Showtime has the radio guy and his singular storytelling

Ira Glass, the bookish, beloved public-radio raconteur, is gushing about TV.

Not hifalutin shows like Shakespearean-laced historical drama or searing five-part investigative work. But rather that teen soap-and-surf drama called "The O.C."

California! Here we come! "I loved Seth and Summer and even the kid who played Ryan. We'd sing along with the theme song, every word, in full voice," he says about the TV ritual he enjoyed with his wife, Anaheed Alani.

When the show aired its final episode last month, Glass sat on his New York City couch to watch, of course. And cried. "I'm a total sap," the 48-year-old broadcaster says.

And in spite of the annoying musical cues found in another girlie program, "The Gilmore Girls," Glass watches that, too. His viewing ritual? Raising his fist and cursing the show's creator whenever the heartbreaking moments arise.

"I don't believe in the idea of 'guilty pleasure,' " Glass said the other day in Seattle when he brought his wildly popular "This American Life" radio show here. The Chicago Public Radio show, heard by some 2 million listeners across the country (on radio and on podcast) currently airs on local National Public Radio stations KUOW and KPLU. And starting Thursday "This American Life," in a striking transformation, broadcasts as a six-episode Showtime TV series.

Broadcast heresy?

The mere notion of a TV "This American Life" has been decried as treason by some. Judas! and, It's like when Dylan went electric! heckled the Minneapolis audience when Glass promoted the show there. (No catcalling at Seattle's Paramount but, still, his question — "Were you worried?" — was met with a firm "Yes!")

With its spool of everyman stories — ordinary people in extraordinary (war) or sometimes decidedly mundane (love) situations — "This American Life" the radio show, in its 12 years, has treated its audience to affecting, quirky, humorous narrative. Glass' voice, a bit whiny-sounding, inflecting at times like a teen's, is terrifically idiosyncratic and chummy, and as a host he allows the stories to take hold of him. That, in turn, frosts the radio program with a kind of honesty and truthfulness, making the stories that much more embraceable. "This American Life" is pure "driveway moment" studded radio — radio so good you linger in the car.

Unquestionably, passion for this one-of-a-kind show and its skinny host with the big black eyeglasses (TV will forever shatter Glass' anonymity) runs deep. And "This American Life" the TV show should engender respect, if not devotion, for Showtime, which not only courted Glass (public TV, it's been reported, did not) but gave him both freedom and a creative team that greatly succeeds in translating the radio program for the ubiquitous small screen.

What debuts Thursday is a half-hour show built on themes ("Reality Check," "God's Close-up," "Pandora's Box") with stories documenting emotions (mortification, hope) and highlighting original characters (a man's attachment to a bull; a kid who doesn't believe in love; seniors creating a short film). The pacing here mirrors the pacing of the radio program, meaning the stories shuffle along, pausing at moments so the subjects reveal themselves, and then the narratives turn unexpectedly.

Some of the background music might sound familiar to radio listeners; the quirky, sometimes humorous, occasionally heavy but always authentic tone of the program surely will.

And then there are the visuals: gorgeous panoramic vistas; the closest of close-ups that evolve into recognizable objects (a microscope). Animation, black-and-white photography, too. The best radio stories are already chock-full of imagery, but the rewards here are also seeing a man's watery eyes, a teen's shiny forehead, a senior citizen's shaky hand. It all looks so easily crafted, and it's hard to imagine these stories told in any better way.

And yes, Glass is in it: an angular body, a round face, great hair to go along with that familiar voice. He sits behind a desk in each episode except the "This American Life" eccentricity hasn't been squashed here. The desk sits at various locations. The Bonneville salt flats. A sidewalk in suburbia. An underground parking garage.

It would have been "too artsy" not to be in the show, Glass says. Besides, the network made that clear. "Gary Levine [executive vice president of original programming] said 'You have all these fans and they're going to be asking, But do you have the guy?' And they wanted it known, 'We've got the guy! The REAL guy!' "

It's a lark

"Our radio show is friendly, take-you-by-the-hand, c'mon-let-me-show you," Glass says during an interview at Seattle's Roosevelt Hotel. He walks in without a handler, sporting a dark windbreaker, carrying a bike messenger bag. Several reminder notes are written on his hand.

Glass lost weight for his TV debut. "I didn't want to feel pain whenever I saw pictures of myself," he quips. "I feel bad for radio listeners who haven't seen me before." The truth: Glass is hipster-geek, not quite race-across-the-room-to-flirt-with, but after the briefest encounter you're figuring out how not to leave his side.

His broadcast career started at 19, as an intern for National Public Radio. He's done it all: producer, writer, tape cutter. Under his direction, "This American Life" has earned accolades from across the journalism spectrum. In 2001 Time called Glass the country's best radio host. David Mamet said Glass had reinvented radio.

The TV project, Glass says, wasn't about proving anything. It was really more of a lark. And it'd be fun to work with pictures. "TV is the medium of our time, and it seemed interesting."

He didn't own a TV for 15 years. That wasn't some sort of political statement. It just was what it was.

But then "The Sopranos" arrived and took hold. "Family Guy," "The Wire," Jon Stewart, "Project Runway," "Celebrity Poker Showdown." Glass rattles on.

"The entire first season of 'The Dog Whisperer.' " (Glass and his wife have a dog, a rescued pit bull named Piney). "Every episode of 'The Gilmore Girls.' Just get her [expletive] together with Luke already," he says about Lorelai.

Making TV was an adjustment, he says. Hours of discussion, for example, on the colors of the show's pictogram logo. A general worrying it wouldn't feel like the radio show. But the TV guys, he says, wanted "those moments when people reflect. So they designed a look that wouldn't distract you from the words."

Glass, the consummate storyteller, became fascinated with the craft. "We were flying back from a shoot, on JetBlue with those TVs at every seat, and I was sitting next to Adam Beckman [director of photography], and he was pointing out how the lighting worked, and the shadows and it was so great."

Glass in full coo mode.

"I totally see TV differently now. There'll be some scene in a car and I'll tell my wife 'Look at that light source!' She'll roll her eyes."

Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com