If you're looking for a wonderful sweetheart of a person to go to the movies with this weekend, Alyson Hannigan might just be your ticket.

But don't get too excited just yet -- you can't go on a date with the "American Pie" and "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" star to the movies, but you can see her in a date movie -- quite literally.

That's because Hannigan stars in "Date Movie," a comedy a la the "Scary Movie" school of thought, which skewers such date movie gems as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," "The Wedding Planner," "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers." It also takes to task a score of others, including recent hits like "Wedding Crashers" and "King Kong."

Of course, movies in the spoof genre are bound to make the stars of the originals look foolish, but Hannigan thinks they'll take it all in stride.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?" Hannigan asked me in a recent @ The Movies interview. "So they should all be flattered."

Well, all should be flattered, except one, who's spoofed as big-bootied character named Jello. We'll let you do the measurements to figure out who that is.

"She might not be too happy," Hannigan said, musingly. "She's the probably the only person who won't really love this. With the other ones, we were just spoofing their movies. But (with Jello), we're actually spoofing her . Hopefully she has a sense of humor about it and can laugh."

As for her own prospects, Hannigan is well aware that her appearance in movies such as "American Pie" raises her up to be a spoof target, too. And she loves it.

"I always think it's great," said Hannigan, who is also currently starring in the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother." "I remember the first time 'Mad TV' did a spoof on 'Buffy' -- we were all so excited," Hannigan enthused. "We were like, 'Look! We've made it. Somebody's spoofing us!'"

Getting Ready For A 'Date'
Anybody who does comedy for a living, or an everyday person who tells a joke, for that matter, knows that being funny is hard work. Needless to say, it provided an interesting challenge for Hannigan in "Date Movie" because she was playing a funny character trying to play it straight.

In short, she couldn't give the impression that she was in on the joke and she did her homework to prevent that from happening.

"I was like, 'What do I do? I've never been in a spoof comedy before,'" Hannigan recalled. "I was like, 'Alright, I've got to go rent all of these spoof movies, to really understand how to do it and sort of dissect the differences.

"But after I watched a couple, I was like, 'OK, scrap that. What I need to do is watch a bunch of comedies,'" Hannigan added. "It's not that they are doing anything different, they're just completely playing it straight, and the more I make this like a romantic movie, the funnier it will be when these absurd situations are happening and Michael Jackson is getting beat up in the background. If I indicate, or let anybody know that I'm in on the joke, it's not going to be funny. So once I realized that all of the spoof comedy people were treating it very seriously, the easier it was."

Adding to the challenge is the fact that Hannigan isn't completely recognizable in every scene. After all, when you're spoofing a "singleton" like Bridget Jones, you can either pack on the pounds like Renee Zellweger has done in the past, or don a fat suit, like Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow in the "America's Sweethearts" and "Shallow Hal," respectively.

Hannigan opted for the fat suit, and said it was an awakening not only as an actor on a movie set, but as an everyday person.

"It was very, very hot," Hannigan said of her experience of being a special makeup effect. "It was very hot and heavy and to go from my size to such a larger size so suddenly, it was interesting to see the things that I couldn't do that I normally take for granted -- such as tying my shoes ... and there were certain chairs I couldn't sit down in. It definitely made me much more compassionate for the struggles that people of a larger size have that I wouldn't have even thought about."

Oddly enough, from a physical perspective, Hannigan said, wearing the suit results in just the opposite.

"I'm sure I burned hundreds and hundreds of calories," Hannigan said. "That suit, it just makes you sweat!"

Hannigan said she got a workout of a different kind in her own skin and the too-cool-for-school yellow jump suit that she wore spoofing Uma Thurman in the "Kill Bill" movies.

"Except, unlike Uma, I didn't get the six months of wonderful training to get the fantastic martial arts body," Hannigan goofed. "But that was fun."

Apart from the funny material, Hannigan said "Date Movie" was so much fun to work on because of her esteemed co-stars. Among them were fellow "American Pie" trilogy alums Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge.

"It's really like being a kid in a candy store, it was such a joy," Hannigan said. "I actually had no scenes from the three ('American Pie') movies, so to get to actually do scenes with her was so much fun. I'm was literally such a happy little camper when they were around, just to sit there and watch them and just soak it in. I was like, 'Can you just rub some of that comic timing off on me, because I just want it all.'"

Adding to the thrill for Hannigan was the fact that Coolidge and Willard -- longtime members of Christopher Guest's documentary-style comedy company -- are wizzes at improvisation.

"They're just so brilliant," Hannigan said. "All you had to do was say, 'Action,' and just let the cameras roll. Everything that came out of their mouths was genius."

Not only were the comic veterans given the chance to improvise on the set of "Date Movie," Hannigan said. Co-directors and co-writers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer encouraged her to let loose as well.

"We would do the first couple takes as written, and then we could do a couple takes and improv -- more so when somebody like Jennifer or Fred was around. Or Eddie," Hannigan said.

The "Eddie" that Hannigan is referring to is none other than laugh riot Eddie Griffin, who plays her father in "Date Movie." And who could ask for a better dad than Eddie?

"The resemblance is just amazing," joked Hannigan about her black co-star. "I can't believe I've worked this long and he hasn't played my father."