Fast times at "Superbad" high

From "American Graffiti" to "American Pie," "Sixteen Candles" to "Can't Hardly Wait," one thing the movies have done reliably throughout the era of youth culture is create iconic comedies of American high schools, graduation and life after it.

These movies are the inspiration behind "Superbad," the latest comedy from the extended circle of comic minds behind "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up."

"We were setting out to make another 'Dazed & Confused,' or 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High,"' said Jonah Hill, one of the stars of "Superbad" " 'Fast Times" we looked up to as being particularly real."

That film was based on Cameron Crowe's research, posing as a high school student, for Rolling Stone Magazine.

"And 'American Graffiti,' with underage guys trying to buy liquor and all this other stuff happening in one night, that's obviously another inspiration," said his co-star Michael Cera, 19, formerly of TV's "Arrested Development." "A whole generation was able to relate to what they saw in that as a true version of their experience at that age."

"Superbad" takes place on the last day (and night) of school at a California high school. A couple of nerd-friends (Cera and Hill) resolve to live up to their images of themselves by scoring liquor for a popular girl's party, and maybe scoring with a girl. They find an even nerdier friend with a fake ID (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) — an ID that has just one name, "McLovin." McLovin is the kid who goes to buy the liquor, only to stumble into some too-sympathetic, too-friendly cops (Bill Hader and Seth Rogen).

"I saw 'Superbad,' and I've got to say, funniest movie of the summer," said "Saturday Night Live" writer-filmmaker and "Hot Rod" director Akiva Schaeffer. "I'm just glad our movie came out first, because otherwise, I'd be jealous."

Hill, 23, was in "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," and plays one of Seth Rogen's character's Net Nerd posse in "Knocked Up." In "Superbad," he plays Rogen's alter-ego, Seth, an oversexed adolescent legend in his own mind. "Seth wrote it for himself and eventually he got too old to do it," Hill said. "Too bad for him. Good for me."

Rogen, Hill and Cera are all part of the extended family of comic writer-director and producer Judd Apatow (he produced "Superbad"), the boundary-pushing funnyman who has had his hand in everything from "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" to "Knocked Up." Characteristic of this "Apatow School of Comedy" is a willingness to be really raunchy in subject and situations and language.

"There's a certain realism to these films, seriously, that you just don't see in other comedies," said Hill, who has written comedy, too. "'In Knocked Up,' Seth and Katherine argue the way arguments and relationships really are. And with 'Superbad,' kids have really good (bull) detectors. This is the way kids are, the way they talk to each other and think and act. Kids are a lot smarter than you give them credit for."

So when Hill's character rattles off the most obscene riff of the summer in the opening moments of Superbad, encompassing sex, school, girls and his best friend's mother, he's not just being funny. He's being accurate.

"For me, swearing is like breathing," he said with a laugh. "Sorry."

Hill, who grew up chubby and a bit of an outsider, "totally reverted to my high school self, using all the bad stuff that happened" for the movie, he said. "I actually moved back in with my parents while we shot the movie."

"These clothes you see me wearing in the movie? My real clothes, half the time," added Cera, who was acting and taking tutoring during most of his high school years. "My voice? The same it was in school."

Still squeaky-high, in other words.

But that "realism" leaves plenty of room for ad-libbing. "Superbad" was one of those competitive sets where comics and comic writers struggle to top one another with a funny line or new twist to a scripted situation. Hader, the "Saturday Night Live" cast-member who is also in "Hot Rod," found new flavors to his comically embittered police officer, Slater.

"The characters are refined on the set, so that Slater, we decided, became more and more obsessed with McLovin because he sees a lot of himself — geeky, unpopular, smart — in him," Hader said. "That's not intentional. I added the glasses, like McLovin wears, myself on the first day of shooting. But I didn't get what we were doing while we were shooting it, didn't get that his glasses made him look like McLovin. I wasn't conscious of that until we all watched the movie. The improv paid off."

"It's all about getting what's funniest on the screen," Hill said. "If you're open-minded, you're going to hear or see something funnier than what you first had in mind, and Judd, Seth, all of us, we know enough to just roll with it."