Access Atlanta > Entertainment > Radio Talk > Archives > 2008 > August > 18
Monday, August 18, 2008
8/18: Top Chef, America’s Best Dance Crew tours, Mara Davis gets contract extension
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With the success of the “Idols Live” (tonight at Gwinnett Arena) and “So You Think You Can Dance” (Nov. 13 at Gwinnett Arena) tours, several other shows are following suit.
“Top Chef” reps (including Casey Thompson from season three and Richard Blais) are coming next month to Atlanta but details are still sketchy. This is what Bravo provides.. I’ll update when I get some more details in terms of location and date.
MTV series “Randy Jackson’s America’s Best Dance Crew” is also touring and will be coming to the Atlanta Civic Center September 20. You can get tix here. Prices range from $39.50 to $56.50. Last year’s winner JabbaWockeeZ (below) will be part of the tour. Not sure if any of this year’s crews will be part of it as well. I hope to see Fanny Pak!
“Last Comic Standing” is doing a tour but there’s no stop in Atlanta though I’m sure some of the individual participants will be stopping by various comedy clubs in the coming months.
-Mara Davis of Dave FM has gotten a long-term extended contract, her agent Norm Schrutt said today. But he wouldn’t say how long. Most contracts of this sort range from three to five years so she should be around while, assuming Dave FM lasts. Davis has been at the station for more than 12 years, both on Z93 and Dave and has the station’s top-rated show in mid days.
-Speaking of Dave FM, the station has a guest morning host this week subbing out for vacationing Zakk Tyler and Jane Monzures: Denny Schaffer, formerly of WGST-AM, is on air this week. Yvonne Monet, who is already a fill-in jock at Dave FM, joins him. I caught him briefly this morning interviewing Sister Hazel.
Schaffer, who came from Toledo as a political talk-show host, was on WGST briefly in 2006 but was blown out with Tom Hughes and Kim “The Kimmer” Peterson right before Christmas of that year.
Denny is doing an online show right now here.
Last month, the station brought in Jimmy Baron as a sub.
-Last week, Michael Ausiello of EW.com reports that Atlanta-based Adult Swim’s “Robot Chicken” executive producer and actor Seth Green is close to agreeing to a multi-arc guest role on NBC’s “Heroes.” He joins bud Breckin Meyer as Atlanta-based comic book nerds afficionados who cross paths with (and perhaps serve as advisors to) one of the Heroes, Ausiello wrote.
-Laurence Fishburne is joining the cast of “CSI.” According to the CBS press release:
His character will debut in this season’s ninth episode.
Fishburne will play a former pathologist who is now working as an itinerant college lecturer, teaching a course in criminalistics. His focus is on understanding criminal behavior, how and why people commit acts of violence - tendencies he disturbingly sees within himself. In the course of a murder investigation, he comes into contact with the CSI team and ultimately joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab as a Level-1 CSI.
He will fill the gap by departing star William Petersen.
