Comedian Wolfberg’s Success Bugging Out All Over : Stand-up: Oft-imitated comic will puff out his cheeks, dart his tongue and squint in Brea.

Flashback to 1986: Comedian Dennis Wolfberg has just finished taping “The Merv Griffin Show,� one of his first national television credits. As they walk offstage after the show, Griffin puts his arm around Wolfberg and says, “When you hit it big, they’re all going to be doing you.�

Griffin, of course, was referring to Wolfberg’s distinctive comedy delivery.

It’s a style uncharted in the annals of stand-up comedy, a unique presentation in which Wolfberg alternately puffs out his cheeks, darts his tongue, squints and bugs out his eyes as he talks--all the while emphasizing key words by literally S-Q-U-E-E-E-E-Z-I-N-G them out as if he were passing a kidney stone.

The effect is a somewhat startling combination of blowfish, lizard, Pekingese and emergency-room patient, all of which only serves to generate even more laughter as he provides consistently hilarious insight into his personal life.

Here’s vintage Wolfberg on Fiber One, a new cereal recommended to him by his doctor, now that Wolfberg is middle-aged:

“I don’t know if any of you are familiar with this rather powerful piece of breakfast fare, the GRIM REAPER of morning chow, this NUclear laxative in a BOX ! This stuff is unbelievably fiber rich. It has six time more fiber than Grape Nuts and three times more fiber than raw TWINE !. . . It’s one thing to be regular, it’s another to be unSTOPpable!�

Flash forward to the present: Wolfberg, who begins a week at the Improvisation in Brea tonight, has been on a career roll since moving from New York to Los Angeles in 1988.

In early 1989, he appeared on the much-ballyhooed--and much-watched--premiere episode of “The Pat Sajak Show,� returning 12 times on the short-lived late-night show. In the past seven months he has appeared on “The Arsenio Hall Show� four times and, by his own count, has done more episodes of Fox’s “Comic Strip Live� (12) than any other comedian. That’s not to mention appearances on “The Tonight Show� and “Late Night With David Letterman.�

Since moving to Los Angeles, he has also been twice voted America’s Top Male Comic by a national poll of comedy club owners, named Top Drawing Comedian of 1989 by Rave magazine, nominated for Best Male Stand-Up at the American Comedy Awards and last year starred in his own HBO special.

And yes, as Merv Griffin predicted, fans now approach him in restaurants doing their own bug-eyed Wolfberg imitations. And the first time he appeared on “The Arsenio Hall Show,� Hall leaned over to him during a commercial break and said, “I feel as though I’ve known you for 10 years.� That’s how long Hall’s pal Eddie Murphy has been doing his Dennis Wolfberg for Arsenio and other cronies.

“It’s very flattering at this point in my career that people are imitating me,� Wolfberg said in an interview. “Anything that distinguishes an artist or performer is to that performer’s advantage, particularly when you’re trying to get noticed.�

So how did his trademark bug-eyed delivery evolve?

“I sometimes say that God gave me something incredibly big. . . . Unfortunately, it had to be my eyes. . . . You use what you have.�

Wolfberg insists that using his eyes for emphasis “is in no way calculated. I am truly not aware of anything I do with my eyes. It’s not an affectation, but it seems to work comedically.�

As a comedian, he said, “your stage persona basically evolves from your offstage persona. In fact, I use the word persona now rather cavalierly. In the early days, people said, ‘I love your character up there.’ I used to look at them and say, ‘What are you talking about? That’s me. ‘ “

Almost as much as his facial expressions, Wolfberg is also known for his verbal adroitness.

“That’s really the way that I talk,� said Wolfberg, who has a master’s degree in clinical psychology. “It’s very comfortable and, again, it seems to distinguish me: I use a vocabulary that is apparently rarely heard from stand-up comedians.� With tongue in cheek, he added: “I’m praised for ‘enriching the art with the erudite use of the language,’ which I laugh at, but I’m flattered nevertheless.�

As for his unusual method of emphasizing certain words in a routine, he said: “There was always a zany quality to my presentation, but the kind of verbal emphasis at the point of punch has kind of been a gradual evolution and continues to evolve. I think people are constantly in flux.�

Wolfberg said he had always wanted to be in show business, but being “the classic, nice Jewish boy� he went along with his “security-minded� parents’ belief that making a living in show business is no more likely than winning a lottery.

So after graduating from Queens College, Wolfberg taught sixth grade for 12 years in the South Bronx. His teaching gig proved to be fertile ground for his stand-up act.

You know the South Bronx, “a community that socioeconomically ranks under CALCUTTA, to give you an international base of comparison. People from India would say, ‘South Bronx: What a hellhole!’ �

And, as he says in his act, he taught in a school that even by South Bronx standards was a difficult one.

“Any elementary school that has its own CORONER ! . . . I don’t care where you’re from, TO ME, that’s an unusual feature to an educational program. The school newspaper had an OBITUARY column. . . . I would assign compositions on ‘What I want to be IF I grow up.’ �

It wasn’t until 1976, when he was 30, that Wolfberg auditioned for the Comedy Strip, a Manhattan comedy club. He remembers finally getting on stage at 3 a.m. When he was introduced, he said, the two people remaining in the audience got up and left.

Realizing the impossibly of “eliciting laughs from tables and chairs,� he picked up the guitar he had brought out with him and began singing Don McLean’s “American Pie� to the waitresses. The song turned out to be the club owner’s favorite, and Wolfberg was told to come back the next night--as a singer: “Boom. I was in show business.�

Wolfberg started out by just doing jokes between songs. “If they laughed at the joke, I would treat them to another joke,� he said. “Over time I learned the craft, and comedy became 20% of my act, then 50%, then my entire act.�

Wolfberg, who quit teaching in 1980 to become a full-time comedian, said his act has always chronicled his personal life. During the first two years, he dealt exclusively with teaching. Then he focused on being single and engaged. Now he’s married (to former stand-up comedian Jeannie McBride), a father and a homeowner.

As he sees his late start in comedy, it gave him the advantage of having “this repository of life experience. I mean, I’ve been there and I had much to draw from, particularly my years as a teacher.�

Wolfberg says his wife, who is now pregnant with twins, “is a real support involving my career.� She even gives him lines for his act. Such as:

“My wife can’t feel the babies kick, but she can feel their eyes bulge.�

* Dennis Wolfberg opens tonight and performs through Sunday at the Brea Improv, 945 E. Birch St. Tickets: $7 to $10. Information: (714) 529-7878. Jan Herman’s theater column will resume next week