Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Don't Panic!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (BBC Miniseries)

Found at local thrift store in March 2012

The best thing about this VHS cassette is that it’s the entire BBC series of THGTTGG on one 194 minute cassette.  In order for that to be possible, the VHS must be recorded in SLP (Super Long Play) mode which is fairly low quality. This cassette version  puts all 6 episodes together in a movie like way, taking out the opening and ending credits between episodes.  This is both good and bad; the music for the credits is awesome and the animation is pretty cool too, but the linear presentation does make for easier view-ability.    

                There are so many things about this series that I like that I don’t know where to start.  The production values of the show are low, and it’s super cheesy, but that doesn’t detract from story and in some ways it actually ads to it.  The narration for the Hitchhikers Guide excerpts is spot on, as are the animations.  An interesting factoid about the animations is that while they are made to look like computer animation, they are in fact hand drawn.  Back in ’81 computer animation was super expensive, John Carpenter had another “innovative” approach for saving money on computer animation.   In Escape From New York, the “computer” wireframe sequences of NYC were actually made by slapping tons of green tape over a model of NYC.   The look of the faux computer animation is really cool and very 1980’s stylized. 

           I’ve viewed the series on DVD before, and once I even found a double cassette version, but I liked this presentation so much that I watched it all the way through, and then did it again 2 days later.  People always say that the book is better than the movie,  and in this case some say that the radio show is better than the book, but this mini-series adaptation captures the feel of the book very well.  You will laugh at the delivery of Slarty Barfast, you will cry over the quality of Zaphod’s second head, and in the end you will wish there was more.  This one is so good that I almost want to keep it, hope it goes to a good home. 

 

So long and thanks for all the fish –Wiley

Drop Off Time and  Location: April 16 apx. 8pm Brookline J.P. Licks