Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Pop songstress Sara Bareilles, who makes her debut as a judge on NBC's "The Sing-Off" tonight (Sept. 19), admits she felt a little scared about joining the show's panel in place of Nicole Scherzinger.

"I was nervous about going into unfamiliar territory. I wasn't really nervous about my contribution in the sense that I'm such a fan of this genre," explains the beauty, who has sold more than a million records worldwide, including her number-one hit "Love Song."

"I love shows like this," Bareilles says. "I loved it the last two seasons. But TV was very nerve-wracking to me. It's a different beast for me. It's been kind of trial by fire in that regard, but it's been really great so far. Now I'm at this point I'm like, 'Well, I hope they like me' — because I have no idea."

Bareilles has had an extraordinary summer, flying back and forth between "Sing-Off" duty and concert dates on her own headlining tour, as well as touring with Sugarland. (She had just completed her set when the tragic stage collapse that killed six occurred at the Indiana State Fair last month.)

"This was the year I knew was going to be a workhorse year," she says. "My biggest struggle is no sleep right now. But I'm really lucky in that sense — my voice will hang on. Funny, it usually hangs on just until that last show of the tour, and then I'll get sick. My body is like my good little teammate. It hangs on until all the obligations are finished, most of the time."

When she does get a break, Bareilles says, she's not going anywhere. "Honestly, we travel so much touring that when I get time off, I don't want to leave my house. I just want to sleep in and make coffee and watch 'Golden Girls.'"

MEANWHILE: Tonight (Sept. 19), NBC's "Sing-Off" goes head-to-head against ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" — the Chaz Bono edition — and CBS comedy offerings, including the Ashton Kutcher version of "Two and a Half Men." And if that isn't challenging enough, next Monday night, they'll be joined by Steven Spielberg's dinosaur-infused "Terra Nova" time-travel action drama on Fox, plus the new season's "Gossip Girl" on CW.

Can "the Little Engine That Could," as "Sing-Off" host Nick Lachey calls the show, hold its own among its mountainous rivals? "Obviously, it's a big night on television, and obviously, we're honored to be to be in the mix," says Lachey. "We feel great about the show we're making. And I've learned a long time ago to let the network people worry about all that other stuff. I think all we can do as a crew, so to speak, is to make the best show we can, and then what comes, comes, you know?"

Judge Ben Folds notes that this season's "Sing-Off" contestants are especially strong.

"I think with this season's groups, what they have in common is they seem to have watched the show and decided that they could find an angle that would be unique for the show and unique for a cappella. So what you're seeing is a lot of people putting their minds to doing things that are off the beaten path — a lot of innovation."

AND: With Folds' alt-rock background and history of controversies involving free speech and explicit lyrics, a network television competition show isn't where anyone would have expected to find him.

"It's not something I ever saw myself doing," Folds concedes. "But I've been doing a lot of master classes over the past five years. I've always played a lot of the universities. I've put a lot of time and effort into music education and music education charities — and this is sort of something I can leverage towards all those things. Because, you know, you can't shake you're a** up on stage — not that that's what I do — but, as a rock musician, you don't want to think you're going to be 70 years old and trying to act like you're 25."

Folds, who has a quarter century to go before that could happen, has become "The Sing-Off's" unofficial music professor, adding interesting bits and pieces of information to his critiques along the way.

"I think this show is very dignified for me in that I can take what I've learned and help out. But I'm still in the middle of my other stuff," he's quick to add. Folds, who has a string of concert dates ahead, including symphony orchestra gigs, has announced that a reunion of his Ben Folds Five will record a new album in December.

PROPS FOR PROOPS: Greg Proops has quickly become a master of another new medium — with his "The Smartest Man in the World" podcast going from zero to more than 200,000 subscribers in less than 10 months, not to mention being named one of the Top 10 Comedy Podcasts of the Moment by Rolling Stone Magazine. There's even a viral video featuring someone's pet dog and cat apparently enjoying themselves while listening to Proops' podcast — in New Zealand.

The very witty "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" alumnus tells us he has surprised himself by just how quickly "The Smartest Man" caught on. Now he's joined the league of performers who consider having a podcast an indespensible component of a comedian's career. Proops also feels the form — which has none of the constraints of TV or clubs and allows comics to communicate with audience members one-on-one — is having a revitalizing effect on comedy in general. It's certainly working for Proops, with his remarkable improvisational gifts. He does what seem like stream-of-consciousness pieces before a live audience and does riffs with answers to audience members' questions.

Right now, fans are getting treated to an abundance of comics guesting on each other's podcasts. Proops describes a freewheeling and supportive atmosphere among them. "Nobody's making any money on it yet, so we can afford to do that," he says. In fact, the podcasts themselves are free.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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