At the star-packed opening of the new Michael Cera movie “Youth in Revolt” last week, a pretty, smiley, sweaty-palmed female fan made a move that would cause many other young girls to pass out from sheer excitement.
She slipped the 21-year-old comic cinema geek her phone number.
Even as the highly distracting and physically perfect human specimen Ed Westwick stood mere feet away at Regal Cinemas in Union Square, Kim Kaufman, 23, slipped her digits to Cera, who grinned and played along. Said Cera of giggle groupies: “I think they’re great. I mean, it’s better than, like, rock star groupies.”
Click here for photos of comedians and the groupies who love them
Then he stood there, silent and awkward.
So why did Kaufman go for it? “He’s so charming,” she says, embarrassed. “He’s just, like, hilariously awkward. Girls like to be in a funny situation. I’d like to have someone make me laugh.”
In the words of one woman currently sleeping with an as-seen-on-TV stand-up: “Dating a comic now is like dating a guy from an ’80s hair band. They’re this millennium’s rock stars.” From girls pining for “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg and Comedy Central’s Demetri Martin to more established comics like Jeff Ross and Jim Norton, these are women turned on not by bulk or brawn but by belly laughs. The comics call these groupies chucklef – – – ers — and, like a standing O, some comedians can’t get enough.
“Spotting a comedy groupie is easy,” explains Norton, who admits to having slept with several fans over the past 20 years. “It’s always a case of, ‘Hey, you’re really funny, and kind of creepy. Can we have sex?’ ”
Or, as 25-year-old stunner Megan Garber, a nurse and part-time model who dated A-list Friars Club fave Jeff Ross for a year and a half says: “It grabs hold of you. Like, this guy’s hilarious. He can do whatever he wants to me.”
While Garber is not a groupie (she and Ross had a real relationship), she admits in the beginning she acted quite groupie-esque, flying around the country just to be with him. She met him after being dragged to a show in Chicago by guy friends.
“Comedians have this sex appeal thing,” Garber says. “Big-name comedians have what the Rolling Stones have for music groupies. It may not even be sex appeal; it’s like laugh appeal. They’re a – – holes. That swagger is sexy to me.”
According to Ross, laughter and sex aren’t too far apart. “You can have little laughs and big laughs, just like orgasms. You’re up there alone, almost naked. You have a microphone, which is phallic. Plus you’re a bad boy because you’re outspoken. I feel like an edgy comic is going to do better than, like, a mainstream musician at this point.”
But do chucklef – – – ers actually own the title? “I guess so,” says 20-year-old Manhattan resident Camille Hansen, who’s followed one rising comic, Jonathan Morvay, to more than 10 shows, and went to The Bronx to secure a fake ID just to see him at a 21-and-over show.
“I think maybe women are going for more truth-tellers now. Comics say what they want and think about anything.”
Hard-core groupies, meanwhile, could do a lot more to get noticed, jokes comedian Dave Hill. “I don’t know if it’s a real groupie scene in the traditional sense,” he says. “You know, like someone making a plaster replica of your genitals, the kind of stuff that should be happening. Though I am completely open to this if anyone is considering it.”
Groupie relations get even more complicated when you add in a girlfriend. Comic Seth Herzog says his other half often scopes out the scene to see if any women are hitting on him. “When I’m talking to someone after a show, she likes to play a game with herself called ‘Who Is This Bitch?’ She tries to figure out if it’s an old friend, a cousin, someone I’ve worked with, or a woman who wants to press up against me.”
Answer: quite often, D.
And of course there’s that ever-important question of discretion. When asked which comedian scores highest in terms of groupies, comic legend Fred Willard (yes, “Best in Show” announcer guy) says, “This is a sensitive question because a lot of them are married.”
Meanwhile, women comedians admit they’re not getting as much — or any — romantic attention on the circuit.
“I think it’s very different for women,” says Morgan Murphy, a stand-up comedian and “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” writer. “I have never thought to myself, ‘Man, I killed. I’m gonna get so much penis.’ ”
mstadtmiller@nypost.com
Aspiring Chucklef***er?
Friars Club Roastmaster Jeff Ross gives girls these groupie tips.
1. Have good giggle. “You need a chuckle, not a cackle.”
2. Be able to laugh at the same jokes. “And pretend you haven’t heard them.”
3. Do not talk like a hack. Never ever say, “Ba-dum-bump.”
4. Appreciate him. “Not just jokes but the courage to get on stage.”
5. Don’t take yourself too seriously. In other words, be able to get roasted.