TVSquad

That's a Kakapo over there. It's an endangered species of flightless parrot. We'll get to him in a second. But I wanted to point out that this is, in fact, the first time a Kakapo has appeared at TV Squad.

This year is the 30th anniversary of Douglas Adams' classic TV, radio and book series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As part of the celebration, BBC2 TV sent Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine off to visit the endangered species Adams searched for in another of his books, Last Chance to See.

Adams documented his growing passion for preserving fading species in the book. And BBC2 sent Fry and Carwardine out into the world to document how those species (like the Kakapo) were fairing.

You'll be able to discover the results when the show crosses the Atlantic in the coming weeks after its U.K. run. But, for now, the TV series spawned one of the web's hottest viral videos.

One of the Earth's most beloved books and mini-series celebrated a big birthday today.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was first published 30 years ago today. The wildly imaginative and funny science-fiction novel spawned four more books, a radio series, a text based video game and a cult classic British mini-series. It also spawned a big budget Hollywood remake that shall not been mentioned again in this post, so there.

In honor of this momentous day for sci-fi humor geekdom, here is the iconic opening of the original BBC mini-series originally aired in 1981. Pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and enjoy.

Topless Robot has posted a list of the top 10 sci-fi television shows that were canceled too soon.

I've never seen most of the other shows (and if a lot of America followed my example, that could somewhat explain their early cancellation), but I have watched numbers 1,2 and 7. Star Trek is an obvious choice for number 1 given that it is still the icon of science-fiction television.

I've heard good things about Max Headroom (number 3) and would probably at least watch it on DVD should it ever be released in the format. I disagree about the 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (number 2) and think it works best at its current length. I find it interesting how the only reason the author wanted to extend Buck Rogers In the 25th Century was to see more of Erin Gray ("Off think. Off think. Off think").