Carl Kasell and Peter Sagal live! CREDIT: Rodney Ho/rho@ajc.com

For the egghead NPR crowd, last night was nirvana at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre: “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” came to Atlanta for the first time.

It’s an auditory medium (radio) shown in a live theater setting with quick wit and goofy jokes as the main courses in the guise of a news quiz show. And the audience was quintessential National Public Radio: mostly older New York Times-reading, crossword-puzzle-loving sophisticates who consider Carl Kasell’s voice sexier than that of Barry White.

Indeed, Kasell arrived like a prizefighter to a rock-star welcome, running on stage and giving high fives to the three panelists, Amy Dickinson, Charlie Pierce and Roy Blount Jr.. “We love you Carl!” a guy shouted out at one point.

Before the taping officially began, Sagal gave some introductory remarks, noting that Atlanta wasn’t “quite as quaint as I imagined it to be… It reminds me of home in North Jersey where I grew …

Jackie, Marlon, Tito and Jermaine (l-r)

The four surviving members of the Jackison 5 join the reality show brigade Sunday with “The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty” at 9 p.m. on A&E.

Atlanta-based executive producerJodi Gomes, who has known the Jacksons since the ABC miniseries in 1992, put the show together with Jermaine Jackson. Jermaine convinced Marlon, Jackie and Tito to join him to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Jackson 5’s first hit “I Want You Back.” The quartet had plans for an album and tour.

There’s another local connection: Marlon, 52, lives in the Atlanta area and scenes for the show were shot at Justin’s Restaurant in Buckhead. (A&E provided a solid budget, enabling Gomes to also tape Marlon in Nigeria, Jermaine in Mumbai, India and Tito in the U.K.)

Gomes said the show started taping in January, originally as a one-hour special, but was greenlit by A&E in the spring as a six-episode series. In fact, the pilot was finished just days before Michael …

The New York Daily News

What’s too much money? I couldn’t say. Leakes has said they were paid $100,000 for season two. I’m not sure what a reasonable amount would be for a third season or whether all five (or potentially six) housewives would get paid the same salary.

Bravo has offered contracts to all five existing housewives to come back. Now it comes down to how much each side is willing to give. And yes, Bravo knows a show isn’t necessarily just about one person.

I’d be fascinated, though, to see if Bravo is willing to let go of BOTH of them. That’d be a major blow, I’d think, to the show’s appeal.

The Daily News story does properly note that Kandi Burruss is now the most likable and popular member of the show. But she isn’t terribly …

Flautist Hally Davidson, from McDonough, and pianist Bryan Anderson, from Stockbridge, rehearsed before appearing on NPR's "From the Top," at Emory University in November. AJC/Jason Getz

I’m going to post about last night’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” show at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre later today, but as it turns out, Atlanta is kind of a public radio darling this weekend. Local musicians that performed at a live recording of “From the Top” last month will show up on the airwaves this weekend, too.

Those of you who attended the show already know what’s coming from the young performers on stage. For the rest of us, AJCer Bo Emerson wrote this story about how they managed to fit “prodigy” into their schedules. The story appeared in Sunday’s AJC, but hasn’t yet appeared online.

Meanwhile, if you’re interested in performances by local youth orchestras, keep an eye on the AccessAtlanta.com calendar listings. There are several holiday concerts coming up!

Till the, here it …

December is the month for Christmas movies. It’s like a mini-industry that keeps the likes of Tim Allen and Jenny McCarthy in the green.

Billy Ray Cyrus, who is known among folks under the age of 25 as Miley’s dad and anyone over 25 as that “Achy Breaky Heart” guy, has jumped on the Noel bandwagon with a new film Saturday on Hallmark called ”Christmas in Canaan.”

The film is based on a book co-written by Atlanta’s own “Gambler” Kenny Rogers. Yes, the legendary country singer is an author, too. I requested an interview with our homeboy Rogers but he was going out on tour and couldn’t set aside the time. I’ll talk to you one day, Mr. Rogers. One day!

The movie is set in the 1960s in Canaan, Texas, during the height of the Civil Rights movement. A mouthy young white boy gets in a fight with a bookish black boy. As punishment, their  parents force them to live in the other person’s home for a few days. At first wary enemies, they become close friends, bonding over a wounded …

The undefeated New Orleans Saints beating up on the New England Patriots drew plenty of Atlantans to the tube, making it the top primetime show last week. Nationally, the game drew nearly 21 million viewers.

A little plane crash on “Desperate Housewives” (top left) helped make that veteran ABC show the top scripted show locally on Sunday. The show hit its season high with 14.9 million nationally as well. (The “Brothers & Sisters” episode afterwards, featuring the collapse of Calista Flockhart’s character, also took in a season high 10.8 million viewers nationally and 225,000 locally.)

Over in cable land, A&E’s “Hoarders” opened at a relatively huge 3.4 million, followed by an even bigger debut by Steven Seagal’s “Lawman” with 3.5 million a couple days later. The USA Network “Monk” finale brought home 9.4 million viewers, the most ever for a basic cable scripted hourly drama. The “Sons of Anarchy” finale on FX also brought in a series high 4.3 million.

And an iCarly movie on …

(l-r) Ray Romano, Andre Braugher, Scott Bakula CREDIT: Danny Feld

Monday night’s debut of TNT’s risky “Men of a Certain Age” featuring Ray Romano opened at a very solid 5.4 million viewers.

Atlanta-based TNT execs should be thrilled with these results.

The dramedy, which focuses on three middle-aged men struggling with mortality and expectations, is a far cry from typical TNT fare. In fact, it opened after a fresh episode of the network’s strongest original drama “The Closer” starring Kyra Sedgwick.

“Men” held about 90 percent of “The Closer” audience despite the fact the shows are quite different in subject matter. If it can maintain at least 75% of “The Closer” crowd the next two weeks, then draw at least 3.5 million viewers on its own in January, a second season should be in the cards.

The show has received excellent critical reviews and the feedback on the blog entry earlier this week about the show was also positive. And honestly, the next couple of episodes are much …

CREDIT: Stephen Ross

National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” is one of those shows that has incredibly loyal fans, the ones who sold out the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre this Thursday, Dec. 10.

But the ever droll host Peter Sagal understands that his radio game show is hardly “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.” And he’s perfectly content that way.

“Public radio fame is the best fame to have,” he said in a phone interview late last month. “ The people who know who you are are really great yet most people have no idea who you are.”

For those who aren’t familiar, “Wait Wait” is a live theater game show, taped weekly featuring a panel of regular contributors, a guest star and callers who get quizzed on various news events. Normally taped in Chicago Thursdays for airing on the weekend, the show goes on the road once a month and is coming to Atlanta for the first time.

“Atlanta has a strange role in our history,” Sagal said. “It was always the one that got …

Fans of A&E’s “Paranormal State” can meet the leader of the group Ryan Buell today at Atlantic Station. He will be at West District St. next to California Pizza Kitchen – directly across from Central Park at the Main “Quad” near the Christmas Tree from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Get his autograph or tell your own ghost story.

The world of the paranormal is now a popular subject on TV, with SyFy’s “Ghost Hunters” leading the way with 3 milllion-plus viewers per new episode. “Paranormal State,” which debuted in December 2007, isn’t in that league but does relatively well for A&E, typically drawing 1.2 million to 1.5 million viewers a week. Season four begins December 15.

“I don’t get to interact with the fans that much,” Buell said to me by phone last week. “I don’t get to meet a whole lot of people. We get thousands of emails. It’s hard for us to respond to all of that.”

He also will meet with local paranormal groups, many relatively new. “Society has become more openminded about …

Billy Crystal began his standup career at age nine. He cracked jokes in front of his family inspired by a Borscht Belt comic he had just heard in the Catskills.

He killed. He knew right then and there he wanted to do comedy for a living.

Problem: his mom blanched at punchlines featuring private parts and urine. But his more sympathetic dad set him aside and advised him, “Know your audience.”

For the next 52 years, Crystal has honed that skill with precision, be it in film (“When Harry Met Sally,” “City Slickers,” “Analyze This”), TV (“Saturday Night Live,” “Soap,” Oscar hosting) and now, the stage.

His Tony-winning one-person play “700 Sundays” comes to Atlanta for five days starting Dec. 16 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.

For Crystal, Atlanta is like a second home. He has dozens of cousins and other relatives here.

In fact, he purposely chose Atlanta for this current tour so his aging aunt could see it. Unfortunately, she passed away …