abstract
| - The planet Brontitall is visited by the crew of the Heart of Gold in the Secondary Phase of the Radio plays. It is notable for three things:
* Its primary lifeform is an Avian/Humanoid hybrid that has not set foot on the ground for endless years.
* The entire surface of the planet is covered with a dry crumbly substance that is not stone, rock, or some other form of dry crumbly rock or stone that the reader is heretofore unacquainted with, but long-since decayed and disintegrated shoes.
* A 15 mile-high statue of Arthur Dent throwing a styrofoam coffee cup. The statue was created in the distant past of the planet as the population was about to reach the Shoe Event Horizon. A freak wormhole opened in the vicinity of Mr. Dent as he was berating the Food generator computer on the Heart of Gold on the poor quality of its beverage service. The sight of a man striking back at technology inspired the citizens of Brontitall to get rid of all of their robots, sending them all to a distant planet to make continent toupees for planets that have used up all their forests. The Statue was the last great thing built by the people of the planet before they evolved into birds, which now inhabit the statue's left ear and have covered the statue's face with droppings. The giant marble cup floats in mid air, held aloft by the Power of Art. Since it is artistically correct for the cup to be where it is, there it remains. Brontitall is also where Arthur meets Lintilla and The Allitnils, in an archaeological expedition far underground. Brontitall does not appear in any other adaptation of the series. Several of its characteristics, particularly the concept of the Shoe Event Horizon, were folded onto the planet Frogstar, home of the Total Perspective Vortex.
|