The thing that is incredibly helpful is that we screen the movies and we ask the audience if they like it or not and we ask a lot of questions and do testing on the movies. For comedies, at least, it's very helpful. If they're not laughing and they don't say that they loved it, then I have screwed up.

Apatow credits Shandling as his mentor for influencing him to write comedy that is more character-driven. The film was a box office success. Apatow did an uncredited rewrite of the 1998 Adam Sandler comedy film The Wedding Singer and was featured in four tracks on Sandler's 1996 comedy album "What the Hell Happened to Me?.

Apatow's work has won numerous awards including a Primetime Emmy Award (for The Ben Stiller Show) a Hollywood Comedy Award and an AFI Award for his movie Bridesmaids. : /ˈæpətaʊ/; born December 8 1967) is an American film producer director and screenwriter.