This American Life (TAL) is an American weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internationally, and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays, memoirs, field recordings, short fiction, and found footage. The first episode aired on November 17, 1995, under the show's original title, Your Radio Playhouse. The series was distributed by Public Radio International until June 2014, when the program became self-distributed with Public Radio Exchange delivering new episodes to public radio stations.
A television program of the same name ran for two seasons on the Showtime cable network between June 2007 and May 2008.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Format
Each week's show has a theme, explored in several "acts." On occasion, an entire program will consist of a single act. Each act is produced by a combination of staff and freelance contributors. Programs usually begin with a short station identification by Glass who then introduces a segment related to the theme which precedes act one. The segment will then lead into the presentation of the theme for that week's show.
Content varies widely by episode. Stories are often told as first-person narratives. The mood of the show ranges from gloomy to ironic, from thought-provoking to humorous. The show often addresses current events, such as Hurricane Katrina in "After the Flood." Often This American Life features stories which explore aspects of human nature, such as "Kid Logic," which presented pieces on the reasoning of children.
The end credits of each show are read by Glass, and include a sound clip extracted out of context from some portion of that show, which Glass humorously attributes to previous WBEZ general manager Torey Malatia, who co-founded the show with Ira Glass in 1995.
Glass has stated he is contractually obligated to mention both station WBEZ, and previously, distributor PRI three times in the course of the show.
Npr This American Life Podcast Video
History
Glass, the program's creator, has served as executive producer and host since its November 17, 1995, debut. The program's first year was produced on a budget that was tight even by US public-radio standards. A budget of $243,000 covered an outfitted studio, marketing costs, purchased satellite time, and paid for four full-time staffers and various freelance writers and reporters. National syndication began in June 1996 when Public Radio International formed a distribution partnership with the program. It airs on 509 PRI affiliate stations in the United States reaching an estimated 2.1 million listeners each week. The show is also carried on Sirius XM Satellite Radio over the Public Radio International block on the XM Public Radio channel. The program consistently rates as the first- or second-most downloaded podcast on iTunes for each week.
Originally titled Your Radio Playhouse, a local show on WBEZ, the program's name was changed beginning with the March 21, 1996 episode. It was picked up nationally by PRI in June 1996. The reference to each segment of the show as an "act" is a holdover from its original "playhouse theme". The program helped launch the literary careers of many, including contributing editor Sarah Vowell and essayists David Rakoff and David Sedaris.
Early response to the program was largely positive. In 1998, Mother Jones magazine called it "hip - as well as intensely literary and surprisingly irreverent."
In January 2011, the series was picked up by CBC Radio One in Canada. The program is shortened slightly for the Canadian broadcast to allow for a five-minute newscast at the top of the hour, although this is partly made up for by the removal of mid-program breaks, most of the production credits (apart from that of Malatia), and underwriting announcements (CBC's radio services being fully commercial-free, except when contractually or legally required).
In January 2012, This American Life presented excerpts from a one-man theatre show by Mike Daisey as an exposé of conditions at a Foxconn factory in China. The episode was entitled "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory" and became one of the show's most popular episodes, with 888,000 downloads and 206,000 streams. WBEZ planned to host a live showing and a Q+A of "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" in Chicago on April 7, 2012.
On March 16, 2012, This American Life officially retracted the episode after learning that several events recounted both in the radio story and the monologue were fabrications. Daisey apologized for presenting his work as journalism, saying it is actually theatre, but refused to acknowledge that he had lied--even in the face of obvious discrepancies. WBEZ canceled the planned live performance and refunded all ticket purchases. The same day, This American Life devoted their weekly show (titled "Retraction") to detailing the inconsistencies in "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs". The show includes interviews between Rob Schmitz, the reporter who discovered the discrepancies and Daisey's translator in China, Cathy Lee, as well as an interview between host Glass and Daisey. The podcast of this episode became the most downloaded in the show's history. However, the Harper High School series broadcast in February 2013 surpassed it in number of downloads.
The show also removed three stories by Stephen Glass (no relation to Ira Glass) in the week following the retraction of the Daisey episode due to less-than-truthful content. These were noted to have been previously removed, but had resurfaced in episode streams due to a website redesign. Though the segments are cut from the streams of the episodes, the transcript of the contents were kept accessible on the This American Life website. These were from the episodes "57: Delivery", "79: Stuck in the wrong decade", and "86: How to take money from strangers".
In 2014, it was announced that PRI would stop distributing the show in July. After a few months, in May, Glass announced that the staff would be distributing the show themselves, with Public Radio Exchange doing the technical legwork to deliver the audio to the radio stations. On October 1, 2014, the show produced a spinoff, Serial, a season-long exploration delivered as a podcast series. In 2015, Glass became the sole owner of This American Life; WBEZ continued as a production partner on the show and on Serial with future shows to be independent. In 2017, This American Life launched the podcast S-Town.
Adaptations
Television
Discussions of a television adaptation of TAL date back to at least 1999. In January 2006, Showtime announced it had greenlighted six episodes of a new series based on TAL. The announcement noted that each half-hour episode would "be hosted by Ira Glass and [...] explore a single theme or topic through the unique juxtaposition of first-person storytelling and whimsical narrative."
For budgetary reasons, Glass and four of the radio show's producers left Chicago for New York City, where Showtime is headquartered. In January 2007, it was announced that Glass had completed production on the show's first season, with the first episode set to premiere on March 22. Originally the series had a contract for a total of 30 shows over the four years, but after two seasons Glass announced that he and the other creators of the show had "asked to be taken off TV", largely in part to the difficult schedule required to produce a television program. He went on to state that the show is officially "on hiatus", but would like to do a television special at some point in the future.
Film
Stories from TAL have been used as the basis of movie scripts. In 2002 the show signed a six-figure deal with Warner Bros. giving the studio two years of "first-look" rights to its hundreds of past and future stories. One film to have apparently emerged from the deal is Unaccompanied Minors, a 2006 film directed by Paul Feig and reportedly based on "In The Event of An Emergency, Put Your Sister in an Upright Position" from "Babysitting". In June 2008, Spike Lee bought the movie rights to Ronald Mallett's memoir, whose story was featured in the episode "My Brilliant Plan". Potential Warner Bros films from TAL episodes include "Niagara", which explored the town of Niagara Falls, New York, after those who sought to exploit the tourism and hydroelectrical opportunities of the area left; "Wonder Woman" (from the episode "Superpowers"), the story of an adolescent who took steps to become the superhero she dreamed of being, well into adulthood; and "Act V", about the last act of Hamlet as staged by inmates from a maximum security prison as part of Prison Performing Arts Adult Theatre Projects. Paramount Pictures and Broadway Video are in production on Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill, a film based on the TAL story in the episode "My Experimental Phase".
This American Life's 168th episode, "The Fix Is In", inspired screenwriter Scott Burns to adapt Kurt Eichenwald's book about business executive and FBI informant Mark Whitacre, titled The Informant, into a major motion picture. The film was directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Matt Damon. Glass has stated that the radio show has no financial stake in the film, but noted that he appreciated how well the movie stuck to the original facts.
This American Life's 361st episode's, "Fear of Sleep", section "Stranger in the Night" featured an excerpt from Mike Birbiglia's one-man show, "Sleepwalk with Me". This inspired Glass to work with Birbiglia for two years on a movie based on this segment. The film version of Sleepwalk with Me screened at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2012, to favorable reviews, winning the "Best of NEXT Audience Award".
In May 2011, Walt Disney Pictures announced it was adapting a movie from a 2009 episode titled "The Girlfriend Equation".
Live tours
This American Life has taken the radio show on the road three times since 2000; material recorded on each of the three tours has been edited into an episode which aired on the radio shortly after the tour. Other episodes include segments recorded live.
- "Music Lessons", recorded at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco during the 1998 Public Radio Conference in San Francisco. Performers include Sarah Vowell, David Sedaris and Anne Lamott. Music includes elementary school students from the San Francisco Unified School District as well as "Eyes on the Sparrow" with Renola Garrison vocals and Anne Jefferson on piano.
- "Advice", recorded in 1999 in Seattle and at HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. Performers include Sarah Vowell, Dan Savage, and Cheryl Trykv with music from the Black Cat Orchestra.
- "Birthdays, Anniversaries and Milestones", recorded in December 2000 in Boston (Berklee Performance Center), New York, Chicago (Merle Reskin Theatre), and Los Angeles. Performers included Sarah Vowell, Russell Banks, David Rakoff, Ian Brown, and OK Go.
- "Lost in America", recorded in May 2003 in Boston, Washington, D.C., Portland, Denver, and Chicago. Performers included Sarah Vowell, Davy Rothbart, and Jonathan Goldstein. Jon Langford of the Mekons led the "Lost in America House Band" during the show.
- "What I Learned from Television", recorded in February and March, 2007 in New York City (February 26 at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center); Boston (February 27 at the Boston Opera House); Minneapolis (February 28 at the Orpheum Theatre); Chicago (March 1 at the Chicago Theatre); Seattle (March 7 at the Paramount Theatre); and Los Angeles (March 12 at Royce Hall, UCLA). Directed by Jane Feltes, performers on this tour included David Rakoff, Sarah Vowell, John Hodgman, Dan Savage, Jonathan Goldstein, and Chris Wilcha. In New York, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, and Minneapolis, Mates of State were the house band, while in Los Angeles, OK Go performed between acts.
Digital cinema
On May 1, 2008, This American Life was the first major public media program to use digital cinema, distributing a one-hour-long program titled This American Life - Live! to select cinemas. PRI originally conceived of the idea to serve stations around the country. This American Life Live! was presented exclusively in select theatres by National CineMedia's (NCM) Fathom, in partnership with BY Experience and Chicago Public Radio, and in association with Public Radio International.
On April 23, 2009, This American Life broadcast a second theater event, titled This American Life - Live! Returning to the Scene of the Crime. Contributors included Mike Birbiglia, Starlee Kine, Dan Savage, David Rakoff, and Joss Whedon.
On May 10, 2012, This American Life broadcast a third theater event, titled Invisible Made Visible. Contributors included David Sedaris, David Rakoff, Tig Notaro, Ryan Knighton, and Mike Birbiglia, who made a short film with Terry Gross.
On June 7, 2014, This American Life recorded a fourth live event titled The Radio Drama Episode. Contributors included Carin Gilfry, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mike Birbiglia, Joshua Bearman, and Sasheer Zamata. The episode was broadcast on radio and the podcast on June 20, 2014.
Podcast
From 1998 to 2005, the program could be accessed online in two formats: a free RealAudio stream available from the official show website, and a DRM-encrypted download available through Audible.com, which charged $4 per episode. In early 2006, the program began to offer MP3 copies of each episode, which could be streamed from the show's website using a proprietary Flash player.
Since October 2006, the program has offered a free podcast feed to the public. Under this arrangement, each show is made available to podcast feeds and aggregation programs Sunday evening at 8 p.m. ET, allowing radio stations a 43-hour window of exclusivity to carry the episode. After seven days, the link to the MP3 is removed from the podcast feed. Older shows can be streamed online via the show's website, or purchased from Apple's iTunes Store for $0.95 per episode.
Since the move to MP3 files in 2006, the show has relied on an extremely lightweight Digital Rights Management system, based on security through obscurity and legal threats. While the show episodes are removed from the podcast RSS feed after a week, they remain on This American Life's server, accessible to anyone who knows the location. On at least three different occasions, Internet users have created their own unofficial podcast feeds, deep linking to the MP3 files located on the This American Life webserver. In all three instances, the podcast feeds were removed from the Internet once representatives from Public Radio International contacted the individuals responsible for creating the feeds.
As of March 2012, a typical podcast episode was downloaded 750,000 times.
Mobile apps
In February 2010, Public Radio Exchange launched a mobile app on Apple's iTunes Store. This app contains MP3 audio of the podcast.
In October 2016, This American Life launched an app called Shortcut to allow listeners to share short audio clips on social media, similar to the way gifs allow social media users to share video clips. Stephanie Foo served as project lead, collaborating with developers Courtney Stanton and Darius Kazemi of Feel Train. In the app, listeners can select an audio clip of up to 30 seconds to post to social media, where the audio plays and displays a transcription of the clip. The app's initial iteration operates on This American Life's archives, but the project code will be released as open-source software, available for other audio projects to adopt.
Awards
WBEZ-FM received a Peabody Award in 1996 and again in 2006 for TAL, for a show which "captures contemporary culture in fresh and inventive ways that mirror the diversity and eccentricities of its subjects" and "weav[es] original monologues, mini-dramas, original fiction, traditional radio documentaries and original radio dramas into an instructional and entertaining tapestry".
George Foster Peabody Award
- 2016 WBEZ/Chicago, IL, This American Life, for the documentary "The Anatomy of Doubt"
- 2015 WBEZ/Chicago, IL, This American Life, for the documentaries detailing "The Case for School Desegregation Today" in the episodes "Three Miles", "The Problem We All Live With - Part One" and "The Problem We All Live With - Part Two"
- 2014 WBEZ/Chicago, IL, Serial/This American Life/Chicago Public Media, for the series Serial
- 2013 WBEZ/Chicago, IL, This American Life, for the documentary "Harper High School"
- 2012 WBEZ/Chicago, IL, Pro Publica, Fundacion MEPI for the documentary "What Happened at Dos Erres"
- 2008 WBEZ-FM Chicago and National Public Radio, News Division for The Giant Pool of Money
- 2006 WBEZ-FM Chicago
- 1996 Ira Glass, Peter Clowney, Alix Spiegel, Nancy Updike, and Dolores Wilber, WBEZ-FM Chicago, for This American Life.
Third Coast International Audio Festival
- 2001 Susan Burton Best New Artist award for act 1, Tornado Prom from episode 186, "Prom".
- 2002 Jonathan Goldstein, Alex Blumberg and Ira Glass: Best Documentary Gold Award for act 3, Yes, There is a Baby from episode 175, "Babysitting".
- 2003, Susan Burton and Hyder Akbar, Best Documentary Silver Award for episode 230, "Come Back to Afghanistan".
Livingston Award
- 2002 Alix Spiegel: National Reporting for episode 204, "81 Words".
Scripps Howard Foundation
- 2004 Nancy Updike: Jack R. Howard Award for episode 266, "I'm From the Private Sector and I'm Here to Help".
Edward R. Murrow Award
- 2005 Nancy Updike: for News Documentary for episode 266, "I'm From the Private Sector and I'm Here to Help".
Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award
- 2007 Alix Spiegel: for "Which One of These is Not Like the Others?" for episode 322, "Shouting Across the Divide".
New York Festivals Award
- 2007 Trey Kay & Lu Olkowski: "Best Human Interest Story" for act 2, "I'm Not a Doctor, but I Play One at the Holiday Inn" from episode 321, "Sink or Swim".
George Polk Award
- 2008 Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson: "Best Radio Reporting" for episode 355 "The Giant Pool of Money
- 2012 Ira Glass: "Best Radio Reporting" for episode 430 "Very Tough Love"
In popular culture
This American Life was referenced in the television series The O.C., prompting the character Summer to respond, "Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are?" and, with a dismissive snort, "Gawd!" This reference was itself repeated in a segment of the 2007 Live Tour episode, when Glass, a self-confessed shameless fan of the teen soap opera, described his experience responding to the aforementioned line.
The Onion, a parody newspaper, published a satirical story on April 20, 2007, entitled "This American Life Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence".
In 2011, comedy writer Julian Joslin (with Michael Grinspan) released a parody of This American Life entitled "This American Laugh" on YouTube, wherein a fictional Glass makes a sex tape with Fresh Air's Terry Gross. The spoof was viewed over 100,000 times in one week but was met with a cool reception by Glass himself.
Fred Armisen parodied Ira Glass for a skit on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" in 2011. The skit was cut from the show on the grounds that Ira Glass was "not famous enough" to be parodied on Saturday Night Live. Glass then invited Armisen to impersonate him as a guest co-host for an episode of This American Life in January 2013.
In 2012, in Season 6, Episode 12 of "30 Rock": "St. Patrick's Day", Ira Glass's voice appears on the radio, apparently presenting TAL, with his studio having been overrun by drunken thugs.
In 2013, Stanley Chase III, Mickey Dwyer, Ken Fletcher, and Matt Gifford launched the parody podcast That American Life on iTunes, which is hosted by "Ira Class".
In two episodes of Season 1 of Orange Is the New Black, Robert Stanton portrays a radio personality, Maury Kind who hosts an NPR show called Urban Tales, a fictional portrayal of This American Life.
The 2014 motion picture Veronica Mars depicts the character of Stosh "Piz" Piznarski working at This American Life. Host Ira Glass appears in a cameo role as himself, and many This American Life staffers appear in background roles.
Music
Episodes of TAL are accompanied by music. Some songs are used between acts and are credited in the episode guide for the show. Other songs are used as thematic background music for stories and are not credited.
"Over the years, we've used hundreds of songs under our stories--and in some stories, we use a number of different songs in different sections. We tried to answer these emails for awhile [sic?], but often it was impossible sometimes to pinpoint which song people were asking about...".
Other media
Some of the show's episodes are accompanied by multimedia downloads available on This American Life's website. For example, a cover version of the Elton John song "Rocket Man" was produced for episode 223, "Classifieds", and released as an MP3.
Four two-disc CD sets collecting some of the producers' favorite acts have been released: Lies, Sissies, and Fiascoes: The Best of This American Life was released on May 4, 1999; Crimebusters + Crossed Wires: Stories from This American Life was released on November 11, 2003; Davy Rothbart: This American Life was released in 2004; and Stories of Hope and Fear was released on November 7, 2006.
A 32-page comic book, Radio: An Illustrated Guide (ISBN 0-9679671-0-4), documents how an episode of TAL is put together. It was drawn by cartoonist Jessica Abel, written by Abel and Glass, and first published in 1999.
The cover of "The Lives They Lived" edition of The New York Times Magazine published on December 25, 2011 read "These American Lives" after a special section of the magazine edited by Glass and other staff of the show.
Glass had a cameo appearance in the 22nd season premiere of The Simpsons, entitled "Elementary School Musical". Lisa plays This American Life on her iPod and Glass introduces the theme of the show, "Today in Five Acts: Condiments".
In the American Dad! episode, "Honey, I'm Homeland," Ira Glass provides his own voice when members of an Occupy group kidnap Stan after he tries to infiltrate their group. To brainwash him, they play This American Life for him while in captivity in which Ira talks about a dog and his owner, who also happens to be a dog. Stan objects to Ira's pauses between lines, questioning why they are necessary if he already has them written down in front of him. When Stan has been fully brainwashed and is released, he continues to listen to Ira as he touts the benefits of paying for radio.
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