'American Life' transitions to screen

It's all but impossible to boil down the series into a quick summary.
By FRAZIER MOORE
AP TELEVISION WRITER
NEW YORK (AP) -- What happens when Ira Glass and his team at public radio's "This American Life" presume to bring the much-adored, long-running series to television?
They pull it off!
Somehow this gang has managed to replicate on TV screens what, for 1.7 million listeners weekly, flows from the radio smartly unencumbered by pictures. (Vivid pictures, of course, bloom in each listener's mind.)
What a relief for leery listeners! But maybe they're still wondering: Why put "This American Life" on TV anyway?
"We just thought it would be fun to do something new," says Glass, who, since creating the show in 1995, has furnished its signature vision and voice. "I wish the reason was more high-minded than that."
Not that Glass rushed headlong into TV's embrace. He was pitched ages ago, he says, by broadcast networks who liked the show -- but strongly suggested that its TV incarnation should dwell on subjects drawn from the younger demographic.
So when Showtime came calling, Glass was in no hurry. He wondered what the catch would be.
"We kept asking them, 'Well, is there anything we need to know?' and they basically said, 'Make it special."'
Defies description
Like on radio, Showtime's "This American Life" (premiering 10:30 p.m. Thursday) tells stories about people who tell stories about themselves.
However much these stories may vary, there is always drama, waves of discovery and, always, a surprise -- or even a flat-out revelation.
Beyond that, as with its radio counterpart, "This American Life" on TV defies summarizing. To try to boil down one of its stories into just a few words is to boil it away. Even so, here goes:
Hewing to a chosen theme (as the radio version does), the premiere episode is titled "Reality Check," and begins with a brief piece about a little girl on a school bus who makes a charmingly tragic error in judgment.
After that come two longer stories, dubbed "acts." A beloved family pet -- a Brahman bull, of all things -- dies, then is resurrected by the owner and his wife, with unfortunate results. And finally, good intentions go awry when a band of merry pranksters in New York pretends to idolize an obscure rock duo.
The host
Each edition of "This American Life" is hosted by Glass, who, after all these years as a distinctive but disembodied presence, is finally on view. Turns out, he is a nerdy-but-cool-looking, boyish chap of 48 who wears a pair of thick black plastic-frame glasses he's had just about as long as his show.
Introducing each segment, he sits at a desk stuck somewhere wildly out of place (a parking garage; Utah's Great Salt Plains), its location inspired by that episode's theme.
He's a lifelong radio guy who spent years as a reporter and producer for National Public Radio. While doing pieces for nearly all of NPR's news shows, he developed the storytelling ethos that imbues "This American Life," where listeners don't just listen, they join in the experience. But how to make that happen on TV?
It was a painstaking process, but Showtime allowed him, his staff and their production partners -- Killer Films -- to suss it out for themselves.
"A lot of times it came down to Showtime saying, 'Look, if you guys REALLY want to do this...,' and we said, 'We really want to do this,' and they would say, 'OK."'
As ever with "This American Life," words and narrative rule. Yet the TV rendition is strikingly visual.
Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.