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Though not the most obvious of translations, PBS has nevertheless transformed NPR's hit radio series Car Talk into an animated series. The show, dubbed Click and Clack's As The Wrench Turns, premieres July 9th at 8 p.m. ET and is set to run in two-episode blocks for five weeks thereafter. Click and Clack, the on-air alter egos of Tom and Ray Tappet, are as self-deprecating off-air about the series as they are on air. "I hope that people look at it mercifully," said Ray, "It's lame enough that people will laugh at some of the lame stuff."

The brothers are the heart and soul of the radio show, which has become a huge hit for NPR, but the TV show is looking to spotlight a more expanded roster of characters. And while the two will be playing animated versions of themselves, and those versions will also host an auto talk show, the similarities really end there. You really have a more family-oriented animated show the creators say is more akin to Family Guy or The Simpsons than the radio show.

I heard a short story on NPR this weekend about a band called Previously on Lost. Every week, they release a song that recaps each episode of Lost. The band members are Jeff Curtin and Adam Schatz, and they record their songs on Kiss My Arzt Records (ha!). Curtin says they pick the major theme or event of the week and sing about it. One of the funniest songs I heard was for the Desmond-centric episode a few weeks ago when he almost had an aneurysm. It's called "Be My Constant". Curtin says that song is about "love and electro-magnetism".

(S19E13)"Young man, I'm going to be on you like a numerator on a denominator" -- Principal Skinner to Donny the informant

It's been a looong time since we had an episode of The Simpsons that focused on that young rapscallion Bart and his status of Prankmaster at Springfield Elementary. Frankly, I was starting to get a bit worried that we wouldn't see one at all this season and that all we would get is one episode after another focusing on Homer and his hi-jinks. Luckily, someone at FOX or the offices of The Simpsons realized this and gave us an installment that not only reignited the feud between Bart and Principal Skinner, but parodied the Martin Scorsese film The Departed. Plus, it was actually a good episode.

Popular public radio program Car Talk, hosted by Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers (actually Tom and Ray Magliozzi), is coming to television next year, as an animated sitcom on PBS.

Really?

Yes, me, really. I assumed it would just be the brothers dispensing advice and offering help to people with car problems, just like on their radio show, but instead, the new program will focus on the brothers' lives outside the radio show as they work in their fix-it garage, and deal with angry customers.

As we've previously reported, This American Life is coming to Showtime, and we were lucky enough to get a look at the first four episodes. It's no secret that I had high hopes for this show, and was all set to have them crushed, trampled, and stomped upon. However, I'm happy to report that that my hopes are still intact, at least after having seen four episodes. There's still room for my hopes to be smashed into a million crystalline fragments down the road.

First off, if you've never heard an episode of This American Life, it's high time that you head to iTunes and subscribe to their podcast. It's one of the best radio shows I've ever heard, and presents stories from Americans that you'll never hear anywhere else. It's pure documentary work where the hosts and interviewers don't overshadow the subjects, and features as much humor as it does touching drama. A real gem on the radio dial, and it's a labor of love on Public Radio International, which is more famous for its content, and not for the fortunes they pay their hosts.

I am getting Showtime.

When I read that This American Life was coming to television, I was cautiously optimistic. Ira Glass and crew do such a terrific job telling stories with audio that I admit I was worried about video taking away some of the intimacy. After watching this trailer (it's also embedded after the jump) I was blown away. It looks as beautiful as This American Life sounds. Apparently the producers of the television show found photographers and editors who think the way This American Life is produced. Just like the radio broadcast, the camera shots are from unusual angles. It's pretty much the opposite of anything you'd see on MTV.

This American Life premieres on Showtime on March 22.

I don't watch award shows.

I know that sounds snobby and elitist. It's like people who say they don't watch television, or only watch movies with subtitles, but I'm not that uptight when it comes to popular culture. I can watch and enjoy a lot of trash, but a night dedicated to an entire industry fawning over itself just rubs me the wrong way. My more open-minded friends tell me I should just lighten the hell up, but I can't. Perhaps some day.

Then again, maybe if I were allowed to actually pen some of the speeches myself I would actually tune into the Academy Awards. No one has asked me to do that, but NPR is offering the next best thing: a contest where people write Oscar speeches in a movie character's voice. The winner will have his or her speech recorded in a phone interview and put on NPR.org. I might try my hand at writing a speech in the voice of Alan Arkin's character from Little Miss Sunshine. I wonder if the rules allow one to snort heroin? It would only be to get into the mind of the character, of course.

[via Pop Candy]

When I was a kid growing up, public radio meant two things: boring, and more boring. I'm not sure when the exact moment was where I did a complete turnaround and started liking it, but I know it was at some point college. I stumbled across ambient music on Musical Starstreams, reveled in the extreme beauty and weirdness of Joe Frank's various shows, waxed nostalgic for an age I wasn't even alive in during A Prairie Home Companion, and learned about the world from the synonymous-with-coffee voice of Bob Edwards on Morning Edition (after 30 years on NPR, he was shitcanned and sent packing. He now has his own show on XM Radio, take that NPR!).

Like death, taxes and Web surfers with strong opinions about The View, negative campaign ads are an inevitable force. Shortly before the midterm elections, NPR's All Things Considered spoke with two of the men (Dennis Steele and Scott Sanders) who lend their dark, ominous voices to those attack ads, and you can listen to the interview here. I know what you're thinking: if I can't stand those ads, why the heck would I want to listen to the voiceover artists talk about them?

Tell you what: skip to about three minutes into the interview and you'll see why. They asked the men to read nursery rhymes using their "attack ad" voice, and the result is not only pretty damn funny, it also shows how silly these ads can be, and that slapping a spooky voice and some foreboding music over something can make just about anything seem scary. Most of us probably roll our eyes when these negative ads flash across out TV screens, but listening to someone attack the likes of Humpty Dumpty with the same venom as they would someone running for congress proves that these ads are actually much more ludicrous than we thought.

Completely unrelated, but interesting to me, nonetheless: in the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty," Humpty is never once referred to as an egg.

Yes, it was! Brian Unger, former correspondent on The Daily Show, actor, comedian, essayist on NPR, and co-host of Extra and O2Be, filled in for Keith Olbermann tonight on Countdown. I didn't recognize him at first, except I had an "oh, that guy has been anchoring in the afternoons on MSNBC too" moment. And then one of his guests called him "Brian" and then I slapped my head and said "doh!"

Anyway, interesting to see a Daily Show alum anchoring a news program, even if it is one that's not just a straight news show but an all-around news show that mixes humor with the hard-hitting questions. (The show is repeated at midnight, Eastern time, if you want to catch it.)

Have you ever wondered what Teller (of Penn and Teller, of course) sounds like? He's the silent one and doesn't usually speak that often. I heard him a few years ago, and now you can catch audio of him on NPR reviewing The Glorious Deception, a book about magician Chung Lee Soo, written by Jim Steinmeyer.

[via TV Barn]