UGA students get into USA's 'Psych'

Most of USA's dramas skew older, including the just retired "Psych" lead-in "Monk." (This season, it averages 4.9 million viewers for first-run episodes.) But this show has caught on with college students. The show's average age has dropped from 47 in 2006 to 45 this season and is now the network's youngest-skewing scripted program.

USA decided to thank fans by hosting "Psych" screenings at ten college campuses to promote the return of the show Nov. 10. At the University of Georgia last week, lead actors James Roday and Dule Hill showed up in person.

"I'm not sure how [the college students] found us," said Roday, 34, before his UGA appearance, "but I think the spirit of the show is silly and young."

"Psych" is also known for its irreverent pop-culture references, which come fast and furious. On the episode which aired Sept. 1, Shawn and Gus name dropped the basketball coach from the late 1970s show "White Shadow,"

MC Hammer's

Hammer Pants from the early 1990s,Â

Alicia Silverstone's

1993 film "The Crush" and 2004 comedy "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!"

The episode also featured Roday's favorite singer of all time: Curt Smith of Tears for Fears, who I interviewed two months ago before his Chastain appearance.

The most obscure in the episode: Shawn told a would-be date that he ran on a baseball field like Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, a former Atlanta Falcons player known for elaborate end-zone celebrations. "I realize that reference is lost on you," he told the woman before she hung up.

"We call it the three percenters," said co-executive producer Andy Berman, of that Johnson reference. "We make jokes so obscure, only three percent of the people get it. Everybody else has to look it up. It's become part of the fun of the show."

At the UGA event, Roday sang a snippet of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" and expressed undying love for Meryl Streep, no matter how old she gets. Hill tap danced on a tiny Ikea table and crooned "The Facts of Life" theme song.

They threw stuffed pineapple cushions and mini-footballs into the crowd. They ended the hour doing karaoke with the entire room to the "Psych" theme song.

And Roday wasn't above pandering: he entered in a heavy ski jacket but zipped it down to reveal a UGA sweatshirt to thunderous applause from the 500-plus students at a packed student center auditorium.

"It was exciting," said Kayleigh Irby, a Mercer University senior who drove up from Macon. "Their chemistry is the same on and off camera. You can't fake chemistry."

Here's a trimmed-down version of my interview with Roday and Hill in the green room before their appearance at UGA. We talk about the show's most obscure trivia, upcoming episodes and who cracks up who. Plus, Roday really likes yelping out my name:

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