How to succeed in show business without really changing

How much do I love Judd Apatow right now? So much that, after seeing the awesomeness that was "Knocked Up," I'm thinking I want to spend a good chunk of this summer rewatching "Freaks and Geeks" and maybe blogging about each episode as if the show were airing today (ala Edward Copeland's faux-realtime bloggging of "Twin Peaks" season two). I feel a lot more inspired to do that than to watch "Pirate Master" or that ABC celebrity NASCAR show. Who's with me?

Now all I have to do is track down the friend I loaned my DVDs to, or failing that, put it in my Netflix queue.

I'm coming too late to the "Knocked Up" discussion to offer anything new and insightful about the movie itself -- like everyone else, I agree that it's a little too long, and like everyone else, I can't decide what parts to cut (the Vegas trip seems easiest, but that would mean losing Paul Rudd's bit with the chairs) -- but what really interests me is the notion that Apatow's managed to become this hugely successful movie person while essentially doing the same thing that made him a legendary failure on network television.

I was originally going to do a quick blog post on the subject, but have instead decided to do a longer column on it, probably for this Sunday. I have my own theories on the subject, and I'm hopefully going to talk with the man himself later today (if he has time in between running the various Balkan states of his comedy empire), but I was wondering if any longtime fans of "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared" (or, going back further, "Larry Sanders" or "The Ben Stiller Show") have any thoughts. Has there been a fundamental shift in what he does? Is it just a matter of being able to do R-rated content? Has the audience changed?