This Canadian only recently discovered “This American Life”, a weekly hour-long radio show produced by Chicago Public Radio (and available via podcast). I’d always felt that I got enough American life from the media–who needs more?

Then a few months ago I listened to episode #339, Break-up, and got kind of hooked.

With more than 300 episodes to choose from, I wanted to go back and listen to the cream of the crop. I spent some time perusing a bunch of sources and assembled a list of the web’s favourite episodes of the show. Basically, every time somebody mentioned that they liked an episode, I marked down a vote for it. In all, I gathered a list of 129 episodes which received at least one vote.

A List in 19 Acts

These 19 episodes got at least five votes, though the first four received considerably more than that. I gather they’re considered classics.

Links go to individual episodes, where you can listen via streaming MP3 or buy for 95 American cents. All descriptions are excerpted from the “This American Life” website.

The list skews slightly toward more recent episodes, but not too badly. Incidentally, if somebody wants to submit this to MetaFilter, I’d appreciate it. It’s not kosher for me to do so, but I know many Mefi readers are also TAL lovers, and I used a couple of MeFi threads as two of my sources.

After the jump, you’ll find the other 109 episodes which received anywhere from one to four votes, in alphabetical order. I didn’t link to their show pages, because that would be a major pain. Just do a quick search on TAL’s website.

A Better Mousetrap

A Little Bit of Knowledge

Accidental Documentaries

Adventures in the Simple Life

And the Call Was Coming from the Basement

Apology

Ask the Expert

Auto Show

Babysitting

Bedside Diplomacy

Before it Had a Name

Berzerker

Break-Up

Christmas and Commerce

Classifieds

Come Back to Afghanistan

Compulsive Liars

Crime Scene

Cringe

Desparate Measures

Detectives

Dolls

Enemy Camp

Family Business

Family Legends

Father’s Day

Get Over It!

Ghosts of Elections Past

Go Ask Your Father

Guns

Harold

Heretics

Home Movies

Houses of Ill Repute

How To

How to Win Friends and Influence People

In Dog We Trust

In the Shadow of the City

Invisible Worlds

It’s Never Over

Jobs That Take Over Your Life

Kid Logic

Kindness of Strangers

Liars

Like It or Not

Lockup

Lost in America

Love Thy Neighbor

MacGyver

Mapping

Media Fringe

Meet the Pros

Mind Games

Monogamy

Monogamy and its Discontents

My Big Break

My Pen Pal

Numbers

On Horse across America

Perfect Evidence

Plan B

Poultry Slam ’03

Pray

Primary

Prom

Promised Land

Propriety

Rashoman

Reunited (and It Feels So Good)

Running After Antelope

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Sentencing

Shoulda Been Dead

Simulated Worlds

Sissies

Somewhere in the Arabian Sea

Starting from Scratch

Sucker

Swing Set

Teenage Embed Part Two

Telephone

The Allure of the Mean Friend

The Arms Dealer

The Cat Came Back

The Cruelty of Children

The Devil in Me

The Facts Don’t Matter

The Fix Is In

The Next Big Thing

The Parrot and the Potbellied Pig

The Real Thing

The Sanctity of Marriage

Them

This Thing Called Love

Time to Save the World

Trail of Tears

Twentieth Century Man

Two Steps Back

Unconditional Love

Valentine’s Day ’98

Voter Fraud

Wacky

We’re From the Private Sector and We’re Here To Help

Welcome to America

What Are You Looking At?

What I Should Have Said

What is This Thing?

When You Talk About Music

Why Did You Do That?