The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

With the galaxy's best-selling tour guide and a good towel, earthling Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect (actually from planet Betelgeuse) are transported, among other places, to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and back to the beginning of time.

The production values aren't the greatest here, but this adaptation does capture some of the ebullient, hilarious anarchy of Douglas Adams's book. Arthur Dent discovers that his friend, Ford Prefect, isn't human at all but an alien on assignment, writing for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Many of Adams's delicious asides are dropped off here, like the woman who figures out the meaning of life right at the moment that she gets blown up with the rest of the Earth, but it retains what it can. Sure, the book was better, and the realization of Zaphod Beeblebox and Trillian are, well, just different, but it's a great introduction to the series for the uninitiated. --Keith Simanton