This American Life

This American Life

By This American LifeSociety & CultureNewsArts
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This American Life episodes

  • 477: Getting Away With It
    People breaking the rules fully, completely, and with no bad consequences. Some justify this by saying they’re doing it for others, or for a greater good. Some really don’t care. And, unlike the mealy weaklings you usually hear on this program: none of these wrongdoers seems regretful about what they’ve done.
    Ira takes a flight with travel writer Ken Hegan, to witness Ken deploying a travel gadget that keeps the seat in front of him from reclining. This means more knee space for Ken — but does he get away with it, really? (6 minutes)
    Act One: A boy rides shotgun in a memorable car ride with his mother, and in the process learns how his father earns money for their family. This story appears in Domingo Martinez’s memoir, The Boy Kings of Texas, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. (17 min)
    Act Two: We asked listeners to call in with their stories of getting away with it, and got nearly 1000 messages. Here are a handful. (6 minutes)
    Act Three: Molly Shannon tells the story of when she and a friend evaded a whole lot of adults to travel half-way across the country, despite the fact that they were twelve years old and wearing tutus. Her story was recorded during a live taping of WTF with Marc Maron. (4 minutes)
    Act Four: Producer Alex Blumberg tells the story of how Oklahoma, against huge odds, came to have the first and best publicly-funded pre-school system in the country, and how one businessman joined the fight because a cardboard box full of evidence convinced him that pre-school was the smartest business decision the state could make. (21 minutes)
    1 hr
  • 751: Audience of One
    We bring the movies to you.
    Prologue: Host Ira Glass revisits the one movie he’s seen more than any other, about an ocean liner that gets hit by a tsunami and flips over. (9 minutes)
    Act One: Our producer, Diane Wu, spent most of her life thinking she doesn’t have a unique and personal take on The Sound of Music. She is wrong. (13 minutes)
    Act Two: To cope with the COVID pandemic, producer Sean Cole finds himself turning to a movie about a pandemic. But the virus in this movie isn’t like any you’ve ever heard of. (19 minutes)
    Act Three: Comedian Will Weldon’s ex-wife made a movie loosely based on their marriage. Producer Elna Baker watches the film with Will as he revisits his break-up. (15 minutes)
    Act Four: Jaime Amor does yoga storytelling for kids at Cosmic Kids Yoga and on YouTube. We ask her to try taking on a film for grownups. (7 minutes)
    1 hr 12 min
  • 811: The One Place I Can’t Go
    Spots we’re avoiding in our private maps of the world.
    Prologue: Guest host Bim Adewunmi talks to her cousin Kamyl about a funny thing Kamyl did when she was small, regarding a dog named Foxy. (4 minutes)
    Act One: Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka moved suddenly from Japan to the U.S. when she was eight years old, and has long joked that it was because her grandmother kidnapped her from her dad. But she'd never talked to anyone in her family about what had actually happened. (31 minutes)
    Act Two: Producer Emmanuel Dzotsi has a tale about something he avoids at all costs, even though it seems to follow him everywhere he goes. (8 minutes)
    Act Three: Writer Tamsyn Muir spent her childhood craving a world that she could not find on earth. So as an adult, she just created it. And it was perfect. Until she became the one person who couldn't go there. (12 minutes)
    1 hr 1 min
  • 779: Ends of the Earth
    An exploration of the very upper limits of what you do for someone you love.
    Prologue: Host Ira Glass explains what we’re doing on today’s show. (2 minutes)
    Act One: Amy Bloom tells the story of her husband, Brian, getting Alzheimer's and wanting assisted suicide. Her search to find a way to do that led her to Dignitas, in Switzerland. Hear this intimate and frank account of the experience they go through, excerpted from her book, IN LOVE. (39 minutes)
    Act Two: Comedian Zarna Garg tells jokes onstage about the extreme ways she tries to control her daughter Zoya’s life. Zoya explains, they’re not really jokes.  Ira Glass talks to both of them about it. (15 minutes)
    1 hr 7 min
  • 810: Say It to My Face
    Friends and ex-friends finally talk about the one thing between them they've been avoiding.
    Prologue: Host Ira Glass tells a story he’s never told anyone before, about something someone said to him. (4 minutes)
    Act One: Gabe Mollica had something important he needed to discuss with his friend  — stewed about it for eight years. But rather than go to that friend, he talked about it with everyone other than that one person. (28 minutes)
    Act Two: Jasmine and Gabbie are best friends. BFFs! But there’s something major that they’ve never been able to talk about. Something so important that it makes them wonder, who does this person even think I am? (23 minutes)
    1 hr 4 min
  • 809: The Call

    One call to a very unusual hotline and everything that followed.

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    • Prologue: Ira talks about a priest who set up what may have been the first hotline in the United States. It was just him, answering a phone, trying to help strangers who called. (2 minutes)
    • Act One: The Never Use Alone hotline was set up so that drug users can call if they are say, using heroin by themselves. Someone will stay on the line with them in case they overdose. We hear the recording of one call, from a woman named Kimber. (13 minutes)
    • Act Two: An EMT learns he was connected to the call, in more ways than he realized. (16 minutes)
    • Act Three: Jessie, who took the call, explains how she discovered the hotline. She keeps in touch with Kimber. Until one day, Kimber disappears. (16 minutes)
    • Act Four: We learn what happened to Kimber after she called the line. (10 minutes)

    Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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    1 hr 2 min
  • 388: Rest Stop
    Nine radio reporters. Two days. One rest stop on the New York State Thruway. Stories of people who are just passing through, and the ones who can’t leave, because this is where their jobs are.
    Act One: Host Ira Glass describes scenes from a rest stop on the New York State Thruway, the Plattekill Travel Plaza, and the kind of people you might meet if you ever stayed long enough to talk with them. These include Robert Woodhill, the general manager, who needs a good sales day so he can beat his friend Andy, who manages a rest stop in Maine, in their weekly competition. Ira hangs out with a group of foreign students who’ve landed in Plattekill on a summer work program, and reporter Lisa Pollak gets travel tips from Lenny Wheat, who works at the rest stop’s information booth. Reporter Jonathan Goldstein spends a few hours in the rest stop parking lot. (30 minutes)
    Act Two: More stories of travelers and workers at a highway rest stop. The competition between Plattekill and Maine continues. Reporter Sean Cole observes the lunch rush at the rest stop’s busiest restaurant and stumbles into a behind-the-scenes romance. Reporter Gregory Warner watches a cashier at the Travel Mart deal with an angry customer. Reporters Nancy Updike and Jay Allison hang out for the graveyard shift – midnight to 8 a.m. – and find a surprising amount of romance at the rest stop. (26  minutes)
    1 hr 1 min
  • 323: The Super
    The mysterious hold supers have on their buildings, or that their buildings have on them.
    Host Ira Glass visits the Upper East Side building in Manhattan where Peter Roach has been the super for about ten years. Peter has a lot of keys. He doesn't know what most of them unlock. (4 minutes)
    Act One: Reporter Jack Hitt tells the story of how he helped organize tenants and threaten a rent strike in a New York City building back in the 1980s. Before long, Bob, the building super became his enemy. The situation got pretty ugly. Mobster ugly. Bob began to brag about how important he was in his native Brazil, how he could kill a person and be immune from prosecution. Only many years later did Jack find out how dangerous Bob really was. (23 minutes)
    Act Two: The super in Josh Bearman's Los Angeles building was kind of a needy character. He would sometimes ask Josh to come into his apartment and help him out -- check whether his garbage was being moved by a ghost, for example. Then one day he told Josh a story that involved these elements: a gas station, a beautiful woman, an orchid, a snowman, Indonesia, and a check he'd written for $30,000. It was so crazy, that naturally, Josh believed it. (12 minutes)
    Act Three: A man who we're calling "Dennis" inherits his father's job as a landlord of a big apartment building. His dad had warned him that bad tenants could drive even a good man to become heartless, but Dennis vowed that would never happen to him. He's tested on this point when he tries to help a couple that falls behind in their rent. He sets up a payment plan for them, teaches them how to make a budget, helps them with their personal problems. For six years, he stops himself from kicking them out. This story was co-produced by Sonari Glinton. (16 minutes)
    1 hr 1 min
  • 808: The Rest of the Story
    Legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey had a popular show called “The Rest of the Story.” Today on our show, we do just that. We hear from people who, whether they want to or not, find themselves face-to-face with the rest of their stories.
    Prologue: Legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey had one of the most popular radio shows of all time. For 35 years he served up big twists and  jaw dropping reveals all with his one-of-a-kind delivery. (7 minutes)
    Act One: Psychiatry used to be all talk. Then came a patient named Ray Osheroff. Producer Chris Benderev tells us what became of the man who changed therapy. (26 minutes)
    Act Two: Contributor Samuel James thought he knew what happened to his mother. But he was wrong. Then he was wrong again. (9 minutes)
    Act Three: A new resident in Berlin is greeted like a minor celebrity wherever she goes. The perks are nice, but does she really want to know why? Producer Bim Adewunmi has the rest of the story. (14 minutes)
    1 hr 4 min
  • 714: Day at the Beach
    It’s the last few weeks of summer, so we’re going to the beach! This week, stories from the surf and sand.
    Prologue: Host Ira Glass reflects on his feelings about going to the beach. (3 minutes)
    Act One: Producer Dana Chivvis explores the case of a 66-year-old working lifeguard who is suing New York State for age discrimination after refusing to wear a Speedo on the job. (15 minutes)
    Act Two: Alex Blumberg talks to Shane Dubow about a time decades ago, when Shane went sea kayaking and camping with his friends on the beach in Baja California, Mexico. When Shane’s neck stiffens up on him, he finds himself looking for an unlikely chiropractor, in the middle of nowhere. (11 minutes)
    Act Three: This clip is from what Ira calls “the beachiest show” public radio ever made. It’s a segment from NPR’s 1970’s show, Ocean Hour. In it we hear from a man who lives on the beach, literally. He explains how it provides him everything he needs to survive. You can hear the original hour of radio, which included The Beachcomber, courtesy of Nation Public Radio, Inc. (3 minutes)
    Act Four: David Sedaris comes from a big family, who for many years growing up, took annual vacations to the same beach house. In this story, David tells us about losing a sister, and how her death prompted a family reunion back at the beach. David is the author of many books, including Calypso. (27 minutes)
    1 hr 5 min

About This American Life

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Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising…

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Ranked by our users in the last 21 days

  1. Number 1: 897: Intergenerational Space Travel
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  2. Number 2: 449: Middle School
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  3. Number 3: 893: Testosterone
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