She bounds out on stage at one of the hottest comedy clubs in Los Angeles to enthusiastic response from the late-night crowd. But it's not an up-and-coming comedienne with a Jewish consciousness named Celia Fox they're seeing in the red cowboy hat and black satin stretch jeans. Rather, the character on stage is Debbie Dynamo, one of Fox's many comic creations.

Fox introduces herself to the nightclub crowd. "I'm Debbie Dynamo. Double D. That's not my cup size. But with a $10,000 donation, it could be," she jokes, eliciting one of many guffaws from the crowd.

Fox, 28, creates an instant rapport with the audience at L.A.'s Comedy Store. She asks several people their names, engaging them in Debbie Dynamo's Southern-accented stories.

"Leanna, you know what I mean," she says, speaking conspiratorially to an audience member. "Unlike Christopher, Christina Columbus never would have discovered America. She would have read the map. They're on the boat and Christopher says 'This does not look like India.' Christina says, 'Why can't we just stop and ask for directions?' 'Shut up Christina, I know where I'm going!'"

Riffing through characters as diverse as her own father to Miss Puerto Rico 1989 to an ex-boyfriend named Scam who runs a strip club, Fox also touches a funny bone with her male-female perceptions: "Look alive. You've left your houses, you're dressed, you're in the social zone where the women are women -- and the men are scared of them."

Fox - whose work has garnered rave reviews -- credits her Jewishness with helping her to develop her inimitable brand of comedy. "My humor comes from that background, from growing up in a Jewish family. I've inherited that through osmosis," explains the comedienne, a native of Philadelphia.

"Jews are the funniest people. It's innate, the whole Jewish humor thing," adds Fox, who was known as the class clown and family prankster.

"I'm extremely Jewish, someone who believes the gift of laughter comes through God to me. That's my gift and I think Judaism enforces that you must go out and do what you're supposed to do," says Fox, whose family was active in Philadelphia's Jewish community.

"Making people laugh is what gets me up in the morning," she continues. "I want to do comedy that appeals to a variety of people, stuff that really shows how much we're alike. But I don't do the stereotypical self-degradation female humor to get laughs. That's the norm and that's my challenge: To be successful at doing something different."

Indeed, she appears to be doing just that. Fox recently completed a successful run of a one-woman show, "L.A. Underground," a fast-paced review of some of the more colorful characters she encountered in Hollywood. She spotlights such people as "Sasha Gabor," a porn director with delusions of grandeur, and "Sammy," a rocker chick who waits tables in a lesbian coffee shop.

Fox -- whose idols include Roseanne, Whoopi Goldberg and Richard Pryor -- began to receive attention seven years ago when she moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco to study acting at the American Conservatory Theater. She spent many nights doing standup at "open mike nights" at a variety of Bay Area clubs.

Soon, the rest of the country might be laughing along with her too. Fox is making the rounds to various cable networks to pitch an adult animated series. And she's recording a comedy album, which is set for a spring release.

Here's a preview of what fans might be able to hear on the recording:

"So I'm doing comedy shows at the Chino women's prison and I'm on stage and I'm screaming, "My sisters, how are we feeling tonight, how are we feeling? My Muslims (Asalm Alakam), my Latinas (Viva Zapata), my Jews, my Jews!"(silence)
And this one little Jewish girl in the back of the room screams, "There are no Jews in here. I'm the only one!"
I said, "Tax evasion?"
She says, "No, credit card fraud."
I said, "Macy's?"
She says, "No, Bloomingdale's."
I said, "Gucci?"
She says, "No, Prada!"

Hillary Atkin (hillary@wga.org) is a producer/writer specializing in entertainment, educational, promotional and informational programming for television and multimedia. She's a member of the Writers Guild of America's Website editorial board and its New Media & Non-Fiction Committees. She's also a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.