Nick Cannon swung through town recently to audition cast members for his raucous comedy MTV2 show "Wild 'n Out," which returns Wednesday, January 7 at 11 p.m. for six new episodes.
Cannon is a workaholic who wears many hats: stand-up comic, singer, actor ("Real Husbands of Hollywood"), TV host ("America's Got Talent," "Caught on Camera With Nick Cannon), producer (Atlanta's "Drumline 2") and artist management, to name a few. He's also become tabloid fodder thanks to his marriage (and separation) from Mariah Carey.
He spent more than six straight hours auditioning Atlanta comics at the new Legends comedy club in Norcross, barely taking a break. I caught up with him for a few minutes though I have to admit, it wasn't really a venue to dig into his relationship with Carey, which I'm sure most people would love to know about. I stuck with business.
"There's always a lot of talent in Atlanta," said Cannon, who looked understandably exhausted while talking with me. "Every season we come here. This is our seventh."
Given all his other more lucrative projects, why does he stick with "Wild 'N Out."
"It started as a hobby but now it's something that helps people blossom," he said. "I've had Katt Williams, Kevin Hart, Taran Killam, Affion Crockett on the show. Everyone's been on it."
He loves the flexibility and looseness of the humor, which is a mix of improv and sketch. "It's its own monster," he said. "It has the ability to from and be whatever it wants to be. That's why people respond to it. We have a lot of fun. We have hundreds of games. I come up with most of them. A team then puts it all together and fleshes them out."He said some celebrities he's asked to guest on the show are scared. "I'm trying to convince Drake to do it," he said.
He said he doesn't remember the last time he was scared on stage. "I just get up there and go for it."
I asked him about Howard Stern signing up for a fourth season on "America's Got Talent." "He enjoys it," Cannon said. He has a lot of fun. He can handle the show by himself."
His feelings on the "Drumline" sequel, which was shot in Atlanta, aired on VH1 recently and received mixed reviews. "It did really well. The network was extremely happy with it. More than 3 million people watched it." He isn't insulted that some folks didn't like it as much as the original. "I was the star of the first one!" he said. "Nobody was going to beat me!"
At the same time, he is still hoping to parlay the film into a TV series. "That's the goal, the whole purpose of doing the film. We're still having conversations."
On his own Ncredible tablet: "It's going really well. We did a soft launch with QVC.They sell a ton of tablets."
On his Christmas book about his twins Moroccan and Monroe: "I know my children were fun characters. Christmas is a special time of year for us."
On family, despite his work schedule: "Family is the No. 1 priority. I am always putting them first. Then I figure out how to work everything else around that."
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Syndicated show "Dish Nation," which features radio morning hosts gabbing about pop culture, was renewed for two more seasons, guaranteeing a run through 2017.
Atlanta-based Rickey Smiley and his team have become the most prominent faces of the show, which was moved in the fall from midnight to 7 p.m. on Fox 5, given its rising popularity.
According to Deadline.com, the show has averaged 1.42 million daily viewers this season, up 10 percent over the same period a year ago.
Smiley also has a syndicated radio show he runs in the mornings before he tapes "Dish Nation," heard locally on Hot 107.9. Porsha Williams is part of the TV show while Claudia Jordan is the female voice of the radio show.
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
Comedy Central's 'Brickleberry," created by two UGA grads
Waco O’Guin
and
Roger Black
, was cancelled after three seasons,
.
The animated series about a group of park rangers at a second-tier national park did well among young male viewers, but presumably not well enough in a broader sense.
O'Guin in a text said he was "grateful" for having gotten 36 episodes.
***
Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
AMC 's 'The Walking Dead" is returning in just a month and the network released some vague plot descriptives for the second half of season five:
Though they are still breathing, the line between Rick's group and the dead is starting to blur. Could there be anything at this point that brings them back to life?
One thing we do know is that they built a walled-off neighborhood in Senoia. This leaked out only because they had to get clearance to do so from the city. It's fair to say that will have something to do with the second half of the show. Will it be anything like Woodbury? We'll find out.
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