Suspense Sundays (114) Like Man Somebody Dig Me

Suspense was a radio series from 1942 to 1962.  I have a fondness for "Old Time Radio" as we call it now, and Suspense is my favorite show.  It sets up weird, dark, scary, or intriguing stories with a plot twist in the end, and all in half an hour.  For Suspense Sundays I'll give a short review of an episode.

"Like Man Somebody Dig Me"

Air date: August 16, 1959
Starring Dennis Day

>>Episodes here<<

A member of the Beat generation, with his easy going manner and funny slang is hitchhiking across the States to read a poem to the Pacific Ocean.  The nice couple that stops for him seems amused by his views and his attitude until the radio reports a hatchet murderer on the loose, who looks very like the man the couple just picked up.  (Or at least they are wearing the same clothes, and that's the same thing?)  They leave him at the first gas station they come across with another very suspicious man, and the police soon stop by and arrest the hitchhiker.  But he's being framed, right?

A hitchhiker, and a crazed killer on the loose - that's a story I hear a lot in these old shows.  This attitude must be why we don't really pick up hitchhikers anymore.  This representative of the Beat generation was a little annoying, so I can almost sympathize with the narrator's seeming disdain of their culture (apparently they like jazz which has no melody... errr....)  But the predicament the hitchhiker lands in is pretty terrible.  He certainly doesn't seem to deserve it... or does he...  This is a mediocre episode really, but I love how ambiguous the ending can be - but I think I figured out what was meant.