Hitchhikers
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It was alien, very alien
—Wowbagger's description[src]

Bowerick Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was a being who became immortal after an accident with a few rubber bands, a liquid lunch, and a particle accelerator. After a period of total boredom, especially on Sunday afternoons, he decided to insult everyone in the entire universe in alphabetical order.

When this proved to be taking too long, he decided to insult one whole planet at a time, using huge loudspeakers.

He was the distant descendant of Wowbagger Ultrajax, who also became immortal though in a different way.

In the Quintessential Phase, he finally insulted the Great Prophet Zarquon, who killed him, ending his eternal suffering.[1]

However, in the Hexagonal Phase, he was still alive, and succeeded in persuading Thor to try and kill him. Thor didn't kill him outright, but managed to hit him so hard that he lost his immortality. After that, he lives happily ever after with Trillian.[2]

Description[]

Wowbagger was quite tall and had a peculiar flattened head. He had slitty alien eyes, golden robes with a peculiar collar design and pale grey-green skin that had a lustrous shine. He had thin spindly alien hands.[3]

Insults[]

Three years after Arthur Dent was stranded in time on prehistoric Earth, Wowbagger appeared to insult Arthur, saying "You're a jerk, a complete kneebiter." (Life, the Universe and Everything). In "And Another Thing...," it says he called him a "jerk, a complete arsehole."[3][4]

When Arthur left prehistoric Earth and returned to the present day, Wowbagger showed up, consulted his clipboard and asked, "I've done you before, haven't I?"

He also appeared at Lords Cricket Ground, during the Krikkit robot attack, to insult the dying Arthur Philip Deodat, calling him a "no-good dumbo nothing."

He called Zaphod Beeblebrox "steatopygic," which caused Zaphod to help him persuade Thor to kill him.[2]

Appearances[]

Bowerick Wowbagger appears in:

Behind the scenes[]

  • Wowbagger is also present in the Douglas Adams short story The Private Life of Genghis Khan, where he insults Genghis Khan, provoking him to burn down large segments of Asia. This short story, published in The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book, was written in 1986.
  • Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was the inspiration for an insult generation program of the same name, originally available on Atari ST computers but later rewritten for Windows-based systems.

Notes and references[]

  1. In the radio show
  2. 2.0 2.1 From the Eoin Colfer novel And Another Thing...
  3. 3.0 3.1 From the Douglas Adams book Life, the Universe and Everything.
  4. This was changed to "...complete kneebiter" in the US versions.
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