What happens
Dennis Day stars as a hitchhiker who calls himself the Tennis Shoe, a self-styled beat-generation drifter who claims to care about nothing. He catches a ride with a couple driving through the Nevada desert, and their journey takes a dangerous turn when a murder is reported in the area. The episode is part of the Suspense series and was first broadcast on August 16, 1959, on CBS Radio. The story is written by George Bamber and produced by William M. Robeson, with Lillian Bias, Bill Quinn, Jack Moyles, Paul Frees and Charles Seel in the cast. The transcript covers the opening portion of the drama, in which the hitchhiker's character and the tense road encounter are set up.
The Nevada desert and the small town of Kingman, Arizona, along Route 66
Characters: The Tennis Shoe, Mary, George, Pop Daniels, Sheriff Branson
Listen for: The hitchhiker's jive-talking, detached attitude and the escalating tension as the couple's driving route is questioned
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.