‘Befuddled Visitor’ Philips Returning to O.C. : Comedy: He’ll bring his quick wit, skewered logic and overall weirdness to the Coach House.

Emo Philips, speaking in his oddly childlike voice, says he used to live in Garden Grove, “just a stone’s throw away from the Crystal Cathedral.”

When was that?

“Back when I had a stronger arm,” he said.

Actually, the waif-like comedian with the Prince Valiant haircut and thrift shop castoffs lived in Garden Grove five years ago. But it was only for two months.

“I figure if I stay in one place more than two months I’ll be eligible for jury duty,” he explained with Emo-like logic during a phone interview from his Manhattan hotel room.

The comedian the New York Times once called “a befuddled visitor from another planet” will return to Orange County for two shows Saturday night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. Sharing the bill is that self-anointed love goddess, Judy Tenuta. Philips, who also will appear with Tenuta tonight at the Strand in Redondo Beach, is known for his quick wit, skewered logic, puns and overall weirdness on stage.

He’s not much different off stage. Indeed, to interview Philips is inevitably to fall into the role of straight man.

Take Philips’ recent trip to London where his show in a West End theater was taped for an upcoming Showtime special. When will it air?

“Sometime in February,” he said. “Yeah, they said it would be a cold day before they released it.”

Is it an hourlong special?

“It’ll seem like an hour, but it’s only a half hour,” he said. “We use special joke spacing techniques to make it seem like an hour.”

The special will include a seven-minute film. Has Philips done short films before? “I do short films all the time,” he said. “It depends on whether the lady next door is dressing.”

He apologized for eating cottage cheese while talking, and offered to stop: “I’ll have it intravenously. Let me get the tube.”

Philips, who logs 260 days a year on the road, was staying at the Edison Hotel between jobs. “I like New York City, it’s nice here,” he said. “Some people say New York is a dangerous city--people from Kuwait say that. But it’s safer than L.A. In L.A. you can get shot wearing the wrong scarf. . . . It’s like being in a sorority.”

For those who aren’t certified Emo-philiacs, here’s a brief background sketch of Emo Philips, the man:

Once described by People magazine as “a cross between Peter Pan and a plucked chicken,” Philips is 6-foot-2 and weighs 143 pounds--”naked,” he added, “if those scales on the street can be trusted.”

He’s a health nut. As he says in his act, “I like to think of my body as a temple . . . or at least as a relatively well-managed Presbyterian youth center.”

And he’s something of a sex symbol. Philips once bragged to Dr. Ruth Westheimer that girls throw their panties onto the stage when he’s performing. “But,” he sighed, “rarely if ever do they fit.”

“I’m quite handy with the ladies,” he said at one point during the interview, adding that “I once had a large gay following, but I ducked into an alley and lost him.”

Philips’ act includes references to his childhood: His parents moved to the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove when he was 10. “I found them when I was 12,” he says.

But his act is always evolving, Philips says, and he doesn’t talk about his early years as much as he used to “because I’m getting further away from my childhood as I grow older.

“I’m doing more stuff in the news. For instance, this whole thing where they’re shooting people for their gym shoes. I think it’s stupid and senseless to kill another human being for running shoes that by definition weren’t fast enough to help the victim escape in the first place.”

Philips said he was looking forward to appearances with Tenuta. “I talk about stuff everyone’s concerned with and Judy talks about me, so it’s a wonderfully balanced show,” he said. “And it’s a relatively clean show as well. You could take your grandmother to see my show--and I’ll sleep with her afterward.”

Philips met Tenuta in Chicago in the late ‘70s. (“She’s a sexy little bag of estrogen,” he says.) But things have changed since the days when he and the accordion-playing “Giver Goddess” were unknowns, struggling up the comedy ladder.

Today, Philips said, “I can’t walk 50 feet outside without someone yelling, ‘Hey, give that back!’ ”

Emo Philips and Judy Tenuta perform Saturday at 8 and 10:30 p.m. at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $19.50. Information: (714) 496-8930.