Apatow Cronies Invade with Trifecta of Lewd Laughs

While producer Judd Apatow, most recently of Superbad, Pineapple Express and Step Brothers fame, is nowhere to be found in the credits for recent comedies I Love You Man, Adventureland, and Observe and Report, he's nevertheless likely due some royalties.

Not only is his lewd if not downright sexually explicit brand of humor all over all three films (though all three are rather tame compared to the rather explicit likes of Superbad and Knocked Up), but the stars of all three films were more or less introduced to the world via Apatow's cult didn't-even-last-a-season comedy Freaks and Geeks.

Jason Segel, who got his start in notable teen flicks SLC Punk and Can't Hardly Wait, played the role of drum nerd/slacker Nick Andopolis in Freaks, and later played a creepy, overbearing long-distance boyfriend in Apatow's Undeclared, didn't truly take flight until he wrote Forgetting Sarah Marshall, per Apatow's advise, a film roughly about his love life.

To boot, Segel landed a starring gig on the hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother (a role he was chosen for because the show's producers were big Freaks fans) around the same time. Now, Segal stars, alongside Paul Rudd (who's been in a slew of Apaptow-affiliated projects), in I Love You Man, a film that actually is only slightly less awkward than the plot: a soon to be married dude (Rudd) needs a best man, but, lacking any male friends, more or less, befriends Segel after a series of man dates. Released, March 20, the film, which was directed by one-time Undeclared writer John Hamburg, grossed nearly $18 million in its opening week, according to Fandango.com.

In Adventureland, the creation of one-time Undeclard and Superbad producer Greg Mottolla, Martin Starr, who played the ultra-nerdy Bill Haverchuk in Freaks and later played the roleof stoner buddy to Seth Rogan's character in Knocked Up pretty much reprises both of those roles -- "stoner supernerd" is how the film's website pegs him -- in the forthcoming Adventureland, which follows of group of twenty somethings as they toil their days away working at an amusement park circa 1987.

Seth Rogan, of perhaps any Freaks cast (aside from James Franco perhaps, who played suave greaser type Daniel Desario and costarred with Rogan to much acclaim in Pineapple Express), has turned into a bonafide movie star. Observe and Report, which opens in early April, marks Rogan's fourth starring role -- Superbad, Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Pineapple Express before it -- foray into the lead role. This time he's playing a mall security guard with an ego and a mental disorder who goes toe to toe with a flasher.