Thomas Lennon

Hot, sweaty, shirtless Zac Efron.

Thus begins 17 Again, Zac Efron’s coming out party as a leading man.

It takes the opening of High School Musical 3 and kicks it up the notches necessary to ratchet Efron’s stardom from the tween set to the Cougar den.

17 Again, written by Jason Filardi (Bringing Down the House) and directed by Burr Steers (Igby Goes Down), follows a genre both beloved and familiar to children of the 80s.

In their new film, 17 Again, Zac Efron and his co-star, Reno 911’s Thomas Lennon, have a lengthy and athletic light saber battle.

We asked how they prepared for the fight:

Thomas Lennon: The stunt coordinator was a very intense guy.

Zac Efron: (laughing) He took it VERY seriously.

“If I only knew then what I know now.”

From that simple cliché, 17 Again, a film many people are heralding as Zac Efron’s coming out party as a leading man, was born.

We are not on the Facebook bus.

We check our Myspace page every six weeks or so.

We call Twitter “Tweets for Twits.”

And you know who’s on our bus too?

Zac-y Pooh.

That’s right, anyone following a Zac Efron Twitter account or who has him in your top friends, that’s not really Zac.

At last week’s press junket for 17 Again Zac said, “I don’t have a Twitter or a Myspace or a Facebook or anything like that. I kind of value having people not know where I am or what I’m doing.”

Who’s hungry for a big ol’plate of awesome?

At yesterday’s press junket for 17 Again, Adam Shankman, who produced the film, announced the FunnyorDie clip he directed last week, yes, the one that features oodles of shirtless Zac-y Pooh, is set to premiere on the website Wednesday and will be shown before 17 Again when it hits theaters on April 17th.

Zac Efron has teamed up with his lady love Vanessa Hudgens, Nicole Richie, Joel Madden, his 17 Again costar Thomas Lennon, and his Hairspray costar Queen Latifah for a video for Will Ferrell’s website FunnyOrDie.com.

Zac’s Hairspray director Adam Shankman oversaw the video which was shot at Adam’s Hollywood Hills home on Tuesday and features quite a bit of ripped, shirtless Zac and his six pack.

So far all anyone knows is Lennon (who people might recognize from Reno 911) plays Zac-y Pooh’s Uncle Hank who crashes his A-list pool party.

Zac Efron was muy dapper at the UK premiere of 17 Again at the Odeon West End in London, England last night.

Zac-y Pooh recently spoke to the LA Times about getting appendicitis while filming the movie and how his co-star Thomas Lennon could have inadvertently killed him.