Marvin the Paranoid Android is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.

Marvin is the ship's robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold. Severely depressed, Marvin was built as a prototype of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's "Genuine People Personalities" technology. He has a brain the size of a planet, but seldom gets the chance to use it. Instead, he continually whines about his troubles, irritating his crewmembers.

Marvin's voice was performed by Stephen Moore on radio and television but in the movie, Alan Rickman will play this role. David Learner operated his body on television, and Warwick Davis is going to wear the Marvin costume in the feature film. He is "probably... the most popular character to appear in the Guide", according to Geoffrey Perkins, producer of the radio series. Stephen Moore released two pop singles — "Marvin"/"Metal Man" and "Reasons to be Miserable"/"Marvin I Love You" (double B-side) — in the UK in 1981, though neither reached the top 40. Two of these have been re-recorded and remixed for the 2005 Hitchhiker's movie release. Reasons to be Miserable and Marvin are now performed by Stephen Fry.

According to Douglas Adams, "Marvin came from Andrew Marshall. He's another comedy writer, and he's exactly like that." Indeed, in an early draft of Hitchhiker's, the robot was called Marshall. However, Adams also admitted that Marvin is part of a long line of literary depressives, such as A. A. Milne's Eeyore or Jacques in Shakespeare's As You Like It, and even owes something to Adams's own periods of depression.

"Paranoid Android" is the name of a song by British rock band Radiohead, possibly named after Marvin, but without any other apparent explicit reference. The line "When I am king you will be first against the wall" might be a reference to Marvin's introduction, in which the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation is described as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes".

One passage from the series demonstrates Marvin's absolute depressed state and outlook on life:

"I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself into [the ship]'s external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length, and explained my view of the universe to it, " said Marvin.

"And what happened?" pressed Ford.

"It committed suicide," said Marvin.

External links

• BBCi's page on Marvin