Fit the Second: LIFE, THE UNIVERSE, AND GATCHAMAN.

By Briony Coote

Narrator background: After being dowsed with lavender talcum powder and drenched with tea by the Selectrans in the Moogly Quadrant of the Andromeda Galaxy, our heroes are now being confronted by an immature semi-evolved ape-like descendant which thinks it is a Great Big Swallow.

Jinpei: This is your final warning! Lay down your seaweed or be blasted out of the sky by the Great Swallow Jinpei!

Zaphod: Hey, who are you calling great, kid? There’s nobody greater than the Great Zaphod Beeblebrox!

Jinpei: Don’t you know you’re talking to the Great Swallow Jinpei!

Zaphod: You look more like a Frogstar Robot gone wrong! There’s only one person who’s great around here and that’s me, the Great Zaphod Beeblebrox!

Marvin: No, the only Great One around here is me, Marvin, with the brain the size of of a planet.

Jinpei: Right, you’ve asked for it! (Unleashes his saw and charges)

Zaphod: Maximum improbability!

Eddie: Sorry guys, the Drive’s still soaked with tea. Should be ready in a few megaseconds.

Zaphod: Turn on the recording of Vogon poetry!

Ford/Arthur: Oh please, not that! (But too late)

Jinpei: YAAAGGGGHHH! (His space bubble writhes in agony and explodes. Jinpei falls to a soft landing on Earth)

Ken: Fire the bird missiles!

Eddie: Guys, there’s two missiles heading our way!

Zaphod: Is the Improbability Drive still soaked with tea?

Eddie: No, the megaseconds are up now guys.

Zaphod: Maximum Improbability!

Eddie: Sure thing!

Joe: What happened to my bird missiles?

Jun: They turned into a bowl of petunias and a surprised-looking sperm whale!

Soosai X: Berg Katse, what do you mean your mecha got squashed by a sperm whale?!?

Ken: Firebird mode!

Zaphod: Space cookies! What’s that thing we’ve use the Improbability Drive on?

Arthur: It looks like a Phoenix!

Zaphod: Phoenix? What’s a phoenix?

Book: The Phoenix is the bird with the most peculiar survival mechanism in the known universe. While most birds get by on not keeping their nails filed, unpleasant shrieks which sound like a Vogon’s grandmother with hobnails or simply sitting still and hope for the best, the Phoenix survives by setting itself on fire and coming back again as a new bird. One theory for the origins of this strange survival mechanism is that a phoenix was trapped in corner and in danger of being stuffed by a taxidermist. To avoid this rather uncomfortable fate it set up a dummy of itself, set it on fire and escaped under a cloud of smoke, ashes and heavy suspicions that it was faking its own death for the insurance. Whatever the true origin of the phoenix survival mode is, is being copied by the Science Ninja Team. Whenever they find themselves in a corner - usually in the scriptwriting - they enter the Phoenix mode and escape through the loophole in the plot. The Phoenix mode usually saves the Ninja Team from being stuffed, in their case by by the television critics, but on this occasion they have been stuffed by something far more improbable.

Ken: Hey, what happened to our Firebird mode?

Jun: It turned into chocolate fudge.

Voice: Mmmm..chocolate fudge!

Joe: Ryu, you sound like Homer Simpson!

Ryu: No, that IS Homer Simpson! We’ve in the middle of Springfield!

Jun: Er, isn’t this the wrong cartoon?

Homer: (drool, drool) Aaahhhahaha ...chocolate fudge...

Ken: K’So! He’s even more gross than Galactors.

Jinpei: Aniki! Emergency! Me, the Great Swallow Jinpei got hit on the head by a bowl of petunias and I’m on live TV! Those satirists are going to love it! WAAAGH!

Book: By TV, Jinpei, of course, meant television, the most inexplicable and puzzling facet of human culture. Television is a fairly simple machine with a huge screen where humans observe images of other humans saying "Cowabunga!" "Eat my shorts!" "D’oh!" and similar expressions which usually end up in general use despite the fact they are totally meaningless. Television has long been criticised for not having a single thing worth watching. Field workers for the Guide are unanimous that there is indeed not a single thing worth watching on Earth television but are at an utter loss to explain why humans watch television when there is not a single good thing worth watching on it.

Even more explicable is the constant accusation that television is too violent and a bad influence on Earth children. This accusation is rather puzzling because humans have been violent long before television was invented and television is merely portraying normal human behaviour. Some field researchers for the Guide believe that television critics and censors are deliberately making this accusation in order to keep themselves in business. However one even more plausible theory is that the accusation is being made by a new breed of people called "television sanitisers" whose business is to supposedly sanitise the violence by replacing it with material which is purported to be non-violent but makes television even less worth watching than usual. To test this theory the Editor of the Guide is about to present Ford Prefect with a new assignment.

Zaphod: Have we got rid of all the seaweed yet?

Ford: Yes, and Marvin’s scraping off the barnacles.

Marvin: Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and I’m scraping off lesser-evolved crustaceans. But I’m quite used to being humiliated.

Eddie: Guys, I’m receiving a Galactic telegram...for Ford Prefect!

Ford: For me? Quick, put it on the screen!

Editor: This is the Editor of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy with a new assignment for Ford Prefect.

Marvin: Sounds awful.

Ford: Shut up, Marvin.

Editor: As you know Ford Prefect, television is the most inexplicable facet of human culture. Field researchers have been blowing up their brains for years trying to understand it. So I’ve got an assignment for you, Ford, that will hopefully stop these brains exploding and leaving such a mess on my carpet.

Ford: You’re right, Marvin. That IS awful.

Editor: There is a theory that a group of businessmen known as "television sanitisers" are deliberately making the accusation that television is too violent so they can replace the violent stuff with stuff that makes television even less worth watching than usual and that’s why there is nothing worth watching on human television. Your assignment is to track down one of these television sanitisers and file a complete report on whether this theory has any basis in fact, which it very likely does, but we want to be sure. The television sanitiser you are to track down and file your report on is...Sandy Frank!

Ford: Dingo’s kidneys! That is BLOODY awful!

Book: Can Ford Prefect survive this bloody awful assignment without his brain exploding and leaving a mess on the Editor’s carpet? Can the Great Swallow’s ego survive being hit by a bowl of petunias in front of television? If they survive at all will they find the experience in any way enlightening or will it merely be televised only to be sanitised by the television sanitisers? Tune in to the next reasonably exciting episode of Life, the Universe and Gatchaman!

Berg Katse: Soosai, you say we can stop Gatchaman with a bowl of petunias? Where did you pick up THAT idea from, television?