Apollo Theatre, eat your heart out.

The crowd at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre was brutal during February auditions for NBC's top summer show, "America's Got Talent," which starts Season 3 tonight.

They booed Santa.

Yes, a man dressed as Santa Claus creeped out the audience and the judges.

"Do you get much summer work?" judge Piers Morgan asked.

"I have a wonderful bathing suit," Kris Kringle said. "I visit with children."

"Background check!" quipped fellow judge and former Atlantan David Hasselhoff.

Santa's poor quips and bad singing led to his quick trip back to the North Pole.

"The way you guys ripped into Santa," Morgan said in an interview last week, "I know I would never want to cross Atlanta people! They treated me well, but they killed the contestants! I equate it to the Romans in the amphitheaters back in the day."

This is the first year NBC held live audience auditions in several cities including Atlanta, with host Jerry Springer and judges Morgan, Hasselhoff and Sharon Osbourne in tow.

"It was fantastic," Morgan said. "It completely changed the dynamics of the show to go from studios to these amazing theaters."

The talent competition, which averaged about 11 million viewers last summer, draws a circuslike array of acts. Morgan said the variety and depth of acts has improved greatly since the first season.

Tonight's episode, focusing on auditions in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, includes an 80-year-old tap dancer, an adorable 4-year-old warbling "Somewhere Out There" and a male baton twirler who busted some moves to the tune of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." (Atlanta auditions are set to air next Tuesday.)

Last year's $1 million winner, Terry Fator, a gifted singing ventriloquist, recently signed a five-year deal with the Mirage Hotel reportedly worth a whopping $100 million. That's Celine Dion territory.

"It really validates this show," Morgan said. "He's living the American dream. And we believe we have two more acts that fit the bill."

And the acerbic Morgan (who recently won Donald Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice") promises plenty of fireworks among the judges.

"Sharon walked out at one point," he said. "I walked out. Sharon wrestled me to the floor. She exploded when an Ozzy impersonator came on stage and I said he was not only better looking, he was a better singer. She went bonkers!"

When bored, Morgan also loves to tease Hasselhoff about his singing talent —- or lack thereof. Last year, the "Baywatch" star got to sing on the show, so Morgan thinks he and Osbourne should do a duet. "I could play the piano and we can sing Sonny and Cher! David would hate that!"

TV TONIGHT

"America's Got Talent," 9 p.m. NBC