University of Pennsylvania graduate Whitney Cummings loves Philadelphia

* WHITNEY. 8 tonight, NBC 10.

WHITNEY CUMMINGS talks as fast as the TV characters she writes for.

And when she talks about Philadelphia, the 29-year-old University of Pennsylvania grad talks even faster.

When I tracked down the creator and star of NBC's "Whitney" (and co-creator of CBS' "Two Broke Girls") at an NBC party in Pasadena, Calif., last month, she immediately tried to put down what was apparently the first food she'd had time for all day when she realized she was talking to someone from Philly.

(Naturally, I told her to keep eating.)

"My time in Philadelphia was my favorite time of my life. I'm from D.C. originally. I went to school in Philly and I also did summer school at Temple, so I got to really experience Philadelphia," said Cummings, who lived off-campus "at 18th and JFK," during her years here.

"I remember walking up like 18th and 17th and there's like a cheese shop and a wine shop . . . It's almost like a Parisian corridor there by Rittenhouse Square, and I just love it so much and there are just so many awesome, creative people," she said.

"When I lived there, I was always going to comedy shows, I was always going to concerts, I was always going to see like new bands play and I really cherish the time that I lived there. And going to Penn was just amazing. It was like the best school . . . but it's also not isolated, like a bunch of white people from Connecticut, you know? It had so much diversity, it had so much creativity - there is such a counterculture there - it was so inspiring," said Cummings, who claims to "kind of see myself as a person version of Philly . . . tough, but also classy, and sexy and gritty, and you know, real."

Heck, she even likes our hecklers.

"As a comedian, I spent the last four years touring and the year before this I did 80 cities, and Philadelphia [where she played at Helium] is hands down my favorite city - the realest people, the funniest people, the best sense of humor, the smartest," she said.

"I always judge a city by the audiences: how smart they are, how quick they are and how well I do and Philadelphia's the smartest, ballsiest crowds. Hecklers that are actually funny, you know? Aggressive people that will heckle you but will actually make you laugh and make the show better."