Reader Poll: That show where those hipster know-it-alls talk about how fascinating ordinary people are

This American Life premieres on Showtime tomorrow.  The trailers look cool, there was a NY Times story about it today, and last week’s program was all about television.* Makes me wish I had Showtime.

The highlight of last week’s show was Ira Glass talking about how much he liked watching the O.C. and singing along to the theme song with his wife.  Then one night, he was watching the O.C. when a character refered to This American Life as “that show where those hipster know-it-alls talk about how fascinating ordinary people are.”

I think I understand the “know-it-all” part of that statement, since the stories usually have a single, straightforward take-away message.  Glass even argues that this is inherent in radio.  Here’s an excerpt from his “Radio: An Illustrated Guide”:

“This is the structure of every story on our program - there’s an anecdote, that is, a sequence of actions where someone says “this happened then this happened then this happened” - and then there’s a moment of reflection about what that sequence means, and then on to the next sequence of actions.

It is an ancient storytelling structure, really.  It’s the structure, essentially, of a sermon; you hear a little story from the Bible, then the clergyperson tells you what it means.

…Like I said, radio is a peculiarly didactic medium, unlike, for example, theater, or comics, where something can kind of happen, and you’re in a setting where people will infer the meaning.”

[UPDATE: Ira also used the phrase "peculiarly didactic" in this short segment he did for the comedy troupe Schadenfreude in which he describes how to sound like This American Life - posted, coincidentally, on the same day that I wrote this post. BoingBoing also points to a clever parody of TAL that gets it just right.]

I’ve never felt like the show is heavy-handed, but how about the rest of you?  First of all, any other listeners out there? 

Here are two quick polls:

*Last week’s show was a compilation of segments from the TAL tour, which brought back memories of attending the “Birthdays, Anniversaries and Milestones” Dec. 2000 live show recorded in Chicago with a pre-treadmill OK Go, David Rakoff, Sarah Vowell, and birthday hats worn by all.  It was one of the last things I did stateside before shipping off to Turkey.  (Remember that Karen?)