Re: Charles Carreon, The Arizona Kid
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:19 am
A HIGHLY IMPROBABLE PRODUCTION -- THE BBC VERSION OF DOUGLAS ADAMS' HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, by Charles Carreon
The BBC production of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is filled with humorous dialogue, dealt with Adams’ trademark understated style, probably because Adams, a longtime BBC writer, was substantially involved with the production. The recently-released Hollywood knockoff didn’t have the benefit of Adams’ input, since he died at the young age of forty-eight shortly after signing the movie deal and moving to Santa Barbara. The BBC production is thus the one to watch, and if you haven’t read the book, the two-minute summary below will show you why you must. Fear not that the story will be given away -- it’s far too improbable for that. The notably passive central character, Arthur Dent, the only “earthman” in the entire story, never gets out of his bathrobe on one very long day that begins with trying to prevent a work crew from razing his home to make way for a bypass, a matter that becomes rather moot when the entire earth is suddenly annihilated by an alien species who are engaged in constructing a galactic hyperspace bypass.
Arthur would have perished with the rest of humanity but for the timely intervention of his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, who is doing an update on planet Earth, which so far has a short entry: “harmless.” Ironically, just before the destruction of Earth, a young woman had just realized the truth that would turn our lives here from hell to heaven, but sound as her understanding was, and beautiful as its unfoldment would have been for all humanity, the Vogons put an end to that precious potential. Arthur and Ford escape instants before the interstellar Armageddon descends from the skies, thanks to Ford’s possession of a clever little device. Thus, after fortifying themselves with three pints of beer each and stashing as many peanuts as possible on their persons, the two teleport themselves into the storage hold of the very same Vogon spaceship that has arrived with the mission of destroying earth. Naturally, they are discovered for stowaways and ejected from the airlock by a rather loutish Vogon underling, after being forced to listen to the Vogon Captain’s truly atrocious poetry. Improbably, but not completely impossibly, Arthur and Ford do not decompress in outer space but find themselves aboard the extraordinary spacecraft recently christened The Heart of Gold, powered by the utterly unique Improbability Drive, and stolen before her maiden voyage by a two-headed celebrity by the name of Zaphod Beeblebrox, who has somehow picked up the lovely Trillian to serve as his navigator and source of feminine distraction. In what is truly improbable, Arthur realizes that he had met Trillian some months before at a party, and they had seemed close to hitting it off when this guy named Phil, actually Zaphod in a one-head form, came up and stole her away with a line of nonsense about being from another planet.
After various narrow escapes from death, Arthur, Ford, Zaphod and Trillian are leaving the hollow planet of Magrathea, where some very advanced white mice have expressed an interest in swapping Arthur’s brain for a computer, as a way to extract the information they had hoped to glean from the whole experiment called planet Earth, which was actually a complex experiment the mice had set up to learn the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Despite being the experimenters, in the context of the experiment, the mice had ironically appeared as small, white creatures content to run mazes in human laboratories. Unfortunately, in a cockup of astronomical proportions, the Vogons stupidly destroyed Earth just as the answer was about to be produced. Now the only way to get the total gestalt of the answer, and thus avoid having to recreate Earth anew and run the very long experiment again, would be to dice and analyze Arthur’s brain. None of which is relevant to the fact that the cops are hot on Zaphod’s trail, and cops being cops, they are going to shoot some sense into the situation.
The BBC production of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is filled with humorous dialogue, dealt with Adams’ trademark understated style, probably because Adams, a longtime BBC writer, was substantially involved with the production. The recently-released Hollywood knockoff didn’t have the benefit of Adams’ input, since he died at the young age of forty-eight shortly after signing the movie deal and moving to Santa Barbara. The BBC production is thus the one to watch, and if you haven’t read the book, the two-minute summary below will show you why you must. Fear not that the story will be given away -- it’s far too improbable for that. The notably passive central character, Arthur Dent, the only “earthman” in the entire story, never gets out of his bathrobe on one very long day that begins with trying to prevent a work crew from razing his home to make way for a bypass, a matter that becomes rather moot when the entire earth is suddenly annihilated by an alien species who are engaged in constructing a galactic hyperspace bypass.
Arthur would have perished with the rest of humanity but for the timely intervention of his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, who is doing an update on planet Earth, which so far has a short entry: “harmless.” Ironically, just before the destruction of Earth, a young woman had just realized the truth that would turn our lives here from hell to heaven, but sound as her understanding was, and beautiful as its unfoldment would have been for all humanity, the Vogons put an end to that precious potential. Arthur and Ford escape instants before the interstellar Armageddon descends from the skies, thanks to Ford’s possession of a clever little device. Thus, after fortifying themselves with three pints of beer each and stashing as many peanuts as possible on their persons, the two teleport themselves into the storage hold of the very same Vogon spaceship that has arrived with the mission of destroying earth. Naturally, they are discovered for stowaways and ejected from the airlock by a rather loutish Vogon underling, after being forced to listen to the Vogon Captain’s truly atrocious poetry. Improbably, but not completely impossibly, Arthur and Ford do not decompress in outer space but find themselves aboard the extraordinary spacecraft recently christened The Heart of Gold, powered by the utterly unique Improbability Drive, and stolen before her maiden voyage by a two-headed celebrity by the name of Zaphod Beeblebrox, who has somehow picked up the lovely Trillian to serve as his navigator and source of feminine distraction. In what is truly improbable, Arthur realizes that he had met Trillian some months before at a party, and they had seemed close to hitting it off when this guy named Phil, actually Zaphod in a one-head form, came up and stole her away with a line of nonsense about being from another planet.
After various narrow escapes from death, Arthur, Ford, Zaphod and Trillian are leaving the hollow planet of Magrathea, where some very advanced white mice have expressed an interest in swapping Arthur’s brain for a computer, as a way to extract the information they had hoped to glean from the whole experiment called planet Earth, which was actually a complex experiment the mice had set up to learn the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Despite being the experimenters, in the context of the experiment, the mice had ironically appeared as small, white creatures content to run mazes in human laboratories. Unfortunately, in a cockup of astronomical proportions, the Vogons stupidly destroyed Earth just as the answer was about to be produced. Now the only way to get the total gestalt of the answer, and thus avoid having to recreate Earth anew and run the very long experiment again, would be to dice and analyze Arthur’s brain. None of which is relevant to the fact that the cops are hot on Zaphod’s trail, and cops being cops, they are going to shoot some sense into the situation.
First Cop: OK, Beeblebrox, hold it right there, we got you covered!
Zaphod’s Extra Head: Cops!
Zaphod: Anyone else want a guess?
Ford: Yeah ... this way!
Second Cop: We don’t wanna shoot you, Beeblebrox.
Zaphod: Suits me fine!
Trillian: Back to the lift?
Zaphod: Back to the lift!
(Cops open fire)
Arthur: Hey, I thought they said they didn’t want to shoot at us!
Ford: I thought so!
Zaphod: You said you didn’t wanna shoot us!
First Cop: It isn’t easy being a cop!
Ford: What did he say?
Zaphod: It isn’t easy being a cop.
Ford: That’s his problem!
Zaphod: I think so!
Ford: Listen, we’ve enough problems of our own having you there shooting at us! If you’d like to avoid laying your personal problems on us, I think we’d all find it easier to cope!
Second Cop: Now, look, buddy, you’re not dealing with any dumb, two-bit, trigger-pumping morons with low hairlines, little piggy eyes and no conversation! We’re a couple of caring, intelligent guys you’d probably really like if you met us socially. I don’t go around gratuitously shooting people and then brag about it in seedy space rangers bars. I go around gratuitously shooting people, then I agonise about it afterwards to my girlfriend!
First Cop: And I write novels!
Second Cop: Yeah, he writes them in crayon.
First Cop: Though I haven’t had any published yet, so I’d better warn ya, I’m in a mean mood!
Ford: Who are these guys?
Trillian: I preferred them shooting.
Second Cop: So are you gonna come quietly or you gonna let us blast ya out?
Ford: Which would you prefer?
(Another fusillade ensues)
Second Cop: You still there?
All: Yeah!
First Cop: We didn’t enjoy that at all.
Ford: We could tell!
Second Cop: Now, listen to this, Beeblebrox. And you’d better listen good!
Zaphod: Why?
Second Cop: Er ... because it’s gonna be very intelligent, and quite interesting ... and humane.
Zaphod: OK, shoot. I mean, fire away! No, no, I mean ...!
(another round of shooting)
First Cop: Sorry, misunderstanding there.
Second Cop: Beeblebrox, either you all give yourselves up, and let us beat you up a little, though not too much because we are firmly opposed to needless violence, or ... er ... or we blow up this entire planet! And one or two others we noticed on the way over!
Trillian: That’s crazy! You wouldn’t do that!
Second Cop: Yes, we would! I think we would, wouldn’t we?
First Cop: Yes, we’d have to. No question.
Trillian: But why?
First Cop: Tell her.
Second Cop: You tell her!
First Cop: You tell her!
Trillian: Will one of you tell her!
Both Cops: It isn’t easy being a cop!
Ford: Listen ... if we keep them talking, maybe their brains will seize up.
First Cop: Shall we ... shoot them up again for a while?
Second Cop: Why not?
First Cop: Yeah.
Ford: Wait ...
Zaphod: Well, that just about wraps it up for this lifetime, I guess.
Ford: Well ... it’s really been nice running into you again, Zaphod.
Zaphod and Ford (singing loudly): Zaglabor astragard, Hootrimansion Bambriar ...
Arthur: What the hell are you doing?!
Ford: A Betelgeuse death anthem. It means, “After this, things can only get better.”