Blog of New York Producer Handcancel

Whenever I enter a casual discussion with someone about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the audio-guy in me initially has to proudly let it be known that Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was originally a radio comedy- one of the funniest, most brilliant pieces of audio-comedy ever produced in fact. After stating that I’m very happy to hear everything you have to say about HHGTTG and it’s various multi-media incarnations. Such discussions will most likely end with me having the last word, saying “You’ve just got to hear the original BBC radio broadcasts from the 70s!” If I really like you I’ll burn you the CDs I made from the tapes.

A couple weeks ago NASA’s Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) project “bombed” the moon (created twin impacts on the moon’s surface in a search for water ice). LCROSS has a Twitter, and sure enough, as the sensing satellite approached it’s impact they appropriately twittered the following memorable dialogue from HHGTTG: “And what’s this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like ‘Ow’, ‘Ownge’, ‘Round’, ‘Ground’! That’s it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it’ll be friends with me?”- a galactic shout out to Adams and his timeless story- the part where some missiles turned into a whale at an improbability factor of 8,767,128 to 1 against.

A few days later author Eoin Colfer’s new book And Another Thing… came out- a daring continuation of Douglas Adams book series of HHGTTG.

Talk about big shoes to fill... shoes? Yes SHOES! An entire archaeological layer of compressed shoes!

Initial reaction- blasphemy! Of course. But the chance that a renewed interest in the story could send folks back to the origins could make it all worth it. Plus I’m trying to get away from that whole ‘purist’ thing when it comes to being a fan of music, books, film- whatever. I’ll almost say that if someone doesn’t desperately want to re-make, redo, or continue your film, book, or TV series then maybe it didn’t have enough fans, then if some accomplished fan wasn’t recruited to bring it back to market then maybe it just wasn’t good- just maybe! Colfer explains himself in this video below. Be sure to click to Youtube to read the comments for the all important “word on the street (net)” about what a few HHGTTG cranks may be feeling about the new book without having read it- of course.

Then you know it isn’t a party without the glowing Apple Mac logo somewhere in the room these days- so a HHGTTG iPhone App has also been released to promote the book- beating Amazon’s Kindle to the punch for what could actually be the closest device to a real Hitchhikers Guide this side of Ursa major. Check out a review from Apptism.

I could write on for pages about the radness of Douglas Adams, but I really want to catch this Angels-Yankees game, so do yourself a flavor if you don’t already know, and no matter what… DON’T PANIC !

Thanks Doug!