Since the original radio transmission of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there have been many references to the series in many types of media. The popularity of the books, TV series, and the many other adaptations have expanded these yet further. The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ...

Most famously, a chess computer was named Deep Thought after the computer which works out the "Ultimate Answer" in the stories. In 1989 it lost two games to the then World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov. In 1996 one of its successors, Deep Blue, defeated Kasparov in a six-game match under tournament conditions, becoming the first machine to defeat a reigning World Chess Champion in tournament chess. Deep Thought was a computer designed to play chess. ... Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ... The 1984 World Chess Championship was between Anatoly Karpov (left) and Garry Kasparov (right). ... Garry Kimovich Kasparov (Гарри Кимович Каспаров) (born April 13, 1963) is a chess grandmaster and the strongest chess player in the world. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

The title has been referenced by a variety of media:

Chronological:

• Ed Krol's noted 1987 internet guide, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet [1]
• Collaborative Internet project inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The 1991 Project Galactic Guide, which has no official affiliation.
• Collaborative Internet project inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The 1999 h2g2, a project started by Douglas Adams' company The Digital Village and currently hosted by the BBC.
• Douglas Adams' final radio documentary series for BBC Radio 4 drew its title from his most famous work. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future aired in late April and early May of 2001.
• The band Ruth's Hat released an album in 2003 entitled The Hitchhiker's Guide to Rock and Roll.
• Slate article from 3 May 2005: Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide: huge, nerdy, and imprecise.
• The television hospital-drama series, ER, named a 2005 chapter "An Intern's Guide To The Galaxy" (Season 11, Chapter 5).
• Playboy included an article entitled The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Star Wars Galaxy in their June 2005 issue, US Edition.
• Softpedia published a 2005 article on its website entitled Hitchhiker's Guide to the IT World.
• O'Reilly and Associates MacDevCenter.com published a 2005 article on its website entitled The Hitchhiker's Guide to ADHOC (Advanced Developers Hands-On Conference)
• In November 2006, the "Ethical Hacker Network" announced a "Hitch-Hacker's Guide to the Galaxy" challenge, with a backstory based heavily on Douglas Adams's works. [2]

Other: Ed Krol is an important figure in Internet history. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Hitchhikers Guide to the Internet, by Ed Krol, was published in 1987 through funding by the National Science Foundation. ... Project Galactic Guide (PGG) is a collaborative project inspired by The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the fictional encyclopedia in books by Douglas Adams. ... H2G2 is also an acronym for the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ... The Hitchhikers Guide to the Future was a four-part radio series hosted by Douglas Adams. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Slate is an online news and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley and owned by Microsoft (as part of MSN). ... is the 123rd day of the year (124th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Current cast of ER ER is a popular NBC serial drama primarily set in a teaching hospitals emergency room, the fictional County General Hospital (based loosely off Cook County General, a real hospital) on Division Street in Chicago, Illinois. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Chapter has multiple meanings. ... Playboy is an American Mens magazine, founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, which has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc. ... Star Wars is an epic science fantasy saga and fictional universe created by George Lucas during the late 1970s. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Softpedia is a site that indexes information and provides downloads for many games, drivers, mobile phones, and software for the Windows, Macintosh and Linux platforms. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

• Microsoft Press has published multiple editions of Hitchhiker's Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server.

Microsoft Press is the publishing arm of Microsoft, usually releasing books dealing with various current Microsoft technologies. ...

42

References to the number forty-two are common: Look up forty-two in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

• Google's calculator feature displays the number 42 when asked, "answer to life the universe and everything?" [3] (only works with all lower-case letters and without quotation marks).
• Using search at live.com will give you a similar result. Entering "answer to life the universe and everything" (all lower case letters again) into the search box at www.live.com gives the result: "Answer: answer = 42 at the top of the list. [4]
• The Linux kernel source from version 1.3.2 has the following in kernel/time.c:

 #if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI) /* * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus * this makes the year come out right. */ year -= 42; #endif 

• The character of Lionel, in the PBS Kids' series Between the Lions, wears a '42' on his rugby jersey sleeve. This is a deliberate homage by two of the show's creators, Michael Frith and Christopher Cerf, as discussed in Cerf's introduction to the US Editions of The Salmon of Doubt.
• The house number of the Kumars, of The Kumars at No. 42, is a reference, as the show's creator Sanjeev Bhaskar explained on the occasion of endorsing the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the BBC campaign Big Read.
• In SWI Prolog, if one asks for a capitalised goal predicate, such as Predicate. or X., therefore turning the goal into the uninstantiated question (in other words, one asks a question that can be loosely translated as "What matches [everything]?" or "Is there an [everything]?"), one is given 42. For example:

 1 ?- X. % ... 1,000,000 ............ 10,000,000 years later % % >> 42 << (last release gives the question) 1 ?- 

• In the text editor vim, the command ":help 42" yields the following text:

What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? *42* Douglas Adams, the only person who knew what this question really was about is now dead, unfortunately. So now you might wonder what the meaning of death is... Googles main pages unusually spartan design, uncluttered appearance and quick loading time have contributed greatly to the sites mass appeal. ... Look up forty-two in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe, and Everything is a fictional solution in Douglas Adamss science fiction series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... Linux (IPA pronunciation: ) is a Unix-like computer operating system. ... A kernel connects the application software to the hardware of a computer. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... Not to be confused with Public Broadcasting Services in Malta. ... Between the Lions is a PBS childrens puppet show designed to promote reading. ... Christopher Cerf (born August 19, 1941) is an author, composer-lyricist, and record and television producer. ... The front cover of the UK first hardcover edition of The Salmon of Doubt. ... The Kumars at No. ... Vic Chopra (Sanjeev Bhaskar) falls foul of Ash Desai (Manish Patel) Sanjeev Bhaskar OBE (born 28 June 1964 in Essex, England) is a British Indian comedian and actor, best known for his work in the BBC2 comedy series, Goodness Gracious Me and as host of The Kumars at No. ... The Big Read was a 2003 survey carried out by the BBC, with the goal of finding the Nations Best-loved Book by way of a viewer vote via the Web, SMS and telephone. ... Prolog is a logic programming language. ... Vim, which stands for Vi IMproved, is an open source, multiplatform text editor extended from vi. ...

Furthermore, the command ":help!" displays "Don't Panic!".

• Geoff Fortytwo changed his last name to Fortytwo in 1998.
• The popular talker known as the Planes of Existence used 42 as the beginning of all of its ports.
• In the TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) specification: Every TIFF file begins with a 2-byte indicator of byte order: "II" for little endian and "MM" for big endian byte ordering. The following 2 bytes represent the number 42. The number 42 was selected "for its deep philosophical significance".
• The band Level 42 was named in direct reference to this (first mentioned in Neil Gaiman's Don't Panic).
• In the game Dragon Quest, a free online game, you are told that the meaning of life is in room number 42.
• In the online game Adventure Quest, there is a door labelled 42 in the inn. When clicked on, messages appear that reference the books.
• If using the Oracle of Team Trafikk [5], the local bus company in Trondheim, Norway it will answer the question "Hva er meningen med livet?" ("What is the meaning of life?") with "42".
• In Microsoft's Integrated Development Environment Visual C++, creating a new Dynamic-link library project will generate default code with a sample function that just returns 42.
• The first real distribution of SUSE Linux was numbered 4.2 in reference to 42
• The Breakout-style PC game DX Ball 2, if started and watched without interaction, displays a scrolling message ending with:

"That's it, really"

(Text scrolls to blank screen)

"No more text"

(Scrolls to blank screen again)

"The meaning of life is

- - -

the defeat of entropy"

(Scrolls to blank screen again)

"Ha-ha! You thought I was going to say

- - -

Forty-two, didn't you?

• Douglas Adams first made use of the number 42 in his 1976 The Burkiss Way sketch "Logical positivism" where the punchline was to be found at 42 Logical Positivism Avenue.

• In the fourth chapter of the 3D adventure game Ankh, the main character Assil asks a genie about the life, the universe and everything, to which the genie answers forty-two.
• In a free online Text Based RPG Dragon Ball: Saga, Among the many 'Helpfiles' there was one entitled 'meaningoflife', users could type in 'Help meaningoflife' and get 'The Number 42' as a response. Some 'clones' of this Text Based RPG still have this same helpfile.
• The english version of Encarta Instant Answers bot for MSN Messenger, when you ask "What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?" answer "Forty-two."

The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... This article is about TIFF, the computer image format. ... Level 42 is a popular British pop and funk band. ... Neil Richard Gaiman () (born November 10, 1960) is an English author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and novels, graphic novels, and comics. ... Consulting the Oracle by John William Waterhouse, showing eight priestesses in a temple of prophecy An oracle is a person or persons considered to be the source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion; an infallible authority, usually spiritual in nature. ... County Sør-Trøndelag District Municipality NO-1601 Administrative centre Trondheim Mayor (2005) Rita Ottervik (AP) Official language form Neutral Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 258 342 km² 322 km² 0. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... This article is about dynamic libraries implemented by Microsoft. ... SUSE (pronounced , loosely [SOO-zuh] [1] in English) is a major retail Linux distribution, produced in Germany and owned by Novell, Inc. ... This computer game has been incorrectly referred to or categorized with the PC game misnomer. ... DX-Ball 2 is a shareware computer game for the PC first released on December 21, 1998 by Longbow Digital Arts as a follow up to the widely popular 1996 game DX-Ball. ... Year 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the 1976 Gregorian calendar. ... The Burkiss Way was a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series that ran from August 1976 to November 1980. ... Logical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world — with a version of rationalism—the idea that our knowledge includes a component that is not derived from observation. ... Image File history File links 42_Logical_Positivism_Avenue. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... Ankh is a point-and-click 3D adventure game by Deck13 Interactive. ...

Phrases

Other popular phrases have been adapted many times:

• StarCraft game manual, page 49, first paragraph ("The Umojan Protectorate"), last sentence: "The Protectorate seeks a truce with the Protoss, believing that the elder race can teach them the mysteries of the greater meaning of life, the universe, and everything."
• Version 4.0 of the screen saver collection After Dark contained a module titled "Life & All" which, from a drop-down menu, could be set to "calculate" life, the universe and everything.
• The translation website Babelfish.com is taken from the Babelfish, the creature that can translate any language to become intelligible for the listener.
• The title of the episode #1.35 of the Disney animated series Darkwing Duck is "Life, the Negaverse, and Everything," referring to Life, the Universe and Everything.
• In the game GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64, one of the "awards" that can be earned in multiplayer mode is "Mostly Harmless."
• In the game Elite the player's first ranking is "Harmless", after which they progress to "Mostly Harmless." These are, respectively, the entire entries for the planet Earth in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy before and after Ford Prefect's update. The same is true of the Escape Velocity games and Evil Genius.
• The band NOFX released an album in 1997 called So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes, in reference to the dolphins' final quote, "So long, and thanks for all the fish." "Shoes" was used because of the articles of clothing, including shoes, that are thrown onto the stage whenever the band performs live. This was stated in the insert for the album.
• In the game Impossible Creatures, Rex says, "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish," after the villagers he saves from a fire give him a bunch of Archerfish to mix with other creatures. This is yet another reference to the title of the fourth book, and what the dolphins say shortly before departing from the earth.
• The Coldplay song "Don't Panic" takes its name from the inscription on the front cover of the fictional guide.
• The name of GameFAQs' most well-known message board, "Life, the Universe, and Everything", is derived from the book of the same name. It was formerly board #42, but is now board #402.
• In S.M. Stirling's book, "Island in the Sea of Time", William Walker says "So long", and finishes with "and thanks for all the fish" in his head.
• The website drinksmixer.com lists one recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster here.
• The jester in Infocom's Zork Zero will sometimes say "So long, and thanks for all the fish" (a reference to the computer game, because Zork Zero and the game were both implemented by Steve Meretzky.)
• Two Finnish bands, Abduktio and Poverty Stinks have used titles from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Abduktio's 2005 album Tuli kulje kanssani features a track called Enimmäkseen harmiton, which translates to "Mostly Harmless". Poverty Stinks's 1990 album is called Gargle Blaster.
• British band Men From Earth distributed a song titled 'Salmon of Doubt' via their website the week of Adams's death, as a tribute.
• The video game Radical Dreamers contains a book that begins in the same way as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Factor 5's Super NES game Super Turrican shows a planet named Katakis, which was billed as "Mostly Harmless".
• An Extremetech.com article written about Bill Gates' planned departure from Microsoft was titled So Long, Bill, and Thanks for all the Phish
• In the MMORPG RuneScape, an island exists with the name Mos Le'Harmless
• Alien-abduction obsessed British Rave band Eat Static released a 12-inch called Monkey Man which is Zaphod's reference to Arthur in 1991 (also on the 1999 Alien EPs)
• In the Mata Nui Online Game, created for the first year of Lego's Bionicle franchise, the question of "What do you get if you multiply six by nine" appears in Matoran text on the walls of the Ko-Koro Sanctum, a place of prophecy and knowledge. This also occurred in Mata Nui Online Game Two.
• In Puzzle Pirates, "Mostly Harmless" is one of the crew ranks. [6]
• If you feed a "Knuffel" (a feedable-breedable pet that was created in a GaiaOnline thread) one of the chaning phrases that appears in the Knuffel's word bubble is "Thanks for all the fish".

StarCraft is a real-time strategy game by Blizzard Entertainment. ... A screensaver is a computer program originally designed to conserve the image quality of computer displays by blanking the screen or filling them with moving images or patterns when the computers are not in use. ... After Dark is the name given to a series of successful screensaver software products first released in 1989 by Berkeley Systems for the Macintosh (and later ported to Windows). ... The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. ... Darkwing Duck is an Emmy-nominated American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991 to 1995 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured an eponymous superhero anthropomorphic duck with the alter ego of Drake Mallard... The Answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe, and Everything is a fictional solution in Douglas Adamss science fiction series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... GoldenEye 007 is a first-person shooter video game for the Nintendo 64 based on the James Bond film GoldenEye. ... This section needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... Elite is a seminal space trading computer game, originally published by Acornsoft in 1984 for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers. ... Adjectives: Terrestrial, Terran, Telluric, Tellurian, Earthly Atmosphere Surface pressure: 101. ... David Dixon as Ford Prefect in Episode One of the TV adaptation of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... For other senses of this term, see escape velocity (disambiguation). ... Evil Genius is a computer game created by Vivendi Universal Games and released in 2004. ... NOFX is a punk rock band from California, formed in 1983. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The punk rock band NOFX released this album on November 11, 1997. ... Impossible Creatures is a real time strategy game developed by Relic Entertainment in conjunction with Microsoft Game Studios. ... Coldplay are a critically acclaimed and Grammy award winning English rock band. ... Dont Panic is the fourth single from Coldplays debut album, Parachutes. ... GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Stephen Michael Stirling is a Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author. ... Zork universe Zork games Zork Anthology Zork trilogy Zork I   Zork II   Zork III Beyond Zork   Zork Zero   Planetfall Enchanter trilogy Enchanter   Sorcerer   Spellbreaker Other games Wishbringer   Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis   Zork Grand Inquisitor Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Topics in Zork Encyclopedia Frobozzica Characters   Kings   Creatures Timeline   Magic   Calendar... Steve Meretzky Steven Eric Meretzky (born May 1, 1957) is an American computer game designer, with dozens of titles to his credit. ... The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... Radical Dreamers is a Japanese video game produced by Squaresoft in 1996 through the Satellaview add-on for the Nintendo Super Famicom. ... The cover of the first novel in the Hitchhikers series, from a late 1990s printing. ... Factor 5 is a software and video game developer that is best known for the Star Wars series Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. ... The European SNES design is identical to the Super Famicom. ... William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder, chairman, former chief software architect, and former CEO of Microsoft, the worlds largest software company. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... An image from World of Warcraft, one of the largest commercial MMORPGs as of 2004, based on active subscriptions. ... RuneScape is a Java-based MMORPG operated by Jagex Ltd. ... Look up rave in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Eat Static are Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton, a dance music project from England formed in 1990. ... Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... Lego Group logo. ... A fan-made recreation of the Bionicle logo. ... Matoran as they appeared on Metru Nui. ... Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is a computer game played over the Internet. ...

Characters and concepts

Some characters and concepts have been referenced, particularly towels:

Hitchhiker's references in Doctor Who

Because Adams wrote or co-wrote scripts for three Doctor Who serials, and was the script editor for the 1979-1980 season, many references to Hitchhiker's appear in Doctor Who.

• Douglas Adams wrote the four episodes for the 1978 Doctor Who serial The Pirate Planet at the same time that he wrote the original six-part radio series for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Because of this, the serial contains multiple Hitchhiker's "in-jokes" (a few of which are explained in the "pop-up production notes" option on the DVD release of the serial):

• In Part One, precious stones are discovered in the street that could have only come from two places in the galaxy, one of those being the planet "Bantraginus V" — in the Hitchhiker's canon, the similarly named planet "Santraginus V" is the location for one of the key ingredients for making a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.
• In Part Two, the first time that The Doctor travels along the linear induction corridor to The Bridge, he remarks, "I'll never be cruel to an electron in a particle accelerator again!" This is a parody of a line spoken by Arthur Dent in the second radio episode, as the ship that he and Ford Prefect have hitchhiked aboard begins to travel in hyperspace: "I'll never be cruel to a gin and tonic again!" Also in Part Two, The Doctor mocks the Captain's guards in a manner similar to Ford Prefect taunting the Vogon Guard in the second episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide.
• The Doctor's arrival, with the Mentiads, at their hiding place in Part Three is announced to take place "in 21.9 seconds" by K-9. This is compared to the Narrator announcing that Ford Prefect "will enter our story in 35 seconds" in the first episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide. Also in Part Three, when captured by The Captain, The Doctor's advice to fellow captive Kimus is "Don't Panic."
• Dialogue cut between Romana and The Doctor in Part Four had Romana accusing The Doctor of being "impossible." The Doctor replied, "No, just very, very improbable."

• In the 1979 Doctor Who serial Destiny of the Daleks, the Doctor reads Oolon Colluphid's book The Origins of the Universe and says he got it wrong "on the first line". This reference was inserted into the script by the script editor of Doctor Who at the time — Douglas Adams.
• When Big Finish Productions was commissioned to record a complete version of the Doctor Who story Shada, by Douglas Adams, to be webcast on the BBCi website, other references to The Hitchhiker's Guide were added. A sequence dealing with the story's villain stealing a car (and stealing the knowledge of how to operate it from the driver's mind) was originally scripted with little or no dialogue. The new version reveals that the driver is the treasurer for a Ford Prefect society, and this model of car is the one that is stolen. This sequence can be heard on the CD release of the story. Artist Lee Sullivan also inserted a "Nutrimat" dispenser in Chris Parsons's physics lab and images of Hitchhiker's characters appear as inmates on the prison planet Shada. The latter two references can only be seen in the original webcast's animation.
• Another reference appeared in the story Ghost Light in 1989. Sylvester McCoy's Doctor at one point asks, as a rhetorical question, "Who was it that said earthmen never invite their ancestors to dinner?" The original line, in episode one of both the radio and TV series of Hitchhiker's was: "Earthmen are not proud of their ancestors and never invite them round to dinner."
• Russell T. Davies mentions in Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts that one of the inspirations for all of the aliens gathered during "The End of the World" was Adams's The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
• In the 2005 Christmas special, "The Christmas Invasion", the Doctor, having been revived by the smell of spilt tea before saving the day wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown, describes all this as "very Arthur Dent", adding: "Now, there was a nice man!"
• In the first episode Everything Changes of the new Doctor Who spin-off (and anagram) Torchwood, Captain Jack demonstrates a device that he dubs a perception filter (or, more accurately, invisible lift), that shares its functionality with a Somebody Else's Problem Field. A normal person, unfamiliar with Torchwood and the lift, is unable to see anyone standing on the lift until they step off, whereas a member of Torchwood is able to see the occupier of the lift (and also shoot them).
• The seventh episode of the third Dr Who series was called "42" which features a ship heading for the sun (mirroring the Haggunenon Underfleet Commander/Disaster Area ship). The story opens with the Doctor and Martha in a situation that parallels Ford and Arthur's teleport arrival on the Vogon Constructor ship. Doctor Who Magazine reported in the preview for this episode that the title "42" was chosen for the fact the episode is set in real time.^[1] When asked whether the title referred either to that television series or to the work of Douglas Adams, he said yes, and acknowledged that "It's a playful title." This is made clear 41 minutes into the episode (i.e. in the 42nd minute), when the theme tune to the TV version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is echoed. This occurs again 20 seconds later.

Doctor Who is a long-running award-winning British science fiction television programme (and a 1996 television film) produced by the BBC. The series shows the adventures of a mysterious time-traveller known as the Doctor, who explores time and space in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space... The Pirate Planet is the second serial in the Key to Time arc of Doctor Who. ... The terms Primary Phase and Secondary Phase describe the first two radio series of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... This is a list of places featured in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is a fictional alcoholic drink which is mentioned in Douglas Adams humorous science fiction radio series, novels, computer game, movie, comic book mini-series, and television series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... Doctor Who is a long-running award-winning British science fiction television programme (and a 1996 television film) produced by the BBC. The series shows the adventures of a mysterious time-traveller known as the Doctor, who explores time and space in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space... Destiny of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from September 1 to September 22, 1979. ... There are many minor characters in the various versions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. ... Script Editor is a program included with Mac OS that allows AppleScripts to be written, debugged, and ran. ... Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces audio plays released straight to compact disc, based on British cult science fiction properties. ... Doctor Who is a long-running award-winning British science fiction television programme (and a 1996 television film) produced by the BBC. The series shows the adventures of a mysterious time-traveller known as the Doctor, who explores time and space in his TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space... Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... For the character on The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, see Ford Prefect (character). ... Lee Terence Sullivan. ... Ghost Light is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from October 4 to October 18, 1989. ... Sylvester McCoy (born Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith August 20, 1943) is a Scottish actor. ... The End of the World is an episode in the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on April 2, 2005. ... The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980, ISBN 0345391810) is the second book in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A Christmas television special is typically a one_time, 30 minute animated program aired during the Christmas season. ... The Christmas Invasion is a 60-minute special episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Everything Changes is an episode in the British science fiction television series Torchwood, which was first broadcast on 22 October 2006. ... For the eponymous fictional institute, see Torchwood Institute. ... 42 is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... There are many minor characters in the various versions of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. ... A disaster area is a region or locale heavily damaged by either natural events, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes), or by war. ... Doctor Who Magazine (abbreviated as DWM) is a magazine devoted to the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Real time is a term used to describe a motion picture, television or radio program, or computer game wherein the events depicted take place entirely within the span of time that lasts from the beginning of the depiction to the end, and at the same rate. ... Douglas Noël Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and musician. ...

Comic strips

• The webcomic After Y2K featured a tribute comic to Adams after his 2001 death. [7]
• FoxTrot made an oblique reference to Hitchhiker's by joking that the character Marcus knows Mos Def not as a rapper, but as the actor who portrayed Ford Prefect in the film adaptation of the series. The comic was first published on 28 March 2006.
• In the comic "Get Fuzzy", Rob Wilco is known to wear a shirt with the mathematical equation "6 * 9 = 42". There was also a comic with a tribute to Douglas Adams (published after the author's 2001 death), with a giant 42 with the line "So long and thanks for all the laughs." Also, Bucky Katt and Satchel Pooch are seen holding towels, and Satchel says "Don't panic." In a post-9/11 strip, Satchel Pooch hugs a NYC firefighter whose hat bears the number 42. On 17 April 2007 Bucky claimed to be "the coolest frood in the universe." On 26 May 2007, creator Darby Conley again inserted a Hitchhiker's reference, when Rob said that Bucky's poetry was as bad as a Vogon's.

Webcomics, also known as online comics and internet comics, are comics that are available to read on the Internet. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... Mos Def (born Dante Terrell Smith on December 11, 1973 in Brooklyn, New York City, USA), is an American rapper and actor. ... David Dixon as Ford Prefect in Episode One of the TV adaptation of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. ... Get Fuzzy is an American daily comic strip written and drawn by Darby Conley. ... Darby Conley is an American cartoonist best known for the popular comic strip Get Fuzzy. ...

Other references

• In the book Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, it is revealed (on page 77) that part of the "impulse drive system schematic panel in Main Engineering," on the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), the subject of the book, is labeled "Infinite Improbability Generation."
• As reprinted in the book The Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine a directory of the space station's Promenade includes: "Milliways 02-984" and "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation 02-643." The numbers indicate the locations of Milliways and the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation on the space station Deep Space Nine.
• The name of the instant messaging client Trillian comes from the nickname of the character Tricia McMillan.
• The AltaVista Babel Fish Translator's name is a reference to the Babel fish, which is in turn a reference to the Tower of Babel.
• The Radiohead song "Paranoid Android" refers to Marvin, the depressed robot. It is found on the album "OK Computer" which is also a phrase spoken by Zaphod Beeblebrox to the Heart of Gold's computer.
• In the children's online game Neopets, an item called a Pan Galactic Gargle Slushie can be purchased. It references the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, named the best drink in existence by the Guide. Also, during the Haunted Woods plot, during the grave markings, one of the graves is inscribed with the name Arthur Denton.
• The Commander Keen series of video games features several references: Episode IV and V together are called Goodbye Galaxy!, part of a sentence in chapter 26 of "Life, the Universe and Everything". In episode IV the Dopefish is listed as the second dumbest creature in the universe, a reference to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. Episode V features a device called the Brownian Motion Inducer, part of which is a cup of hot tea, a reference to the Brownian motion generator that powers the Heart of Gold.
• The Infocom adventure game was reviewed in UK computer publication Personal Computer World's January 1985 edition, which also featured cover art of Zaphod playing two computers at once. Derek Cohen, editor of the magazine at the time and fan of the series, had previously got himself listed in the London telephone directory for several years as Zaphod Beeblebrox.
• The novel Planetfall, written by Arthur Byron Cover, and based on the Infocom game of the same name, was sold with the tagline: "In the bestselling tradition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," and referenced the importance of towels and also contained a variant on the "Dentarthurdent" joke between Arthur and Slartibartfast (from the first book, or radio/tv episode 3).
• NetHack has several references to the Hitchhiker's Guide. If under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, the player may meet a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal or a microscopic space fleet. The game also features a towel, the entire description of which is a direct quote from the Hitchhiker's Guide. Also sometimes things can disappear "in a puff of logic".
• The game Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude included a Thing Your Aunt Gave You Which You Don't Know What it Is - a reference to an identically named object from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy computer game.
• In Starcrossed, the Finale to the Justice League animated series, the League must fight to stop a group of aliens from destroying the Earth to create a hyperspace bypass (or rather, building a hyperspace device that will destroy the Earth upon its activation).
• In the popular video game Destroy All Humans! one scientist says "Me with a brain the size of a planet, and I can't get lucky to save my life!", which is a reference to Marvin the Paranoid Android. Also in the same game one person says "I've heard that the Dolphins have been in contact with the aliens. Mice told me that." This is a reference to what the mice and dolphins are doing in the first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. You can also go to a place called Area 42, based on Area 51.
• The online game Kingdom of Loathing contains many references:
  • The Probability Giant's room in the Castle in the Clouds in the Sky is reminiscent of the Infinite Improbability Drive when activated. It even includes "what appears to be a whale and a bowl of petunias."
  • Upon using the meat vortex item, the resulting text says the vortex "vanishes in a puff of annoying."
  • Upon using an awful poetry journal, the game says, "Your small intestine attempts to strangle you from within," referring to what the Guide said happened to Grunthos the Flatulent.
  • The 31337 scroll summons the UB3r 31337 HaX0R. On the first use in each ascension, the HaXOR "vanishes in a puff of logic."
  • The game has a towel item, with a description that references the Guide.
  • The Terrycloth Tackle outfit, made from the towels, yields the 42 Tattoo.
  • In a text-based sub-game, typing "consult guide" yields the message "You forgot it. You didn't bring a towel, either. Some adventurer you are."
  • There are literally dozens more such references scattered throughout the game.
• In the TV series My Life as a Teenage Robot, one of Jenny's sisters, XJ-7, possesses traits similar to Marvin. She replied "Life, Universe, Everything," when asked what was wrong.
• Galactic Krikkit - A (defunct) multiplayer web-based game with a large number of references to HHGTTG.
• There is a nightclub in Ottawa, Canada called Zaphod Beeblebrox, which serves a number of Hitchhicker's Guide themed alcoholic drinks, including Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and Slartibartfasts.
• There is a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy themed youth hostel called The Heart of Gold on the Johannisstrasse, in central Berlin.
• In the computer game Startopia your guide to the game, VAL, tells you to remember the words "don't panic". Also while playing sandbox mode he can give you a random message which says '42, interesting number don't you think?'
• In Commander in Chief, Mackenzie Allen's son has a The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie poster in his room.
• In the Asheron's Call computer game it is possible to obtain a wearable towel that comes with an explanatory note from Ford Prefect.
• If you are killed by a certain enemy in Quake III Arena he taunts you by saying "No threat/mostly harmless".
• A Quiz-show style stage in the video game Earthworm Jim 2 asks the question "What is the meaning of life?" The correct answer is, of course, 42.
• In the 3D graphic art program Bryce, one preset liquid texture choice is named Santraginus V, with the subtitle "...or a cool frosty Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster."
• In the Andromeda episode "A Heart for Falsehood Framed" the ship's AI says she had "a brain the size of a Planet".
• In the role-playing computer game Fallout 2, the player may encounter a dead whale in the middle of the desert. Examining the whale reveals that "It appears to have fallen from a great distance."If one examines the area more thoroughly you can find a pot of flowers a direct reference to the bowl of petunias that fall simultaneously with the whale.
• In the first episode of the anime series Full Metal Panic, Kaname Chidori has a book titled, Dolphins' last message to mankind...So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
• In the Animal Planet TV program "Meerkat Manor" one of the male meerkats is named Zaphod.
• In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Bloo's the Boss" Madame Foster's rescue strategy is codenamed ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. This is the same codename given to the sector of space where Zaphod says he picked Trillian up in the first book. In the episode "Bus the Two of Us", Bloo and others drive by a hitchhiker resembling Arthur Dent (in that he was wearing a dressing-gown) and holding a sign that says "Magrathea". In 'Good Wilt Hunting', the two scientists are called Douglas and Adam, and Adam has 42 on his shirt.
• In the Star Wars universe novel MedStar II: Jedi Healer, Den Duhr, one of the main characters, begins to order a "Pan Galactic Gar-" but is interrupted. Earlier in the novel he also ordered a shot of "that Old Janx Spirit".
• The theatrical trailer for the animated film Chicken Little is a spoof of the theatrical trailer for the Hitchhiker's Guide movie. In it, "Don't Panic" is replaced with "Panic" and stars form the shape of Chicken Little's head (in the Hithhiker's trailer, the stars form the book). This trailer is avliable on the Hitchhiker's DVD under "Sneak Peaks".
• In the computer game Escape Velocity, numerous references can be found, including a planet called Zaphod which is in the Beeblebrox system, a planet called "EvilDrome" the bar on which is called the Boozarama, and the Space Station in the Sirius system says it houses the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, the makers of fine cybernetic products.

	v • d • e The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy By Douglas Adams
Books:	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | The Restaurant at the End of the Universe | Life, the Universe and Everything | So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish | Mostly Harmless | Young Zaphod Plays it Safe | The Original Radio Scripts | The Salmon of Doubt
Media:	Radio series (Phases 1 & 2, Phases 3, 4 & 5) | TV series | Movie | Computer game | Differences between versions | Cast lists
Characters:	Arthur Dent | Ford Prefect | Zaphod Beeblebrox | Marvin | Trillian | Slartibartfast | The Guide | Minor characters | Races and species
Places:	List of places | Total Perspective Vortex | Heart of Gold | Wikkit Gate | Starship Titanic | Galactic Empire | Whole Sort of General Mish Mash
Miscellanea:	The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything | 42 Puzzle | Babel fish | Bistromathic drive | Cultural references | h2g2 | Infinidim Enterprises | Infinite Improbability Drive | International Phenomenon | Notable phrases | Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster | Point-of-view gun | Somebody Else's Problem field | Sirius Cybernetics Corporation | Towel Day | Vogon poetry