The Pirate Planet

“The Key To Time Story Beta”, “The Hitchhiker's Guide to Piracy”, “So Long and Thanks For All the Shouting”, “Mentiads Behaving Badly”

“The One With The Opportunity to Market a Dog vs. Parrot Action Pack" (USA), “Quite Amusing But We Were Too Busy Packing to Watch it Properly” (the dolphins)

Doctor Who finds the second segment of the Key to Time.

*** - it has more good lines than an advertising firm's Christmas party.

“I think Doug will have a bright future once he learns to concentrate more on narrative structure and less on witty asides about the nature of life." (Anthony Read quoted in the Radio Times)

"Doctor, beware; your pants appeal only to the homicidal side of my nature."

Douglas Adams got the idea for the importance of towels by watching Tom Baker in the wild. The latter's skill and inventiveness with his scarf would earn the former a small, fluffy fortune.

Tom Baker appears with a cut on his upper lip. This was the result of offering his sausage to an old dog and her slapping him with her pint glass.

The old woman who played the queen asked for extra money to remove her false teeth. When the BBC cheque given to her turned out to have a decimal point in the wrong place she felt honour bound to also remove her wig, her artificial leg and her breast implants.

Other items considered to be the concealed Key to Time segment included K9, Mary Tamm's hair, the tracer and that bit in the opening titles where Tom's face goes a funny colour.

Oolion is a rare precious stone found only on Qualactin and Bandraginus V. It was also the noise John Leeson made if someone surprised him with his favourite chocolate bar.

...is that people who shout a lot either end up in positions of authority or they have to build their own friends. Sometimes both.

Si Hunt

"I was interviewing Adams for a publication which, shortly after firing me for being "someone who submits badly written articles aimed at an audience of one", went into a rapid decline which is only masked by the substantial increase in sales. I asked him when he would be novelising the stories he wrote for "Doctor Who" as there were gaps on my book shelves.

"I need you to do this for me, Adams" I said calmly. "It isn't a lot to ask - a few measly novels - and in exchange you would have a few hundred pounds in your pocket and the knowledge that you've made my library a much neater place."

"Don't be pathetically stupid" he said rudely. "I don't have time for write books anymore - I'm a millionaire author."

"Then let my friend Terrance Dicks do it" I said. I rushed into the adjoining room and dragged Dicks in to meet Adams. "Dicks may be limited but he's quick and my gaps need not remain unfilled for long."

Sadly, Adams must've had an urgent call as he had used the twenty-one seconds I was away to leave the room. I was sorely disappointed to see that the bag of savoury nibbles that the magazine had provided to make him feel at home had gone too. I had been meaning to take them home and give them to Ian Devine next time he had a birthday. I saw a note on Adams' chair. I picked it up, hoping it might've been autographed. It simply said,

"So long and thanks for all the crisps".

The HHGTTG fanzine "Slartibartfast's Bubble" serialised an adaptation of "The Pirate Planet" where every reference to Doctor Who was replaced with an appropriate Hitchhiker's element. The Doctor was neatly split into Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent, Romana was divided into Arthur and Trillian, K9 was twisted into Marvin, the Tardis became the Heart of Gold and the elements of the plot which featured mass murder and unspeakable horror were dismissed as "just one of those crazy things that happens in the Galaxy". They made a special point of noting that the robotic parrot should sound like Terry Jones.