Last updated on March 12th, 2023
For over twenty years, listeners across the country (and around the world) have tuned in to hear Ira Glass and co. share stories, essays and insight into the world we live in. The award-winning This American Life is broadcast weekly from WBEZ and syndicated on numerous public radio stations, as well digitally as a free podcast.
Though it’s been running for several decades, we did our best to pick the best This American Life podcast episodes throughout their run … it wasn’t easy. In 2007 and 2008, a television version of the show ran on Showtime and you might also know This American Life as the show that spawned both Serial and S-Town.
As Glass explains to listeners at the beginning of each episode, the show picks a different theme each week and shares stories on that theme. With over 600 episodes produced and thousands of stories shared, various This American Life episodes have touched on topics both serious and sweet, creepy and calming and sometimes just plain odd.
Whether you are a first time listener looking for guidance as to where to start, or have been listening since the 90’s and want to go back through the archives, we hope this list of our favorite 12 TAL episodes will be of help.
Table of Contents
This American Life airs on more than 500 stations across the country. Archive episodes of This American Life, including some web exclusives, can be found at thisamericanlife.org. You can also listen to the ten most recent episodes on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Editors Note: In lieu of removing truly important stories from the past in this 2023 update, I’ve chosen to simply add more episodes of the This American Life podcast. We could all do with some more Ira Glass in our lives, so this update is going to reflect that.
Episode 778, August 26, 2022
What makes us who we are? I mean, what is the continuity that keeps us who we are? We shed all of our cells and regenerate them. We obviously grow older over time. What is it that keeps us, well, us?
This episode is special because it hits the very nature of consciousness and humanity. It’s a This American Life podcast episode that is quintessentially TAL.
And it’s all done without Ira Glass hosting. This episode has guest host Bim Adewunmi walking us through the intricacies of epistemic reality.
Sandy Allen discusses what it feels like to get used to your own voice again after trauma. How much can we lose and still be us? It’s strange just to think about, yet, that’s what makes this episode so intoxicating.
Episode 771, May 27, 2022
The United States is plagued with gun violence. Worse, plagued with mass school shootings. I grew up in the era of school shootings, and this episode literally brought tears to my eyes.
I was a senior in high school when Columbine happened. A few years later the high school next to mine in the East County of San Diego was attacked. And it has only gotten worse since then.
In this truly crushing episode, Ira Glass speaks with Sandy and Lonnie Phillips whose daughter died when she was shot by a gunman in Aurora Colorado. They stepped forward to do something about gun violence because the Government hasn’t done anything of consequence in more than 20 years. A sincerely damning indictment of government at every level.
In the closing segment, Ira speaks with Lenny Pozner, whose son Noah, was murdered at Sandy Hook. They discuss the harassment the family experienced when Sandy Hook became consumed in the conspiracy culture that has taken over parts of our society.
It really makes you wonder where we’re going to go as a society from here. This episode of the This American Life podcast provides no real answers to that quandary, but it does at least provide some small bit of catharsis for a society screaming for help.
Episode 589, March 1, 2013
For this episode, producers Brian Reed and Sarah Koenig asked listeners to share their most memorable coincidences. From over 1,300 submissions, five stories were selected, which touch on the mundane repetition we see in our life everyday to a romantic story about a lucky dollar bill.
This episode stands out for the ability to make something from nothing, which This American Life consistently does so well. Act Three of the show is perhaps the most memorable, and begins with a college student discovering a nickel on the floor of his shower.
The errant coin leads This American Life producers to travel to college campuses coast-to-coast to report on where this mystery coin came from. The story’s conclusion is so satisfyingly simple, putting a perfect cap on a story you have probably never thought about before, and may never think about again.
Episode 513, December 13, 2013
Every now and then, a new This American Life comes out about a topic full of curiosity that few journalists have thought to explore before. In this single-story episode, the focus is a Jeep dealership on Long Island, with vignettes from a month of sales as the goal of 129 cars is reached.
Why was this topic selected? Well, it’s unclear, even though Ira Glass spends the first few minutes of the episode explaining how the dealership was selected and how the place works. The segments of the 60-minute episode revolve around different salesmen at the dealership, all competing to have the most monthly sales and possibly get their hands on a big end-of-the-month bonus. Listening to the episode is almost like watching a reality T.V. show, with high-stakes drama revolving around something that you probably never put stakes in before.
Episode 109, August 28, 1998
Host Ira Glass has frequently mentioned this early episode of This American Life as one of his favorites, probably because it encapsulates what the show is really about. Summer camp is a part of American life that some people take part in and love (or hate) and others never experience and have no grasp of. The episode attempts to bridge that gap with stories from producers and listeners that share what it was really like to a be a school-aged child at camp for the summer.
In the episode, Act One follows a long-time camper who has transitioned into being a counselor and looks into the work that goes in to becoming the “cool” counselor at camp. Later, Glass investigates the economics of camp and how rituals and routines like the fake Native American pow-wows he took part in can help bring back return customers.
Episode 567, September 18, 2013
The theme of this emotional two-part episode is stories where the outside perspective looks dramatically different than what is actually going on. First, a 17-year-old named Rainy reports on the reality of an abusive relationship she was in with an older man. The result is a powerful look at a part of life outsiders are quick to assume they are fully understand. The second half of the show is about Larry, a 20-year-old who has struggled to communicate and bond with his work-focused father. Larry was raised only speaking English, never learning the Chinese dialects of Fujianese and Mandarin that his father speaks.
Both stories of Episode 567 come to emotional, powerful conclusions that are equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming. The stories are both masterfully reported and produced and give listeners a true look into the inside of the lives of young Americans that are drastically different, but in a way related.
Episodes 487 and 488, Feb. 15, 2013 and Feb. 23, 2013
This American Life has accumulated a variety of reporting awards over the years, but few stories were as celebrated as the show’s two-part investigation into a series of gun-related deaths surrounding Harper High School in Englewood, Chicago. The investigation won a Peabody Award and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award in 2013.
The reporting took place over five months and in the two episodes, investigation is done not only into what caused the increase in violence in the first place, but also how it affected the high school community. Interviews with both students and administrators shed light into a greater issue of gun-violence in Chicago and tell a deeply personal story of a community broken by a news story that we can sometimes go numb towards. This American Life has also worked hard to follow up a number of the subjects interviewed for this story and have published updates about notable characters online.
Episode 47, December 20, 1996
Going way back into This American Life’s second year will allow you to find one of David Sedaris’ first radio pieces, a gonzo-style look into the life of an elf at Macy’s Santaland in New York City. Sedaris’ self-deprecating and witty humor is on full display in this 30-minute segment where he shares with full vulnerability what it was like to be a elf for a the holiday season. The funniest part of the episode is his balance between attempting to dismiss wanting to be an elf and realizing he may be deeply under-qualified for the job.
Anyone who has visited Macy’s at Christmas time or any other large-scale Santa production will appreciate the attention to detail and the deep look into the bizarre world of holiday elves and Santa Clauses.
Episode 360, July 25, 2008
This American Life often broadcasts short fiction or essays that touch on absurd or deeply imaginative, but this single-story episode proved that sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. In the episode, reporter Jake Halpern introduces us to a story of two baby girls who were accidentally switched at birth in 1951. After going home with the wrong families, one mother realized the mistake but chose to remain quiet for over forty years. In this episode, Halpern talks with both daughters and both mothers, revealing the profound ways the realization changed their lives and the equally interesting ways it did not.
Especially moving is the final segment of the show, where 69-year-old Kay McDonald, the mother who did not know about the switch, reflects on what it felt like to learn she had raised the wrong daughter for 40 years and why another mother who keep the information from her.
Longtime listeners of This American Life may remember that this episode came out in the midst of some excellent political stories about the economy, the Middle East and other current affairs. The deeply personal nature of it was a reminder of just how excellent the show is at personal reporting during a time when many of their stories were more news-driven.
Episode 241, July 11, 2003
This off-kilter episode quickly became a fan-favorite by moving away from the show’s typical two or three story format. The stories squeezed into the hour of radio are both big and small and mostly all fit a profound “a-ha!” moment into their 180 second timeframe.
One of the best parts of the episode is how many notable This American Life producers and guests it includes. In Act Seven of the episode, Jonathan Goldstein shares a story about a character named The Penguin. In Act Eighteen, Chuck Klosterman introduces a pop-culture game he invented called “Monkees Equals Monkees,” where players draw comparisons between musical acts and T.V. shows. At the middle of the episode, experimental theater troupe The Neo-Futurists present a two-minute play.
Numerous other radio shows and podcasts have paid tribute to this form of micro-storytelling (99% Invisible does an excellent end-of-year mini-stories episode, for example) and it truly stands out as one of This American Life’s funnest, but also weirdest, episodes.
Episode 664, December 28, 2018
One of This American Life’s newer episodes, this show focuses on the American library and the wide range of roles it can hold in the lives of Americans.
First, producer Zoe Chace introduces a unique library on the border of Canada that has become a critical space for a select group of visitors. Next, a series of surprising coincidences emerge during the story of a library that was inspired by Richard Brautigan’s novel “The Abortion.” Finally, Stephanie Foo reports on the real impact libraries can have on communities and the people within them by sharing the story Lydia, who spent hours upon hours in a library as a teenager without realizing why.
With a mix of humor and emotion, the stories capture the true spirit of a part of life that we may typically take for granted.
Episode 464, May 18, 2012
Act Two of this episode, which was originally performed live, comes from Tig Notaro and still remains one of the funniest fifteen minutes of This American Life ever. Before a surprising end, Notaro shares the bizarre experience of seeing 80’s pop-star Taylor Dayne repeatedly throughout Los Angeles.
The episode also features a touching story about a blind father and his daughter encountering a bear in the wood’s near their home and how it helped them both learn about what it means to be blind.
Episode 636, January 19, 2018
In addition to real stories about everyday Americans, This American Life occasionally takes on the world of politics, with a handful of recent stories touching on immigration and the Mexican border. The theme of the episode is stories of politicians on both sides finding they are unable to accomplish work that seemed simple, and the true shining moment is Act One, about courts in the border town of Laredo, Texas.
By simply focusing on the day-to-day of one of the busiest border courtrooms in the United States, producers Jonathan Menjivar and Julia Preston give a profound and telling perspective on the impacts of recent immigration policy.
This episode, like many of This American Life’s political episodes, let’s anecdotes and interviews form their own opinion and never takes a true, biased stance. It gives a rare look into what is actually happening at the U.S. border, free of a partisan agenda that other similar reporting might include.
Episode 545, January 23, 2015
This American Life tends to bring positivity and uplifting stories to the radio, but this episode tackled some of the nastier, ruder topics that fit into our lives. Specifically, the episode share stories of online trolls, bad behavior online and other forms of cyber-harassment. Even with the darker, grimmer topic, the show remained in good spirits and blended laughs with frustrating sentiment.
Act One is a fan-favorite story from Lindy West about connecting with an online troll and asking why people behave how they do online. The 20-minute story puts a rare voice to anonymous online trolls and shows a side of the deep, dark Internet that we rarely get to see. Act Two is one of This American Life’s most self-reflective segments to date. Ira Glass investigates “vocal fry,” including what it means, what causes it and why so many listeners complain about its presence in the voices of some of the show’s female producers.
If you haven’t been listening to the This American Life Podcast you are missing out on something unifying in a truly divisive world. The storytelling is absolutely spot on, engaging, and emotive.
Where we can’t agree on up or down, the This American Life podcast keeps us all grounded and gives us perspective on where we are at in the world.
Even if that’s nowhere special.
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