"This is our yearly trip to the museum," he said, "which is always followed two weeks later by our cancellation. So we're both happy and very scared to be here."

The "we" in his joke refers to the cast and crew of "Undeclared," the FOX comedy Apatow created that faces an early end this season -- the network cut its order from 22 episodes to 17 -- and an uncertain future beyond that. It's a scenario Apatow knows well, having faced it with "Freaks and Geeks," which he executive produced, two years ago.

Still, that didn't stop the panel -- which included most of the principal cast and several "Freaks and Geeks" alumni who have had guest roles on the show -- from having a good time and cracking up an appreciative audience.

Apatow says the genesis of "Undeclared" came when the high school-set "Freaks and Geeks" was on the verge of cancellation in 2000.

"I thought, How can I keep everybody working, and how old will they all be by the time I can get something on," he says. The logical next step, of course, was a show set at college.

Once the idea came, Apatow and his writing staff began working on a pilot, albeit in a somewhat unconventional way. Rather than finishing a script and then finding actors to fit the characters, they looked first for actors around whom they could build characters.

"We wrote scenes specially for the audition process," says Jake Kasdan, who's directed several episodes of the series. "Then we found people who were really funny," and their strengths ended up as the basis for their characters.

"We had an outline, and we knew we needed Steven [the lead character, played by Jay Baruchel]," Apatow adds. "But everything else was pretty much up in the air."