Regina Hall and Anna Faris in "Scary Movie 3," Dimension Films, 2003

3. Women enjoy mocking things, too.

Centering 2000's "Scary Movie" on a female lead was a matter of narrative necessity, since the film was a take-off of heroine-driven slashers like "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer," but the move proved to be an important one for the genre. Suddenly, girls were allowed a significant share of the previously male-dominated world of spoofs, and none were better at it than "Scary Movie" star Anna Faris. Faris, who appeared in all four "Scary Movies" even though the series switched creative teams midstream and began to tackle testosterone-heavy affairs like "Signs” or "War of the Worlds," has evolved into her generation's Leslie Nielsen: eternally clueless and lovably shameless. After the Wayans Brothers found success with Faris, others followed suit: "Scary Movie" co-writers Friedberg and Seltzer, for instance, placed most of the comedic burden for their first directorial outing, "Date Movie," on the shoulders of "How I Met Your Mother" star Alyson Hannigan. Clearly, focusing on the ladies hasn't hurt business, either; "Scary Movie" is the highest grossing spoof of all time, and its three sequels and "Date Movie" round out the rest of the list of the five highest grossing spoofs of the decade.

In retrospect, it's hard to believe it's taken this long for a whole movie that makes fun of people dancing, since mocking well-choreographed musical numbers is a longtime spoof staple. Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty got all "Saturday Night” feverish in "Airplane!" (Hays juggles apples while high kicking) while the cast of tough guy outlaws from "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" became a Rockettes-style kick line.

The joke is the same -- uncoordinated characters suddenly bursting forth with Busby Berkeley-style verve -- only the references change. In "Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear," Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley share an innocent looking cha-cha-cha until a discrete cutaway to a wide shot replaces them with two body doubles who vigorously hoist and fling each other into the air, before another discrete cut back to a close-up returns the stars in time to take their bows. In "Date Movie," an uncoordinated Alyson Hannigan turns a dance lesson into a full-on "Rize" ripoff krumping session. Now comes "Dance Flick," which pokes at "Save the Last Dance," "Step Up," and the rest of their stepping brethren.

5. End Credits Need Not End So Quickly

With Rule #1's increased emphasis on references and gags and the subsequent decreased emphasis on plot and character came a lengthening of the easter eggs to be found in the end credits. Traditionally, if you watched the end of a spoof carefully enough, you might spot a few jokes scattered amongst the rest of the real credits, like say a "Still Waters – Run Deep" goof at the back end of "Spy Hard" or a recipe for nobby buns during the roll of "Hot Shots!" Now most spoofs run 80 minutes, with anywhere from ten to 15 additional minutes of jokes, songs, outtakes, bloopers and deleted scenes over the closing credits.

For instance, Friedberg and Seltzer's "Epic Movie" total run time clocks in at 93 minutes, but thirteen minutes of that is devoted to the credits. That's almost 15 percent of the whole movie; at that point, it might be more accurate to call them "extend credits." Essentially, many spoofs have so completely devalued their stories and the already tenuous representation of reality within them that the difference between a joke told in continuity and one told out of it is basically negligible. There's a certain freedom to gag-spinning during the end credits, and because they exist outside the film proper, no pretext of storytelling is necessary. Then again, the way spoofs as a whole are going these days, that's often sadly true of the rest of the movies too.

[Additional photos: “Disaster Movie,” Lionsgate, 2008; “Epic Movie,” 20th Century Fox, 2007; “Date Movie,” 20th Century Fox, 2006]

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