Each week’s show loosely centers on a particular theme. The theme of the show is explored in several “acts”, usually two to five. On occasion, an entire program will consist of a single act. A notable exception was the show “20 Acts in 60 Minutes”, which broke the normal convention by presenting twenty acts in one hour. Each act is produced using a combination of staff and freelance contributors.

Content varies widely by episode, and 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”. Listeners may be introduced to novel subjects and issues as well, since the program covers fringe groups within the USA as well as international matters. Often This American Life features stories which explore aspects of human nature, such as “Kid Logic”, which presented pieces on reasoning of children.

The end credits of each show are read by Ira Glass, and include a sound clip extracted out of context from some portion of that show, which Glass humorously attributes to WBEZ general manager Torey Malatia. This is referred to as the “Boss Burn” by dedicated fans of the show.[citation needed]
[edit] History
[edit] Radio
Further information: List of This American Life episodes

Ira Glass, the creator of This American Life, has served as producer and host since its November 17, 1995 debut. The show’s first year was produced on a budget that was tight even by U.S. public radio standards: US$243,000 outfitted a studio, covered marketing costs, purchased satellite time, and paid for four full-time staffers and various freelance writers and reporters.[3] National syndication began in June 1996 when Public Radio International formed a distribution partnership with the program. It now airs on 509 PRI affiliate stations in the United States reaching an estimated 1.7 million listeners each week.[4] The show is also carried on XM Satellite Radio over the Public Radio International block on the XM Public Radio channel. The show is also consistently rated as the 1st or 2nd most downloaded podcast on iTunes for each week.

Originally titled Your Radio Playhouse, the show’s name was changed beginning with the March 21, 1996 episode. The reference to each segment of the show as an “act” is a holdover from its original “playhouse theme”. TAL helped launch the literary careers of many including contributing editor Sarah Vowell and essayists David Rakoff and David Sedaris.[4]
[edit] Television
Main article: This American Life (TV series)

Discussions of a television adaptation of TAL date back to at least 1999.[3] In January 2006, Showtime announced it had greenlighted six episodes of a new series based on TAL.[5] The announcement noted that each half-hour episode “will be hosted by Ira Glass and will explore a single theme or topic through the unique juxtaposition of first-person storytelling and whimsical narrative.”[5]

For budgetary reasons, Ira Glass and four of the radio show’s producers left Chicago for New York, where Showtime is headquartered.[4] 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. TAL has a contract for a total of 30 shows over the next four years.[6] Writers for the show include Chris Ware, Ira Glass, and Haruki Murakami. In September 2009, 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.[2] 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.[2]
[edit] 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.[7] 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”.[8] In June 2008, Spike Lee bought the movie rights to Ronald Mallett’s memoir, whose story was featured in the episode “My Brilliant Plan”.[9]

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”.[10][11]

This American Life‘s 168th episode, “The Fix Is In”, inspired screen writer Scott Burns to adapt Kurt Eichenwald’s book about business executive and FBI informant Mark Whitacre, titled The Informant, into a major motion picture.[12] The film was directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Matt Damon.[13] Ira 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.[13]
[edit] 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.

* “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.
* “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.

[edit] 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.[14] 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.[15]

On April 23, 2009, This American Life broadcast a second theater event. This program is entitled This American Life – Live! Returning to the Scene of the Crime. Contributors included Mike Birbiglia, Starlee Kine, Dan Savage, David Rakoff, and Joss Whedon.
[edit] Podcast

From 1998–2005, American Life could be accessed online in two formats: A free RealAudio stream available from the official show website, and an DRM encrypted download available through Audible.com, which charged $4 per episode. In early 2006, the show began to offer MP3 copies of each episode, which could be streamed from the show’s website using a proprietary Flash player. While users were not given a direct link to the streaming MP3 files, it was possible for savvy users to save these files to their computer for later playing.

Since October 2006, This American Life has offered a free podcast feed to the public. Under this arrangement, each show is made available to podcast subscribers on the Monday following its national broadcast. 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 predictable location.[16] 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.[17][18][19]

According to statements made during fund-drives, the show is downloaded by more than 400,000 people each week. These millions of downloads consume significant amounts of bandwidth, which costs the show $130,000 per year. The show has inserted a number of requests for financial assistance into the beginning of podcast episodes, requesting help, in order to pay for the bandwidth costs.
[edit] Response

Early response to This American Life was largely positive. In 1998, Mother Jones magazine called the program “hip–as well as intensely literary and surprisingly irreverent.”[20]
[edit] 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.”[21]

George Foster Peabody Award

* 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”.

Dupont 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[22]

[edit] In other media

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.[23]

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”.[24] The average age of This American Life listeners is 47.[25]
[edit] Music

Episodes of TAL are accompanied by music, in the form of interludes between acts (credited in the episode guide for each show), and incidental background music during acts. Background music is typically not credited, but provides important thematic emphasis.

Some songs and artists that have played a role in TAL background music include the following.
[edit] Key themes

* “The Rules of Personal Space”, “Many Different Hats”, “The Beautiful People”, “Lullaby Lost” from the album Extra: in the Background of a Dream by Bobby Johnston
* “Catalog and Classify” from the album Tiger Banana by Mark Robinson
* “Talisman” from the album Moon Safari by Air
* “Highschool Lover”, “Dirty Trip” and “Ghost Song” from the album The Virgin Suicides: Original Soundtrack by Air
* “kt” from the album Haralambos by Bexar Bexar
* “Whipping the Horse’s Eyes” from the album Feast of Wire by Calexico
* “So What” from the album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis
* “Carpathian Ridge” and “Did You Know Him” from the album Donnie Darko: Original Soundtrack by Michael Andrews
* “Changeling”, “Midnight in a Perfect World” and “Stem/Long Stem” from the album Endtroducing by DJ Shadow
* “Paul’s Dance” from the album Penguin Cafe Orchestra by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
* “Sketch” and “Perpetuum Mobile” from the album Signs of Life by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
* “Kyoko’s House: Stage Blood is not Enough” from the Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters soundtrack by Philip Glass
* “Metamorphosis I” and “Japura River” performed by Uakti on the Philip Glass album Aguas Da Amazonia
* “Still Dre” from the album 2001 Instrumental by Dr. Dre
* “Namaste” and “Groove Holmes” from the album Check Your Head by The Beastie Boys
* “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo” from the album Flight of the Cosmic Hippo by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
* “The Chase” by Portastatic
* “Viva Tirado, Pt. 1″ from the album “Viva El Chicano!” by El Chicano
* “Big Calm” from the album “Big Calm” by Morcheeba
* “Rumble” by Link Wray
* “Evil vs. Good” from the album The Ghost of Fashion by Clem Snide
* “Get Your Truck” from the album Flirt: Original Soundtrack by Hal Hartley
* “Yèkèrmo Sèw (A Man of Experience and Wisdom)” by The Ethiopiques
* “Indie Rock Spock Ears” by Dianogah
* “Tune Down” from the album Sticks by Chris Joss

[edit] Recurring themes

* “Alone in Kyoto” from the albums Lost in Translation: Original Soundtrack and “Talkie Walkie” by Air (band)
* “Bathing Blossom” from the album Secretary: Original Soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti
* “Untitled III (Remix)” from the album Even My Sure Things Fall Through by Calexico
* “Close To Me” from the album The Head on the Door by The Cure
* “Strange Bath”, “Cubes”, “You Learn”, and “Coincidences” from the album I ? Huckabees: Original Soundtrack by Jon Brion
* “Theme” and “Phone Call” from the album Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Original Soundtrack by Jon Brion
* “The Beast” from the album Mulholland Drive: Original Soundtrack by Milt Buckner
* “Dreams” and “Lux Aeterna” from the album Requiem for a Dream: Original Soundtrack by Clint Mansell, as performed by Kronos Quartet
* “All that you give” from the album Every Day by Cinematic Orchestra
* “Drunken Tune” from the album Man with a Movie Camera by Cinematic Orchestra
* “Diabolus” from the album Motion by Cinematic Orchestra.
* “Numbers 1-4″ and “Telephone and Rubber Band” from the album Penguin Cafe Orchestra by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
* “Penguin Cafe Single” from the album Music from the Penguin Cafe by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
* “Music For A Found Harmonium” from the album Broadcasting from Home by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
* “A Grand Love Theme”, “The Bootleggers” and “Alone Again So” from the album A Grand Love Story by Kid Loco
* “Lakara” from the album Karlshorst by Kinn
* “Buried at Sea” from the album One Step Ahead of the Spider by MC 900 Ft. Jesus
* “Scrapping and Yelling” by Mark Mothersbaugh from the album Royal Tenenbaums: Original Soundtrack
* “Turquoise Hexagon Sun” from the album Music Has the Right to Children by Boards of Canada
* “Laura’s Theme” from the album Brick: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Nathan Johnson
* “Sleepless” from the album Distance by Marconi Union
* “Green Arrow” from the album I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One by Yo La Tengo
* “Peter and Sylvie” from the album Me and You and Everyone We Know (Original Score) by Michael Andrews
* “Coffaro’s Theme” from the album Bill Frisell Quartet by Bill Frisell
* “Dogs We Thought We Knew” from the album “Music for the radio program This American Life” by The Scott Fields Ensemble
* “Strange People Live Next Door” from the album “Music for the radio program This American Life” by The Scott Fields Ensemble
* “Deep Blue Day” from the album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks by Brian Eno
* “Autopilot” from the album The Problem With Me by Seam
* “Acolyte of the Flux” from the album Angels In America (Music From The HBO Film) by Thomas Newman
* “6 Ghosts I”, “9 Ghosts I”, “12 Ghosts II” and “13 Ghosts II” from the album Ghosts I–IV by Nine Inch Nails
* “Wally, Egon, & Modells in The Studio” from the album Music for Egon Schiele by Rachel’s
* “Tenuous Gears” from the album Micalavera by Damiak
* “Shatter” from the album Exile in Guyville by Liz Phair
* “Christmas Steps” from the album Come On Die Young by Mogwai
* “Day Trip” from the album Chomp Samba by Amon Tobin
* “Trespasser” by Bad Medicine

[edit] Other media

Some of the show’s episodes are accompanied by multimedia downloads available on This American Life‘s website. One notable mention is a remake of the Elton John song “Rocket Man” that was produced for episode 223, “Classifieds”, and released as an MP3. The song was performed by a “one day band” composed of musicians looking for work in the classifieds. The band, consisting of various performers (one played a Theremin), met and practiced for only one day before recording the song.

Three 2-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; 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.