The Herkimer Battle Jitney steams into action.

Greg Kinnear as Champion City’s much-sponsored superhero Captain Amazing.

Garofalo’s reason for signing up for Mystery Men had as much to do with who was in it as it did with the unique nature of her character. “I had heard about some of the other actors who were doing Mystery Men,” she says. “I mean, oh my God - Geoffrey Rush, Bill Macy and Lena Olin? That’s cool! I began to get it, so I said, ‘All right, I’ll do it.”

And it was she who was instrumental in Stiller signing up. “We’d been after Ben for the project for quite a while,” says producer Lloyd Levin. “We really wanted him to be involved, because his fearless comedic sensibility seemed emblematic of what we were hoping to achieve with Mystery Men.”

The fact that Garofalo called and said, “It’ll be fun... we’ll hang out” certainly helped. But, says Stiller, “ultimately, it was the combination of the cast and the story and the opportunity to play something close to a superhero. I knew it was the closest I would ever get. I don’t get the calls for the Batman movies!”

The story of Mystery Men is pretty straightforward. The seven future Mystery Men are still doing their day jobs because Champion City already has its resident superhero, Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear) who, in the spirit of the times, wears a costume covered in the logos of his corporate sponsors. But the Captain has been doing his job too well and there isn’t much superhero work to be done in Champion City - which, of course, begins to affect his sponsorship: less crime-solving equals less TV time equals less bucks for the Captain. So he arranges for his nemesis, Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush), to be sprung from jail.

Ben Stiller as Mr Furious

However, things don’t quite work out as planned. Casanova Frankenstein and his henchmen, the Disco Boys - played by British stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard and singer Pras (formerly of the Fugees) - take Captain Amazing prisoner and plan to destroy Champion City with the help of the Psycho Frakulator. Enter the Mystery Men.

Joining Mr Furious and The Bowler are The Blue Raja (Hank Azaria), The Shoveler (William H Macy), Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell), The Sphinx (Wes Studi) and The Spleen (Paul Reubens).

The Raja’s superpower lies in his ability to throw tableware (only forks, never spoons). The Spleen has had a botched operation which means his intestines produce a noxious form of gas. Since the US press - which had no problem with ‘The Spy Who Shagged Me’ - has been a little mealy-mouthed about The Spleen’s skill, let Preview set you straight: he farts his enemies into submission.