my personal favourite is the Magrathean recorded message (the commercial council of Magrathea regrets the entire planet is temporarily closed for business... ) because I had that on my ansaphone when I first got one. Some very serious and important people revealed themselves to be HHG2TG fans by the replies they left!

Okay... last one for now...

"The only reason I'm wasting my breath on you now is that, being dead I haven't got any other use for it."