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Ira Glass on "This American Life"
Ira Glass on "This American Life" - © Showtime
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Scene from "This American Life" Scene from "This American Life"
This American Life Pictures
 
Showtime's documentary series, "This American Life," tells incredibly moving, sometimes funny and always dramatic stories culled from around the country.

On "This American Life," Wisconsin convicts tell about their almost-successful, MacGyver-esque escape attempt using dental floss; two fighters in Memphis—guys who lose at boxing for a living—square off against each other in a match neither can afford to lose; a Bulgarian man in Rhode Island relives the Cold War every day, on his front lawn; a young Iraqi embarks on a road trip to allow Americans to ask him anything they want about his people and the war – to poignant and hilarious results. "This American Life" tells all these stories, plus woodpeckers, horses, World War II replicas, teenage boys, an epic mother-son battle, and even a brief encounter with Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

"This American Life" is produced by host and executive producer Ira Glass and the same team that creates the award-winning, weekly public radio show of the same name. More than a decade after the radio show of "This American Life" first went on the air, it's more popular than ever, with 1.7 million listeners on more than 500 stations around the country, and another 400,000 people downloading it every week, making it the number one podcast in the country most weeks.

Nominated for Emmy Awards in directing, cinematography and writing in its first season, "This American Life" brings the radio show's storytelling to television. Glass and his producers worked again with director Chris Wilcha and cinematographer Adam Beckman to make the second season of stories even more ambitious than the first.

Each of the six, half-hour episodes has a theme that touches on all the stories in it: Underdogs, Going Down in History, Two Wars, Escape, Scenes from a Marriage, and John Smith. Glass guides audiences through each episode with the same direct, informal style that made the radio version of "This American Life" a hit, and has helped it win nearly every major award in broadcasting.






THIS AMERICAN LIFE: FACTS

Network: Showtime
Genre: Documentary
Runtime: 30 mins.
Premiere Date: March 22, 2007
Seasons: 2
Production Company: Killer Films
Left/Right Films




THIS AMERICAN LIFE: NEWS


Ira Glass on "This American Life"2009 Emmy Award Nominations Announced — "30 Rock" and "Mad Men" come out on top again this year for comedy and drama series with 22 and 16 nominations respectively, while "Grey Gardens" cultivates 17, "Into the West" rides into the sunset with 14, "Saturday Night Live" yucks it up for 13, and "Dancing with the Stars" waltzes away with 10. Read more...