Lejays17 Doll-A-Week 2020

[davidd]

Smoothly graduated color-blended stripes, no less! Very cool!

[Lejays17]

Inspired by the nonsense in the Chat room thread, I present my bear version of Zaphod Beeblebrox.  I got him when we went to Worldcon in London in 2014.  The Douglas Adams fangroup had a whole load of these in various colours.  I couldn't go past the emerald green version (even though I don't hold HHGTTG in as high-regard as others do).

[davidd]

  Nice crossover from the other topic!

[Elfy]

I always liked Zaphod as a character.

[Alliecat]

The photo made me laugh. Is Zaphod Bearblebrox the president of your bear collection?

[Elfy]

I hope not. He was corrupt.

[neon_jellyfish]

I havent read The Guide, but that bear is AWESOME!!!!!

[Loona]

I'm also in the group that doesn't hold the book in as high-regard (hides to avoid rocks) - I did read the Guide once a long time ago, because then ex was a big fan, and his enthusiasm got me interested, but I never really saw that huge appeal in the book, so I never went beyond and read any of the sequel books or watch the film that has recently come out back then.

Zaphod the bear looks totally awesome, and with his striking appearance and cool emerald colour he'd be a cool addition to any household. I probably would have gotten one too if I was there at said con (though in black or white, if theses colours were available).

[werepuppy]

That is fantastic!

[dargosmydaddy]

Oh my! That is... quite something!

[davidd]

I haven't read The Guide, but that bear is AWESOME!!!!!

I'm also in the group that doesn't hold the book in as high-regard...

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first book I can remember that made me spontaneously laugh out loud. But it was more the turns of phrase and the way things were worded that struck me as amusing, rather than anything that actually happened in the stories, so perhaps things like that would not come across as well in either a translated version or to a non-native English speaker. I did not find any of the sequels nearly as hilarious.

I am happy to have read the series so that I can sass the frequent references that still appear in popular culture.

[Elfy]

HHGttG is one of those books that even if you haven’t read it, you’ve still taken in some of it by osmosis. I always wondered how the actor voicing Marvin managed to get through his first line without laughing, because I never could: I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.

[Loona]

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first book I can remember that made me spontaneously laugh out loud. But it was more the turns of phrase and the way things were worded that struck me as amusing, rather than anything that actually happened in the stories, so perhaps things like that would not come across as well in either a translated version or to a non-native English speaker. I did not find any of the sequels nearly as hilarious.

I am happy to have read the series so that I can sass the frequent references that still appear in popular culture.

That's actually something I thought of - I did read a translated version (that's what the ex had, and while I did have access to the university's English library, I guess I wasn't that interested*, and needed the slots for the max. amount books I could borrow for books that were related to my studies), and I remember I had to look up some stuff in English because they just didn't seem to make enough sense, and thus were suspicious for mistranslation. And some things you just cannot really translate without some of the message getting lost in translation. I guess it would be worth giving it a chance also in its original language (though I need to think about how I could make that happen. I no longer have access to the university's free library, I hate reading long stuff on a monitor OK, I just remembered I helped a friend order the Ultimate edition of the book llast summer. Hm  ).

*also, the book had a noticeable local cult already back then, and the not-so-ready access to foreign-language books vs. the amount of people I knew who loved it (plus their knowledge of English - or rather the lack of it) kinda convinced me it must have enough charm even in a translated form.

[Elfy]

It can depend on the translation. The Master and Margherita by Mikhail Bulgakov is an amazing book, but plenty of people had issues with it, because there were some really bad translations out there. I also felt that if the translation of the Asterix books wasn’t done by Anthea Bell then it lacked something.

[Alliecat]

I always wondered how the actor voicing Marvin managed to get through his first line without laughing, because I never could: I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed.

I've occasionally used some variation of "the first [xxx amount of time] was the worst... the second was the worst too..."
I agree he should've stopped after 3. I remember more HHG that I could still quote today, than the high-school Shakespeare we were supposed to be memorizing