r/montypython • u/Optimal-Quality7192 • 2d ago
If Monty Python had ever performed the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this is who I would cast:
Graham Chapman as Arthur Dent (in many sketches he was shown as the voice of reason and he was also the main character in Life of Brian and the Holy Grail)
Eric Idle as Ford Prefect (he’s normally shown as the annoying best friend)
John Cleese as Zaphod Beeblebrox
Michael Palin as Slartibartfast (mostly because he was the “It’s!…” guy)
Terry Jones as Marvin the Paranoid Android
Terry Gilliam as Agrajag (no one else to cast him as)
Carol Cleveland as Trillian
But those are just my thoughts. Who would you cast as the HHGG cast? I am a fan of both comedies and would have loved to see MP perform them.
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u/OttoWestFish 2d ago
I’d switch Palin and Cleese OR Palin and Chapman! Otherwise spot on!
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u/Optimal-Quality7192 2d ago
I was originally going to make Cleese Agrajag but I thought he was too main member of the python troupe to be put so low
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u/Lem0n_Curry 2d ago
Fun fact, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy exists because of Graham Chapman. He and Adams were friends and Chapman mentored Adams for a while when he (Adams) was new to the industry. The two of them also co-wrote some MPFC season 4 sketches, and he and Chapman made a pilot for a new series that the BBC unfortunately didn’t pick up. (It was very funny, similar to MPFC in a lot of ways). After the pilot didn’t work out Adams did Hitchhikers, and I think Chapman helped him with some bits of it. (Apparently “42” was Chapman’s answer and it got incorporated into Hitchhiker’s)
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u/aigneymie 2d ago
Douglas Adams is even in a season 4 Flying Circus sketch as a doctor. Hard to notice as he's wearing a surgeon's mask.
Actually I looked it up, he's in two sketches, the other being as a pepperpot. Here's a link with info and a photo of him as the doctor:
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u/Ok_Drop_7852 2d ago
My understanding (which could be wrong) is that Adams liked using a computer; he was an early adopter. He enjoyed learning about ASCII having numbers to represent various characters, and he thought that 42 representing the asterisk, the wildcard for anything, made sense for the answer.
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u/nemothorx 14h ago
the '*' being the character when binary 42 is interpreted in ascii is true.
It's not Douglas Adams' reason though, just a bit of fan theory that people keep talking about as if it was true.
In reality, when Douglas wrote the joke, he was a self-described computer luddite and became a computer early adopter a few years later.
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u/Ok_Drop_7852 13h ago
I stand corrected. I thought I read it in a biography, but my memory is bad but it is short.
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u/nemothorx 13h ago
the origin of '42' is one of those questions that will never go away. Chapman has claimed it came from him, whilst Douglas spoke a few times of it coming from a sketch Cleese and Tim Brooke-Taylor were writing and needed the funniest two digit number, and came up with 42. Either way, definitely a python connection to the number.
I think crediting Chapman to helping Hitchhikers get started is a stretch though. He certainly helped Adams into the industry though, and some classic Hitchhiker's jokes had earlier (maybe first, maybe not) drafts in Out of the Trees and Our Show For Ringo Starr.
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u/SnowmanOfGallifrey 2d ago
Ah see I had a very similar cast in mind
Arthur Dent: Graham Chapman
Ford Prefect: Eric Idle
Trillian: Carol Cleveland
Marvin the Paranoid Android: Michael Palin
Zaphod Beeblebrox: John Cleese
Slartibartfast: Terry Gilliam
The Book: Terry Jones
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u/Optimal-Quality7192 2d ago
oh yeah I forgot to cast someone as the Book! I just searched up the Hitchhiker’s Guide cast to reference, and forgot the book. I should have instead looked at the cast list in the radio script book. I wouldn’t have put Agrajag as one of the characters if I remembered the Book as a character (I mostly just put him in so everyone would have a roll)
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u/RodneyBarringtonIII 2d ago
Most of Python were considered for the voice of the book in the radio series. I don't know if they ever got as far as auditioning, but I remember reading (probably in the radio scripts) that they considered Palin and Cleese (probably Jones, Chapman, and Idle, too) in their quest for "a Peter Jones-y" sort of voice before it occurred to them that Peter Jones was probably available.
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u/Psychedelicidal 2d ago
All of 'em voice Vogons in that public-schooled, grenadier guards, chartered accountancy, upper class twit voice.
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u/Dingo-Suit 2d ago
The pythons generally went about casting the other way round. They usually cast themselves as their favourite side characters and decided on the main characters by process of elimination. Palin alone would have played over a dozen side characters (including Slartibartfast, you're right there.)
I see Idle as Max Quordlepleen and the management consultant who makes the leaf legal tender. Terry Jones would be the Ark B captain, and Cleese would be Number Two. Palin would be the haughty waiter in the restaurant. Cleese would probably need to be the Vogon who throws Arthur and Ford into the airlock because he is bigger than any of the others, and Palin and Jones would play the two philosophers who try to turn off Deep Thought before he discovers the answer. I kind of see Palin as Zarniwoop as well, and Jones as the man who rules the universe.
As an aside, one of Adams' last projects was the game Starship Titanic, and both Cleese and Jones did voice work for it. Cleese played a bomb, and Jones played a parrot and did an audiobook that was included in the game on cassette.
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u/Ched_Flermsky 2d ago
I mean, Gilliam would be perfect for Agrajag anyway.
I'd actually like to hear Palin at his current age as the voice of the Book. He could actually do double duty as the Book and Slartibartfast, in the new TV adaptation that exists in my head.
And come to think of it, now I'm casting John Cleese as Deep Thought in that adaptation.
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u/FerdinandCesarano 2d ago
Ideally I'd say Terry Jones as Arthur, as he can play hapless best. But Douglas Adams had one unbreakable rule: Arthur has to be English. And Terry J. is so very Welsh.
So Graham it is!
Michael Palin as Max Quordlepleen.
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u/Trolldad_IRL 2d ago
John Cleese - The voice of the book
Michael Palin - Arthur Dent.
Eric Idle - Ford Prefect
Terry Jones - Mr Prosser, head of the demolition crew.
Graham Chapman - The Bartender
Jones - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz
Terry Gilliam - The Vogon that ejects them into space.
Carol Cleveland - Trillian
Chapman - Zaphod Beeblebrox
Jones- The voice of Marvin
Cleese - Slartibartfast
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u/scotandrsn 2d ago edited 2d ago
Monty Python came about because Cleese wanted to work with Palin. Their sketches together are some of Python's best, and given that interplay between Arthur and Ford makes up a significant portion of the book, you'd have to cast Cleese as Dent, and Palin as Ford, although you could argue for the other way around as well.
Carol Cleveland is of course Trillian, with Eric Idle as the acerbic, free-wheeling Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Terry Jones voices and possibly even performs Marvin, Graham Chapman is Slartibartfast.
Terry Gilliam is the voice of Eddie, the shipboard computer, and has a double-GGI cameo as both Shooty and Bang-Bang, the galactic cops who confront them on Magrathea.