He's Already Smarter Than You

If you find yourself lacking water cooler chitchat fodder, then tonight's Spelling Bee is a good place to start. From "Did you see that Indian kid faint?" to "I couldn't even spell that word if my name was Merriam-Webster," you'll have all kinds of pithy openings and closings while nuking your Any'tizers.

2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee [8 PM, ABC]

ABC's host-in-residence Tom Bergeron hosts the finals live from Washington DC. Not that we're compulsive gamblers or anything, but we consulted the various odds related to the word-off and might put a C-note on whether a parent will yell at a moderator. Vegas is giving 4-to-1 on that prop bet, and given the current economic moment, many parents need that $30,000 first prize.

I'm Fat Again: A Best Life Special [8 PM, Discovery Health]

Oprah's personal trainer/life guru Bob Greene spends an hour discussing ways to keep the weight off and personally counsels three yo-yo dieters. While Kirstie Alley's recent plight probably won't come up, you don't have to be a celebrity to know the annoyance that comes with dropping weight and then gaining it back (after the Curves near your house closes and an Applebee's opens up in its place).

This American Life [9:30 PM, Showtime]

If you haven't had enough NPR today, here are two episodes of everyone's middle-aged former hippie parents' favorite show. The first half-hour deals with people relocating, but never really moving far from home. The second is a look at comedians and the way they deal with audiences. Just an aside: The new Dane Cook stand-up special isn't that bad. He doesn't seem like too much of a friend to women, but at least he's coming up with his own jokes now.

Mystic Pizza [8 PM, WE]

Finally shedding light on rampant Portuguese immigrant persecution in the bedroom communities of coastal Connecticut, this story of women on the verge of adulthood still warms our hearts (and makes us really hungry for pizza) two decades later. Annabeth Gish and Julia Roberts play sisters who, along with their best friend (Lili Taylor), have various levels of romantic/sexual experiences and learn that men are generally annoying and usually unreliable.