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Everything You Never Wanted To Know About The Hitchhiker's Guide But Have Been Forced To Find Out

Who or what is DNA?
How many versions of //The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy// are out there?
What was the original version of this series?
Who is responsible for creating all these different incarnations?
How did Douglas Adams first come up with the idea?
How come one version doesn't stay faithful to another?
So I'm hooked, what kinds of abbreviations are available to me to refer to my new addiction?





Who or what is DNA?

"DNA" is the abbreviated term for Douglas Noel Adams, the creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The quick version is this: he was English, funny, loved music and technology, hated writing and was especially terrible with deadlines. He died on May 11th, 2001 at the age of 49. You can find the slightly longer version version in our section on Douglas Adams, and for the epic version, you can pick up one of his biographies: Hitchhiker (MJ Simpson) or Wish You Were Here (Nick Webb).


How many versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are there?

Many. There's the radio series, the books, the tv series, the game, the movie, bath towel... and then it gets sufficiently complicated. In fact, better we put together a short guide on the versions to explain it. You can find it here. Also, Douglas Adams explains the different versions himself in the introduction to the Hitchhiker's Omnibus if you prefer to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.


What was the original version of the series?

If you're referring to which one came first, it is the radio series, first broadcast in 1978. The books were adapted from this. However, later radio series were adapted from later books, so in certain parts of the story, the books came first. It is not good to think it terms of which version is the true version, since there is, in fact, no definitive version of Hitchhiker's. And very little about Hitchhiker's is definitive.


Who is responsible for all these different incarnations?

Each version of Hitchhiker's was seen through and written by Douglas Adams himself, who was very keen on bringing the story to new mediums. Even the movie, which was released after his death, was written (for the most part) by him and he was very eager to see Hitchhiker's brought to the big screen. He was also responsible for bringing it back to radio with the creation of the New Radio Series which also, sadly, did not come to fruition until after his death.


How did Douglas Adams first come up with the idea?

According to Douglas Adams, the actual event in question is hazy, and since he told the story so many times, it's the telling he remembered more than the event itself. The story, as he told it, goes something like this: he was hitch hiking across Europe at age 18 with a copy of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe," lying drunk in the middle of a field in Insbruk staring up at the stars. He thought at that point that someone should write "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." It never occured to him at the time that he would be the one to do it.

When Douglas began writing the series, it was originally called "The Ends of the Earth" and the premise was to have a series of different circumstances under which the Earth was destroyed, and every episode would be unrelated to the other. In his series about the Ends of the Earth, he created a character named Ford Prefect, who was to be a researcher for the Guide (that idea for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy he had from a while back), and the story eventually evolved into the story of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


How come one version doesn't stay faithful to another?

Douglas Adams was fond of was constantly re-inventing Hitchhiker's. Being a comedy writer, he would always want to experiment with his words until he got it way he wanted it. Sometimes, this would mean bringing in new material the day of recording. Sometimes, it would mean introducing new characters for a new incarnation and taking out others. Douglas never wrote with any sort of grand scheme in mind, and that gave him plenty of flexibility with his story. This is yet another reason why any one version should not be taken as gospel. Simply, no one version has everything.


So I'm hooked, what kinds of abbreviations are available to me to refer to my new addiction?

In fact, there are many. Like the series itself, there is no definitive form. Many people use H2G2 (2 Hs for Hitch Hiker's and 2 Gs for Guide to the Galaxy) which also happens to be the name of the online version of the real life guide at H2G2.com. You can also use HHGTTG or THHGTTG for a more precise abbreviation. And in some of the more relaxed regions of the internet, people use HHGG or one of its shortened forms, HHG (Hitch Hiker's Guide) and HGG (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).


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