Douglas Adams' social satire with robots. As with Red Dwarf it's probably a waste of time including it in Edit News as sci-fi fans know the minutest details about their faves and magazines like TV Zone take their edit-spotting as read. Still, you never know, run through it anyway. We might even explain the ‘very obvious joke’ behind 'Deep Thought'…
1.
A section in Show 1 of the radio series (Fit The First, 8/3/78) discussed the merits of Vogon poetry, citing it as mild compared to the poetic works of ‘Paul Neil Milne Johnson of Greenbridge, Essex, England’ who wrote the Worst Poetry In The Universe. This was an in-joke and referred to a schoolfriend of Douglas Adams who ‘used to write terrible stuff about dead swans lying in stagnant pools...dreadful garbage’. Mr Johnson, however, didn’t take kindly to this attack on his prose, and apparently threatened legal action. All subsequent versions of the section have been changed. The LP of the series re-edited Peter Jones narration so that bits of the name are reversed (the LP was a complete re-recording so the legal matter must have arisen at this point) and the novel changed the name to ‘Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings’, as did the TV series (with a graphic of Adams in pigtails) and even the scriptbook of the original radio scripts (with a footnote explaining the controversy but obviously not revealing the name. Which, for anyone who may have missed it, was Paul Neil Milne Johnson.
[NOTE (1): The graphics of the TV version also reprint some of ‘Paula’s poetry, which does indeed concern itself with dead swans in stagnant pools.]
[NOTE (2): It may be mere coincidence, but Kit and the Widow used to sing a song about a dying swan and a stagnant pool.]
2.
For the CD/cassette release of the original Radio 4 series, an entire scene from Show 3 (22/3/78) has been removed because it featured ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’ by Pink Floyd as ‘incidental music’, not to mention a brief distorted clip of ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Music’ by The Beatles. On both occasions, it’s implied that Marvin The Paranoid Android is actually generating the music (‘Do you realise that robot can hum like Pink Floyd?’). Oddly, an LP was released of the first four shows in the early 80s, which was a complete cast re-recording but retained the Pink Floyd joke (Tim Souster of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop having prepared some Floyd-esque music free of copyright restrictions). This LP was released, as Guide author Douglas Adams explained in his introductory ‘Guide To The Guide’ (the hardback Hitch-Hiker Trilogy) because ‘the amount of copyrighted music in the first radio series made commercial release impossible’. Not impossible fifteen years later, just tricky. Incidentally, Adams comments are unchanged in the 5-book version of the ‘Trilogy’ published recently.
3.
Each episode of the TV series ran at 35 minutes (although they were basically re-using the radio scripts, the series was performed at a much less frantic pace giving its universe-dancing a nice laid back old-style typical of BBC2 at the time). However, all repeat broadcasts of Show 2 (12/1/81), for reasons never explained, use the special Montreux Festival edit (which was trimmed by five minutes).
The video release reinstates the cut material, but in yet another edit. For this release (on two tapes), the series was re-edited into two feature-length presentations rather than six individual shows, but did at least have a soundtrack re-mixed for stereo and included some hitherto unbroadcast scenes. The ‘Making Of’ video (1993) also featured ‘lost’ material and clips from rushes tapes, often with inferior picture quality.
[NOTE: The stereo remixing was actually completed many years before the videos were released as they were hoping to release it as the first BBC laserdisc. Unfortunately the rights to releasing the series were tied up with the production of the (still unmade) feature film version at the time and so the plans were scuppered.]
[NOTE (2): The remix does have its detractors. Even given that much of the intricate channel separation tends to get lost if one has a boring old mono video (and on cheap VCRs Peter Jones' voice can sometimes disappear completely due to having been placed in one channel only), Paddy Kingsland's excellent score still appears to lack elements present in the original mix, almost as if one dub from the multi-track tape has been accidentally wiped. In addition to this, several lines of (OOV) dialogue appear to come from alternate (often inferior) takes (e.g. Zaphod's 'Who are they, Trillian?'; Ford's 'I'm sorry, I just don't believe a word of it!') and in some cases, e.g. Zaphod's 'What is it?' (as the Magrathean Holotape is broadcast) and Ford’s amazing ‘Will you just tell us, you motorised maniac!’ (as he loses it with Marvin), the lines have disappeared from the soundtrack altogether.]
4.
The make up of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council (Martin Benson) changes substantially between the first and second episodes. The first show was also the pilot so the time between this and shooting for the full series allowed the creative team more time to come up with a better make up alternative. Quite why they allowed such a gap in continuity to occur is another matter altogether. On the same subject, Ford Prefect (David Dixon) suddenly acquires a perm by Show 2. You'd think someone would have reminded him…
5.
The green woman illustrating the effects of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is Cleo Rocos, discovered by series producer Alexander Graham Bell (the inventor of the first bald telephone) in a restaurant and who gave her her big break by later introducing her to Kenny Everett. He was, not unnaturally, a tad worried when he later discovered that Cleo was about fifteen at the time. This isn't an edit-spot, just a giggle at the expense of a producer who nobody seems to like very much.
6.
A waste-not-want-not policy prevailed for the series and, in one instance, a shot of Simon Jones running towards his mark was used to depict his character, Arthur Dent, running to hide from a Vogon guard.
Kevin Davies' design of a cross-section of Marvin The Paranoid Android, published in TV Zone magazine
but not actually used in the series. The 'Rat Cavity' caption is an
in-jokey reference to an obscure line in the second radio series.
[NOTE: All these production pictures have been stolen from TV Zone magazine incidentally. Sorry about that. Well, at least we credited them.]
Well, as you’ve probably gathered, we’ve run out of words here, so here’s a couple more rarities. An Adams-produced press release from years ago, and a few Beeblebrox illustrations.
