Today we go down the road a bit, thumbs out, to explore the rich history of hitchhiking.
AI Summary
In this fascinating episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck explore the surprisingly rich history of hitchhiking in America, tracing how this once-common practice evolved from a fun adventure for college students in the 1920s to a patriotic duty during World War II. They dive into the cultural shifts that transformed hitchhiking from a respectable and even celebrated way to travel into something far more controversial, examining everything from the mysterious origins of the term "hitchhiking" to the social dynamics between drivers and thumb-wielding travelers throughout the decades.
Movies Discussed
Dumb and Dumber
"A good example of that is Dumb & Dumber, where Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels pick up the guy"
— Josh
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
"Tom Robbins, even Cal Girls Get the Blues, the Gus Van Zant movie"
— Chuck
Follow That Bird
"Big Bird and Follow That Bird did a lot of hitchhiking in that movie."
— Chuck
I Saw the Devil
"Have you ever seen I saw the Devil?"
— Josh
It Happened One Night
"the definitive earliest hitchhiking scene is from It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert."
— Josh
Pee-wee's Big Adventure
"like Peewee Herman getting picked up by Large Marge in Peewee's Big Adventure."
— Josh
The Hitcher
"like in Hitcher, like we were talking about with C. Thomas Hall and Rooker Hauer."
— Josh
The Hitchhiker
"That Billy Cockkeye Cook murder spree got turned into a movie two years after called The Hitchhiker."
— Josh
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