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The B-Team

Robert K. Weiss and David Zucker, the producer and director of "Scary Movie 4," have made a killing with their parodies. (Jonathan Alcorn for The Washington Post)

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They can do this all day long.

So how did they meet?

"Police training," says Weiss.

Weiss ran a company called Video Systems, which made instructional movies. He needed extras to play victims, cops, perps.

Their first picture?

"Recognition of Injuries," Weiss recalls. "For the LAPD." Jerry Zucker (who went on to direct "Ghost") played a victim of a traffic accident. David Zucker, an ambulance attendant. Abrahams was a dead guy on a gurney. Their friend John Landis (who later directed "Animal House") played another stiff. Would not "Recognition of Injuries" be a valuable addition to any film archive?

"Trust me. I've looked," Weiss says. "It was destroyed for legal reasons."

Gone but not forgotten. "Better that way," Weiss says, and pats his partner's knee.

When Weiss, who has fallen into the role of producer, and ZAZ, as the writing-directing team of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker came to be known, tried to pitch "Airplane!," the studios were reluctant.

"Nobody would do it. No way. Impossible," Weiss says. "Thrown out of everywhere. There's the unwritten rule: They will only let you do what you have done."

Because there have been so many imitations, we forget that "Airplane!" was once unique.

"It was the first full-length film parody," says Zucker. "It was comedy without comedians -- that was what was different about it."

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