Starbix

Zaphod eating Starbix in the 2005 film

Starbix is a brand of breakfast cereal.

In the television series it was mentioned that the simplistic glossary of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was copied off the back of a packet of breakfast cereal, that cereal being Starbix. The editor, having to meet a publishing deadline, hastily added some footnotes to his copied glossary, in order to avoid prosecution under the Galactic Copyright Laws.

A later editor of the Guide sent the book backwards in time in order to sue the company behind Starbix cereal for infringement of these Galactic Copyright Laws. The older version of Starbix is instead called 'Star Biks' and states that it is 'the serious cereal' and 'nasty but nourishing'. It is unknown if the flavour has improved since then.

A version of Starbix from back in time, as seen in the 1981 TV series

In the film it was eaten by Zaphod Beeblebrox on the starship Heart of Gold around the time of the rescue of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect.

Starbix cereal, seen with an original editor of the Guide, and one of the editor's footnotes, from the tv series

Appearances

Television

• Episode 5

Film

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Behind the scenes

• The name Starbix is likely an allusion to the popular cereal brand Weetabix.
• When looking at a close up of the Starbix prop used in the film, the writing on the packaging calls it 'the series cereal' as a reference to one of the Starbix packets shown in the TV series.
• The word 'Acturan' can be seen in the top left corner of this prop box, possibly a (misspelled) reference to it being from Arcturus, similar to how there were small references to things labelled Arcturan such as an Arcturan MegaDonkey throughout the versions of Hitchhiker's.