The former "Doogie Howser, M.D." can be seen in theaters Friday in "Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay," reprising his role as a babe-loving, psychedelic-drug-taking version of himself. "The fictionalized NPH has his whole own backstory and world," the real NPH told us by phone the other day. "He's on mushrooms most of this movie, looking for the biggest-breasted whore in the South," NPH said.

As we were chatting with NPH on April 20, the official pot-smokers' holiday, we asked if he puffs, as do the characters in the stoner comedy. "To continue to blur the lines of reality, it would be a shame for me to say that I don't smoke pot, with the movie coming out on Friday," he said. We told him that Kal Penn told us he didn't smoke. "And wasn't that disappointing?" the actor asked.

(Penn, who teaches in the Asian Studies department of the University of Pennsylvania, has refused to speak with the Daily News about the movie, and has also, inexplicably, turned down requests from the paper to talk about the classes he teaches on Asians in mass media.)

The real NPH came out as gay about a year and a half ago, but says that it didn't change the way he plays Barney, his womanizing TV character.

"It was a great weight lifted off my shoulders," says NPH, and it "wasn't much of a media frenzy; it was sort of a non-story," he said.

Comic visiting old Jersey 'hoods

Comedian Joel McHale is bringing his father, Jack, to the area this week to visit their old neighborhoods in Haddonfield and Cherry Hill. McHale, host of "The Soup" on E!, which recaps reality TV and celebrity gossip, lived in Jersey from ages 8 to 10, before his family moved west to Seattle. He recalls being able to trick-or-treat right after school when he lived in Jersey. He said his stand-up routine covers some celebrity stuff but also "more in-depth feelings about television and my life." He performs Friday at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside.

McHale thinks that celebrity coverage is only going to get worse because of technology.

"America and the rest of the world has been obsessed with this stuff," he says. "Peasants were obsessed with lives of royalty, and now we're obsessed with where Nicole Richie buys her coffee."McHale, cast in Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant," playing an FBI agent opposite Matt Damon, is psyched about his role in the dark comedy.

Out and about

Demi Moore and Parker Posey popped into Doggie Style 2 (1635 Spruce) last night, where Posey picked up an orange carrier bag for the little white dog she's been spied walking through the Rittenhouse Square area. On Monday, the pooch accompanied Posey and Moore for an outside dinner at Rouge (205 S. 18th). Moore and Posey are here working on writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein's "Happy Tears." They play sisters, and daughters of Rip Torn, in the family drama that's set to start shooting, mostly in the 'burbs, next week.

_ NBC 10's Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz was in line Sunday afternoon at the Atlantic City Hilton awaiting one of the hotel's new VIP player's cards.

T.O. makes online porn cameo?

Is that former Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens - as it appears to be - smiling in the background of a picture on the hard-core porn site BangBros.com? Still no response to our calls yesterday to operators of the site or to T.O.'s agents.

To see the tasteful photo, visit PhillyGossip.com. The shot was taken before any action took place, and Owens is not pictured in the rest of the series of photos/videos called "Spring Break Ass," posted on BangBros.com Monday.

Owens, now with the Dallas Cowboys, is represented by Drew and Jason Rosenhaus, who, like the porn site, are based out of Miami.

In other nude news . . .

Local songbird Jill Scott and "Ugly Betty" actress Ana Ortiz, a UArts grad, are among five actresses who pose nude for May's Allure magazine, reports Ben Widdicombe in the New York Daily News. Of course, posing nude in Allure means you carefully cover any bits that actually make it a nude photo. *

Visit PhillyGossip.com for Dan's latest stories. Have a tip? Call 215-854-5963, or e-mail grossd@phillynews.com. For recent columns, visit go.philly.com/dangross.