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

By Briony Coote

Book: A very common expression among human beings is "it’s not my day." The expression is used when things just don’t seem to be going right, such as the batteries in their digital watches going flat, then the digital watch gets mixed up in the laundry and ends up hanging inside a pink sock on the clothes line.

There are, of course, variants on the expression such as "I hate Monday" " it’s Friday the thirteenth" or "I could never get the hang of Thursdays." Ford Prefect could never quite understand what Mondays, Thursdays and Friday the thirteenths had to do with a digital watch ending up hanging up inside a pink sock on the clothes line but now he is compelled to resort to the expression when he is assigned to file a report on the television sanitiser known as Sandy Frank.

Ford: It’s just not my day.

Marvin: It never is my day. Every single day is awful for me. No-one ever listens when I tell them I have these terrible pains in the diodes down my left side. So I have to put up with them every day...

Ford: File a report on Sandy Frank?? Holy Zarquon Singing Fish! Zaphod, can you get me a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster in an mega- hurry? Or shove me in the Total Perspective Vortex?

Arthur: I thought the Total Perspective Vortex was the worst thing that could happen to anybody?

Ford: WAS, Arthur. Now there’s a torture which is far worse than the Total Perspective Vortex. It was invented by Sandy Frank and it’s known as: Zarking!

Arthur: Zarking?

Book: There is considerable debate and competition as to the worst torture in the universe. Up until now the Total Perspective Vortex has been labelled as the worst torture in the universe, but unlike the Total Perspective Vortex Zaphod Beeblebrox cannot withstand the torture known as Zarking because it does nothing to inflate his ego. This particular brand of torture was invented by Sandy Frank and has become so popular among the nastier races of the galaxy that it has now been outlawed by the InterGalactic United Planets. However since the planet Earth is not a member of the United Planets the torture known as Zarking continues on Earth and the nastier races of the galaxy frequently pay covert trips to Earth to inflict this torture on prisoners, particuarly if they are diplomats of the United Planets.

The principle of Zarking originates with a robot invented by Sandy Frank. The robot is called 7-Zark-7 and it is a rather unattractive, but appropriately designed trashcan-like robot, whose uplifting homilities and naivete are outdone only by the annoying nasal pitch of the voice spouting them. It is very baffling that a television sanitiser who is supposed to sanitise violence on television should invent such a nauseating torture device. It is even more baffling to learn that Sandy

Frank’s way of sanitising violence was to replace it with this robot.

The principle goes something like this:

Zoltar the Vile Villain: I have you now, Hunky Hero! There’s no way you can escape my gunge spouting gun! Gunge, do your stuff!

Mark the Hunky Hero: You won’t get away with this! I’ve got my zangy zapper aimed right at your underpants!

(Spout of gooey gunge is aimed at hero. Underpants quiver in terror.

Suddenly the image disappears and is replaced by:)

Zark: You will be pleased to know that Hunky Hero got out of harm’s way just in time and he was so relieved that he spared the Vile Villain’s underpants. Oh dear, there seems to be an enemy craft on my viewscreen. No, it’s just a fleck of dust. Well, at least that’s better than smog. Now what do you want Rover? Oh, dear, not another spanner? When I gave you one yesterday you unscrewed your nose!

Book: Prisoners actually beg for Vogon poetry rather than be subjected to the torture wrought by watching the robot spray-clean his viewfinders for the forty-second time in one-half hour, nattering endlessly in the annoying nasal pitch.

(Ford and Zaphod, after due consultation and preparation arrive at Sandy Frank Film Syndication just in time to hear the following conversation):

Z the VV: Listen, you moron! I’m sick and tired of having my gunge- spouting upstaged by a flying trashcan! I’m paying a fortune for that gunge and it never ends up on Mark!

M the HH: Me too! My zapper has zapped out lots of times and it never gets the chance to zap anything! You either get rid of that robot or (aims zapper) I’ll zap your underpants!

Z the VV: And I shall personally gunge you! (aims gunger)

Sandy: Gentlemen, please! I’m paying good money to have you gunge and zap eachother! What more do you want?

Z the VV/M the HH: gunge and zap eachother? We never get the chance! We get replaced with that bloody robot wiping his screens! We never get the chance to have any fun!

Sandy: Look, I’m a television santiser. I can’t let viewers see you gunging and zapping eachother or the critics will have my hide for too much violence.

Z the VV/M the HH: We quit! We’re going where we can zap and gunge eachother without that robot spoiling our scenes.

Sandy: I’m afraid that won’t be possible.

Z the VV/M the HH: Why?

Sandy: Because the presence of 7-Zark-7 is everywhere on television. (Eyes their striken faces) Oh, yes, haven’t you been watching the news? The UN bombs Russia but "don’t worry" says Zark "I had them all evacuated." Nobody ever dies on the news nowadays, not with 7-Zark-7 present. He always sees to it that nobody dies...well at least he doesn’t let it get out that anyone’s died...

Z the VV/M the HH: AAAARRRGHHH!

(When the scream dies away Zoltar the Vile Villain and Mark the Hunky Hero are nowhere to be seen. Sandy is covered in gunge and suddenly has to rush to the mens room)

Sandy: Oh, why did I get into this television sanitising business in the first place? Oh yes, it was my grandmother...

Book: Sandy’s grandmother was so paranoid about cleanliness that she made him take out the garbage every day while she herself cleaned the windows at least fifty times a day. While she was cleaning the windows she either nattered endlessly about how worried she was or spoke endearments to her vacuum cleaner which she named Rover. This gave Sandy nightmares of an enormous trashcan pacing up and down the room relentlessly cleaning the windows at least fifty times a day nattering relentlessly in his grandmother’s voice about how worried it was and speaking endearments to a barking vacuum cleaner. No matter how hard he tried Sandy could not escape the nightmares of an enormous trashcan cleaning windows over fifty times a day and talking relentlessly in his grandmother’s annoying nasal pitch. So Sandy turned to inflicting the torture on other people and to this end he built an enormous trashcan which nattered relentlessly in his grandmother’s annoying nasal while it cleaned windows over fifty times a day. The first victim of this torture was Sandy’s own grandmother. He invited her in one day to show her his new film syndication and the first public broadcast of 7-Zark-7 sanitisation. What was, of course, being sanitised, was Sandy’s grandmother tied to a chair screaming at the broadcast of 7-Zark-7 being repeated over fifty times in slow succession. At the end of the forty-second screening the grandmother’s sanity finally snapped and she became the first victim to go insane from Zarking. She is still in hospital, the psychiatrists at a complete loss as to how to cure this particular type of insanity. They are also at a complete loss as to why viewers are not going insane after being exposed to viewings of 7-Zark-7 over forty times a day. One psychiatrist has theorised that the reason is reduced exposure due to the 3-minute attention span of viewers but this does not explain why they don’t simply switch off the TV set during the 3- minute attention span or get rid of the TV set and eliminate exposure to 7-Zark-7 altogether. Ford has formed his own theory which he now wishes to put to the test.

Ford: Um..excuse me..excuse us!

Sandy: How can I help you?

Ford: Those two guys have just quit, haven’t they?

Sandy: Indeed they have.

Ford: Can we have their jobs?

Sandy: (Eyeing them sceptically) Are you sure you can do their jobs?

(Looks at Arthur) I’m not sure about hiring a gentleman in a tattered dressing-gown and a beard that almost reaches the floor...

Zaphod: Oh, he’s the sidekick!

Sandy: Sidekick? (Raises eyebrow)

Zaphod: Yeah, the villain’s sidekick! You know, the dimwit who always hangs around the bad dude to make the bad dude look a hoopy frood by contrast! (Arthur looks at Zaphod indignantly)

Sandy: Oh, you mean like Soosai X and Berg Katse?

Book: Berg Katse is the sidekick for Soosai X, in honour of the long tradition of villains having bumbling sidekicks. The origins of this peculiar tradition remain obscure but rumour has it that it was started by another company of sanitisers known as the Disney Company to sanitise the unpleasantness of traditional stories of odd-looking human females in pointed hats riding pieces of wood, getting splinters in their bottoms and dropping dead because they mistakenly put on iron shoes instead of platform shoes to go to a party. Instead of getting splinters in their bottoms the females in pointed hats merely get cat hair on their clothing when their bumbling sidekicks think their bottoms are cushions and instead of iron shoes they go to a party barefoot because their bumbling sidekicks chewed up all the shoes.

Berg Katse does not mistake Soosai X’s bottom for a cushion or chew up his shoes but he carries on the fine tradition of the bumbling sidekick to the main villain. Soosai X personally created Berg Katse to be more intelligent than the rest of the Galactors but not as intelligent as Soosai X himself. Since Soosai X is the least intelligent inhabitant of the planet Selectro, it was impossible to make Berg Katse less intelligent than he was, so Soosai X has to compensate by persistently telling Berg Katse he is a moron.

Sandy: Okay, so he’s the sidekick but can you two make decent villains?

Zaphod: look, dude, just imagine we’ve got blasters pointing at your head.

Sandy: (double take) But you HAVE got blasters pointing at my head.

Ford: So you needn’t tax your imagination too much.

Sandy: Okay, I’ll give you a trial. Just step this way, please. (leads them to a room).

Arthur: Why are we in this room?

Sandy: You have to pass the trial test. (locks them in)

All three: What test is this?!? (Banging loudly on the door)

Sandy: You have to sit through at least forty-two screenings of 7- Zark-7. (Ford and Zaphod wince) If you make it past the forty-second screening without going insane I take you on.

Ford: Holy Zarquon’s snot rag!

Zaphod: Belgium!

Arthur: This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Ford: What the hell’s Thursday got to with being locked in a room about to be Zarked forty-two times?!?

Book: Can Arthur, Zaphod and Ford make it past the forty-second screening of 7-Zark-7 without ending up beside Sandy Frank’s grandmother? What is Ford’s theory and can he test it out before the forty-two screenings annihilate his sanity? Tune into the next reasonably plausible episode of: Life, the Universe and Gatchaman!

Susan: Hello, Zark this is Susan from way out on planet Pluto. I’ve had the most intriguing visit from a robot who says he’s got the brain the size of a planet. He tells me I’m nothing more than than a trashcan with a pair of silicon breasts and an automated system of meaningless drivel which was intended for a fantasy phone hotline...