2. The Hitchhiker
Lucille Fletcher

3. The Hitchhiker
Radio Play

4. The Hitchhiker Radio Play Radio Plays have NO VISUALS:
All information must be conveyed by dialogue, sound effects, and narration (explanation)

5. The Hitchhiker Radio Play– Radio Plays have NO VISUALS:
All information must be conveyed by dialogue, sound effects, and narration (explanation)
Story is set in the late 1930’s in New York City and during a cross country drive.

6. The Hitchhiker Suspense is created through: sound effects
chilling music
dialogue (especially through character expressing his thoughts/talking to himself)
setting unfamiliar to the character
isolation of character
plot twists

7. New York City 1930s

9. Mom & Pop Store

10. 1930s American Southwest

11. Lucille Fletcher
Lived from

12. Lucille Fletcher Lived from 1911-2000
Woman writer – unusual for the time

13. Lucille Fletcher Lived from 1911-2000
Woman writer – unusual for the time
Started career as a “gopher” for CBS, running errands and typing others’ scripts

14. Lucille Fletcher Lived from 1911-2000
Woman writer – unusual for the time
Started career as a “gopher” for CBS, running errands and typing others scripts
Wrote more than 20 plays; also wrote novels and short stories

15. Lucille Fletcher
“The Hitchhiker” and “Sorry Wrong Number” were presented on the Orson Welles Show.
Orson Welles was quoted as saying that these two plays were the BEST plays ever written for radio performance.

17. Late30’s/Early 40’s Radio

18. Late30’s Radio as Focal Point in Family Living Room

20. Radio led to a new mass audience forming that was more inclusive, more rural, more domestic, whatever you think of its taste more broadly American. Radio was the first truly mass medium, linking great cities and remote hamlets in the same instantaneous event.

21. “Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt adopted radio as a communication tool when the medium was so new no one was certain what place it would find in American culture. Radio was an unknown force, and it came right into people’s homes and spoke to them intimately. It seemed to have the potential for both good and evil…they brought home a constant, free stream of entertainment…Some critics of the radio fad worried that if families stayed home with (the radio) it would erode civic involvement and compete with traditional social gatherings. “ The Internet of the 1930’s
“Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt adopted radio as a communication tool when the medium was so new no one was certain what place it would find in American culture. Radio was an unknown force, and it came right into people’s homes and spoke to them intimately. It seemed to have the potential for both good and evil…they brought home a constant, free stream of entertainment…Some critics of the radio fad worried that if families stayed home with (the radio) it would erode civic involvement and compete with traditional social gatherings. “ The Internet of the 1930’s

25. In the1930’s, this is your only “newsfeed
In the1930’s, this is your only “newsfeed.” It is your source of comedies, dramas, soap operas, kids’ shows, news programs, weather reports, political speeches, and sometimes…even your “fake news.”

27. 30’s/40’s Car

28. Car and House Ownership by Decade
AVERAGE PRICE OF A NEW CAR:
1930: $600
2019: $35,742

29. 30’s/40’s Telephone

31. 30’s/40’s Phone Operator

32. 250,000 women were employed in the 1930’s as telephone operators in the United States.