Poundstone brings her signature observational humor to Variety

Stand-up comic Paula Poundstone made her mark in the 1990s with award-winning stand-up TV comedy specials and humorous “correspondence” work for Jay Leno and Rosie O’Donnell.

She now has more of a radio presence as a regular panelist on the popular NPR comedic news quiz show “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,” which airs locally Saturday mornings on 90.1/WABE-FM and 88.5/WRAS-FM.

Poundstone will be visiting Atlanta on July 25 for her first trip ever to Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points. Her last time in town for a show was in 2010 at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center.

“I don’t do a lot of sightseeing when I visit cities,” she said. “I remember the driver from the Atlanta airport pointing out all the points of interest. We were pulling into the driveway of the hotel, and he mentioned the Margaret Mitchell House and said I should go there. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to visit the house where someone from the Nixon administration had lived.”

She was thinking about Watergate-era attorney general John Mitchell’s wife Martha. “Fortunately, he then said something about ‘Gone With the Wind,’ and that cleared things up,” Poundstone said.

Poundstone, who now lives in Santa Monica, Calif., and grew up in Massachusetts, admits her knowledge of the South isn’t deep. Nonetheless, she was born in Huntsville, Ala., and spent many summers there as a child at her grandmother’s trailer park.

“We played a lot in the red clay by a creek behind the trailer,” she remembered. “We’d engage with stray cats and beg our parents to take them home. I remember the five-and-dime where nothing was five or a dime. And for some reason, the gas station vending machine had Mexican jumping beans.”

She also has a soft spot for the Waffle House. “I’ve taken a cab to a Waffle House during one of my Southern stops,” she said. “The scrambled eggs and raisin toast cost me $40. But it was worth it!”

Nowadays, she gets her greatest exposure on “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,” where she riffs about whatever host Peter Sagal utters.

“It’s a perfect match for me,” Poundstone said. “It’s a place where I’m encouraged to do and say whatever I want to say — within the format obviously.”

She admits whenever she knows she’s going on the show, she preps for the end-of-the-hour “lightning fill in the blank” quiz, which offers no prize beyond bragging rights.

“I try to cram,” she said, “with very poor results.” She said there’s a guy online who actually keeps track of panelist win-loss records and “I believe I hold the record for most losses.”

Poundstone said she may also be the only panelist to ever get every question wrong on the “lightning” quiz, something she cannot recall: “My brain must have been so traumatized, I purposely blocked it out!”