Don't Panic: The Hitchhiker's Guide Phenomenon

As always there are spoilers ahead. You can buy the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book in most bookshops and you can listen to the radio play on YouTube and also on the Internet Archive.

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As mentioned elsewhere this is not an analysis of the film or any kind of review of the book but more like a chat amongst fans of what the story means to us and why.

My amazing guests are very qualified to wax lyrical about the topic at hand.

Michael Newton is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. He is a cultural historian who has written about film amongst many other topics including being the Editor of the book The Origins of Science Fiction.

Mark Steadman creative digital producer, long time podcaster and host of the Beware of the Leopard podcast which explored the A to Z of the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. (He also has what I consider the best productivity podcast in the world as it takes into consideration that we are humans with feelings and lives. Undo – How history's outliers got stuff done can be found here.)

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:52 When we were first exposed to H2G2

05:01The Late 70s and scifi

06:54 Mental health and the art of Zen

10: 40 Zaphod: Douglas Adams and the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster

15:31 Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect

19:53 Suburban life and bathos

21:46 Douglas Adams' "first album"

24:41 The broad appeal

28:03 Douglas' delightful detours

32:25 We love Douglas and his thin plot

32:58 No happy ending

36:18 Absurdism

37:31 Sirius Cybernetics Corporation and Silicon Valley

41:29 Gadgetry in H2G2

47:11 Shoutout to the super intelligent colour blue

50:25 Legacy: Tech, atheism, and imagination

54:02 Recommendations for the listener

NEXT EPISODE! In two week's time (if all goes well!) we shall be discussing Panic in the Year Zero (1962) and the appeal of Armageddon. The film is available to buy or rent online in many places in the USA and UK but may be tricky in certain regions.