Fit the Sixth

    Written by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd
    Broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 12 April 1978

Cast

        The Book: Peter Jones
        Arthur Dent: Simon Jones
        Ford Prefect: Geoffrey McGivern
        Zaphod Beeblebrox: Mark Wing-Davey
        Trillian: Susan Sheridan
        "B" Ark Captain and Caveman: David Jason
        Number One and Management Consultant: Jonathan Cecil
        Haggunenon [bad word] Number Two/Hairdresser: Aubrey Woods
        Marketing Girl: Beth Porter
        Announcer (uncredited): John Marsh

The episode opens with the main characters on the black ship. Soon, they receive a transmission from the [bad word] of the battle fleet, who makes a report to Zaphod, believing him to be the Admiral. This is considered confusing as Zaphod was just presumed to be the Admiral, despite bearing no resemblance to the [bad word]  who looked like a leopard.

Shortly afterward, they receive another transmission, this time with Trillian in the chair. The [bad word]  who now looks like a shoebox, assumes that Trillian is the Admiral.

They look up the name "Haggunenon", spoken by the [bad word]  in the Guide, and discover that they are a race of xenophobic shape-shifters. They realise that the Admiral is in fact on the ship, but had shapeshifted. It [bad word] a "carbon copy" of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. The group split up, Arthur and Ford taking one escape capsule and Zaphod and Trillian attempting to take another.

Arthur notices that the other escape capsule isn't escaping, and presses a button in his escape capsule that ends up teleporting him and Ford to a strange spaceship. Meanwhile, Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin are all eaten by the copy of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, with Marvin's [bad word] off in the process, and Zaphod's second head is revealed to know French (via an ad-lib by Mark Wing-Davey). This is the last appearance of the character of Trillian until the Tertiary Phase.

The spaceship to which Ford and Arthur have teleported, marked as "Golgafrincham Ark Fleet, Ship B" is filled with bodies, such as frozen telephone sanitisers, hairdressers, and advertising account executives. Whilst inspecting the bodies, they are captured by Number Two, the [bad word] of the ship, who takes them to the bridge.

Here, they meet the Captain (who is taking a bath in a large bathtub in the bridge, and has been for the last some years). He reluctantly grants permission to Number Two to interrogate Arthur and Ford, and asks him to find out what they want to drink.

Conversing with the Captain, they discover that the bodies are not, as they believed, dead, but frozen. They are intending to colonise another planet, because their original planet was "doomed". The "Ark" was supposed to contain leaders, the "Ark" to contain workers, and the "Ark" to contain middle-men. It [bad word] apparent that the stories of impending doom were nonsense, and the Ark and Ark were never launched.

The story resumes some months later, with a meeting of the [bad word]  Reports to [bad word] include an update on the development of the wheel (it is unclear what colour it should be), and a documentary about the native cave-men of the planet, who have started to die out since the arrival of the Golgafrinchams.

Ford explains that they had done some research on the planet, and that it will last only two million years (but not why - because it is the pre-history of the Earth, and is thus due to be destroyed by the Vogons in two million years time).

Arthur attempts to teach the cave-men Scrabble, in order to try to stop the Golgafrinchams supplanting them. The cave-man spells out "FORTY TWO" on the scrabble board, and Ford and Arthur realise that the program must have gone wrong because of the arrival of the Golgafrinchams. They decide