MONTREAL -- Years from now, film buffs may look at the Judd Apatow years the way palaeontologists do the Cambrian Explosion.

A few years ago, few knew his name. Now, there's hardly a comedy released that doesn't have Judd Apatow attached as either producer, director or writer.

Like this week's pot-action comedy Pineapple Express, or last month's Step Brothers, or Drillbit Taylor, or Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, or Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

And that's just this year.

Last year, there was Superbad, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby and his own directorial effort Knocked Up, which followed two years after his previous hit as director, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Ironically, Apatow says, all this success is the direct result of failure -- specifically, his failure at producing TV series (critically admired, his Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared were both short-lived).

"Everything we've done has been the result of long periods of unemployment followed by the ability to get all the stuff made that we wrote when no one would make it," he said recently at Montreal's Just For Laughs comedy festival.

"The chronology of this windstorm of projects is, we were working on Undeclared and Seth and Evan (Goldberg, Rogen's writing partner) were writing Superbad in their native land of Canada and no one would make that, and I said, 'Hey, I got this idea for a stoner action movie (Pineapple Express). Maybe that'll be more commercial than Superbad.

"And we kicked it around and started to make it, and realized well, 'Maybe that's actually less commercial than Superbad.' And so we said, 'Okay, let's start on Drillbit Taylor. And we started writing things and eventually they happened."

There's no doubt that the success of Knocked Up and Superbad are what opened the floodgates. "And there's still a backlog," he says of his collaborative projects.

Ironically enough, Apatow showed up in Montreal in the same week that Ivan Reitman had opined regretfully at a press conference that he wishes he'd directed more and produced less.

For his part, Apatow is directing movies about every two years. He's just now getting started directing Funny People, starring Rogen and Apatow's former roommate Adam Sandler.

A comedy about two standup comics, the project inspired both Apatow and Rogen to take to the stage during Just For Laughs, to rekindle the standup experience.

"I wanted to remind myself of the terror and the diarrhea," Apatow said, "and it's all a part of it because I have to write jokes for them."

Their approaches to comedy are markedly different, Sandler's being more shtick and Apatow's is grounded in reality.

"Adam is somebody who hasn't done the type of movie we do and that's what's exciting and really fresh, to find out what the morph is."

People whose movies Apatow produces are often quick to point out that theirs is not a Judd Apatow movie per se. Like Adam McKay, director of Step Brothers.

"We've worked with Judd since Anchor Man, and it's been a positive experience. But we (McKay and Ferrell) have our own style. If you look at his movies, they're nothing like ours. Ours are aggressive and larger and a little more absurd. You'd never confuse it with Knocked Up. But he's such fan of comedy, he's able to give notes on absurd, large comedies."

For his part, Apatow says, "I don't have any regrets about producing so much. These movies would be my favourite movies of all time even if I had no part in them. These are this generation's classic comedies -- we hope."

And even though his movie success springs from TV failure, he does admit to occasional pangs of regret.

"Y'know I was watching Mad Men the other day -- my new favourite show -- and it was the first time I felt really bad about not working in TV, because obviously it's really fun to work with the same writers and actors and directors for a long time and tell a continuing story.

"And every time I watch Mad Men, I'm reminded of when we did Freaks and Geeks. I'm jealous. But I can't seem to crack the code on how not to get cancelled quickly. So I don't think there's a Pineapple Express TV series happening in the future."

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