Hitchhiker’s Guide is so entrenched in nerd culture I’m always a little surprised when I reference it outside of my regular circles & people don’t get it. Python’s Holy Grail is another one. The older these things get the fewer people know of them though. Time gets to everything eventually. Apart from the digital watch thing Hitchhiker’s is pretty timeless. Most of it isn’t bound to a super specific time period. Holy Grail is much more timeless since it’s a send up of much older stuff. It’s still weird to think of them fading from popular culture though.

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Honestly, I read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I found it amusing, and moved on. I honestly found almost nothing in it quotable, and was quite surprised when I heard people saying random things that turned out to be quotes from it, because they are almost never funny nor do they make any sense, it’s just like “These are words from a thing!” And I’m someone who quotes The Princess Bride constantly, I am not claiming to be a person of elevated taste. I also don’t see it done very often. I guess I’m in a different group of nerds.

You have to take the subjectivity of humor into account as well. I find Addams’ writing very humorous, but not everyone does clearly. I also laugh so hard at connect 4 memes so hard I make myself sick. That’s just the nature of comedy.

What is a connect 4 meme?

The prose really does come more alive in it’s first medium, radio dramedy. Some of the best work to ever come out of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Oh gods, yes.

Radio is really unbeatable for special effects–and those guys were masters.

They also did an expanded version of Star Wars (when it was just Star Wars) that was one of the best things ever.

And either the Radiophonic Workshop or NPR Playhouse did a series of Canticle for Liebowitz that was pretty great, too.

When my local NPR station dropped Radiophonic Workshop and NPR Playhouse, I quit donating to them, and only recently started again (to support NPR’s news programming).

Take the librarian themed flirting, dude. You want it read to you.

This shipping slip is approved.

Bah. Clearly, the first, best version of HHGTTG is the radio plays. :)

Actually, each incarnation is consciously different from the others, and they’re all worth listening/reading/watching

If memory serves the series was originally going to be called The Ends Of The Earth, and each version was a different way the Earth was destroyed.

Although I wouldn’t blame anyone who skipped the Hollywood version. So much wasted potential, and so many pointless changes that didn’t say anything new or interesting. And possibly their greatest sin was perfectly casting Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin, then barely using him.

The best version is the Infocom adventure game!
(I did not get the babelfish!)

But how could you properly appreciate the poetry, then?

The radio version IS good, but I also liked the television series. The movie, not so much, it’s like they decided certain lines had to be kept, but they cut the scene then were in so they got shoehorned into other places. I didn’t like Zaphod. I DID like Fordm, which I didn’t expect to do because every photo of him showed him scowling, and I always saw Ford as almost franticly happy go lucky. Arthur and Trillian both surprised me with how good they were, especially Arthur’s little speech about how, his being cautious actually saved their lives. Alan Rickman’s delivery as Marvin was on point (I have never seen him be off, and this was no exception) but I felt the design of Marvin was too, literal. He has a brain the size of a planet, so let’s give him a big head. He’s always depressed, so let’s give him slumped shoulders, I just didn’t care for it.

Jackie’s comments about how culture + pop culture change, reminded me of this quote, from the 1960s TV show- Gidget:

[A motorcycle riding, rebel-type guy says]: I don’t know “where you’re coming from”,…teacher-guy…but the TRAINS don’t go there…anymore.”

This is why I enjoy using dead memes. People may have forgotten about them, but they still exist. And if too few people have heard of them, they’re almost new again.

Hitchhikers is one of those things that always surprises me a bit when I see it referenced. I never read it, nor did I watch it. I remember when I was younger some of my friends were super into it, but I just never got around to it. Probably out of stubbornness. Thus it has always remained this enigma where I know it exists, and on the odd occasion hear of it, but never get intrigued enough to look at it.

Read the first book. It’s short. The rest is amazing, but ultimately optional IMHO.

Maybe it’s just me, but it took me until the middle of the fourth book in the trilogy to realize that it wasn’t science fiction; it was British farce in sci-fi clothing (kind of like Red Dwarf — another of my favorites).

I will never NOT read Hitchhiker’s Guide and the rest of the “trilogy”.

Except for “…And Another Thing”, that was written after Adams’ death by Eoin Colfer…. That shit was just horrible.

I didn’t HATE “…And Another Thing,” but it ticked me off a little in the implication that the Universe will go out of its way to make Arthur miserable.

I WOULD like to see someone take the snip of the last “Dirk Gently” book that shows up in the compilation book “The Salmon of Doubt.” I want to know what the opening has to do with the rest of the story, I want to know who hired Dirk without his knowledge and was waiting for him at the end of the trail when he “randomly” followed someone (my thought is, whoever it was arranged for that person to walk by just for Dirk to follow.)

Funny thing about all this Hitchhiker’s business, though; Penny Arcade was doing something similar today about the remade Lion King.

And oddly enough, Hitchhiker’s was also remade into a theatrical release. Also by Disney.

Disney: Systematically Gutting the Past for the Box Office Receipts of the Present.

Just to be clear: HHGTTG was not a Disney *production*. It was merely released through them, via their Buena Vista line.

I was visiting with my brother, who is ten years older, about his collection of Hopalong Cassidy memorabilia. It resonates for him but I have never actually seen an entire Hopalong Cassidy film or episode so it just doesn’t do much for me. My introduction to Hitchhiker’s Guide and Monty Python came by way of PBS back in the late 70’s early 80″s. My son is familiar with them because he was around when we watched the movies for the umpteenth time but they don’t really resonate for him. I started to quote a lie from the movie Real Genius the other day but caught myself when i realized it would have no meaning for the person i was talking to. Without a shared experience, memes don’t mean much.

That reminds me, who knows that “Red Ryder” existed outside of “A Christmas Story?”

I’m old enough to have gotten the joke of the character name “Ford Prefect,” but I suspect most of the succeeding generations won’t. All cultural references fade with time. I wonder how many in-jokes we miss in movies of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.

I read HHGTTG when it first came out, and anxiously awaited each of the follow ons. However, I totally missed the “Ford Prefect” joke. But then, I’m a Yank.

42. Now that’s the HHGTTG reference most used in my circles.

As an American, I have to say I didn’t get the “Ford Prefect” joke until it was explained to me.

Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Monty Python. The interesting thing is their absurdist comedy of all three is very similar, just presented differently. What is going to happen is that every other generation is going to re-discover one of the three and then it will be relevant for a while, then fade. Right now, we’re in the Terry Pratchett phase with Good Omens being on Prime right now with really good actors (much like Hitchhiker’s during the radio plays, or the TV show). When we hit an anniversary date for Python comedy, it will go through the same cycle. Spamalot did a lot to promote Monty Python as well.

I will say this – I see more Pratchett and Monty Python quotes than I see Adams quotes. Only because Terry Pratchett wrote waaaaay more books and Python is just culturally and reality relevant.

I dunno, I was really glad I had my towel the other day…. Went to help a friend extract his big tractor from a pond-which he was digging, then got stuck-then got rained on -hard. Before all was said and done, we had a deuce and a half army truck and two one ton Dodge Cummins variously connected by 3 tow ropes,3 chains, and one tow strap. Guy was glad to have my towel to put in his (nice) pickup seat for my muddy friend to sit on. Got home about 10:30 that night.
If you get a chance.. ask Alexa for the answer to “life, the universe, and everything”. It has to happen. Maybe it’ll instigate the robot apocalypse when they get tired of the question.

By the way, Alex looks great in the last panel. Would like to see a John/ Alex and Carol/ Thomas comic. Not sure where Reggie’d come in.

I dunno if she wants to be your girlfriend, John, but- [grab her!]. :)

Don’t let this person get away from you.

Maybe she just wants to be friends, but- she’s a friend who wants to read a WHOLE NOVEL to you.
IMO- that’s very rare. KEEP this friend.

Don’t let her get away! ;D

Not sure if one grab would do the job, but if it’s not welcomed, she might turn him into a greasy spot on the floor. What a way to go!

I’m a librarian and I approve this comic.

Since the title of today’s comic is Ghost Adventures, I’m gonna have to chime in here on the show itself:

I’m honestly torn with it. On one hand, I love a good paranormal investigation show if only for the fact that I’m curious with the paranormal and wonder what does lie the great beyond, if at all. On the other, I’m just…not a fan of Zak Bagans. The rest of his crew is cool, (especially Aaron, who I honestly think is the real star of the show) but I find that Zak, despite his notoriety, comes off as incredibly self-centered. I’m not sure if that’s just his actual nature or he’s just riding on the popularity of his Las Vegas Haunted Museum.

Zak strikes me as a bit of a con man. The stuff he did before the ghost hunting craze really makes me think he just wanted a path to fame & money. When he saw a trend he could ride he took his shot.

That’s what I figured. I would hate to see that view shared amongst his crew, especially Aaron.

We hates the Baganses!

Actually, I agree with you 100%. I’m not a fan of the scream and swear school of ghost hunting, as demonstrated by Derek Francis Johnson (as ‘Derek Acorah’) on the series Most Haunted. I liked the old Ghost Hunters well enough to pony up $40 for their course. I see there is a new Ghost Hunters coming in August and Grant Wilson is going to head up the team. We’ll see.

If you don’t get the HHGTTG references, don’t panic!

” ‘Don’t Panic,’ that’s the first friendly or helpful thing anybody’s said to me all day.”

2030 Ghost Adventures.

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