[AS2] turn buttons off?

Hi

I’m working on a gallery page on a website I’m doing, and it has thumbnail pics with buttons on top. When pressed it brings up a larger image on top with a transparent black background (so that you can see the thumbnails in the background). But as expected the buttons of the thumbnails are still active. Is there a way of turning them off?

In the past I have created buttons within a movie with an ‘on’ and ‘off’ label, but this seems an old fashion way of doing it and must be a cleaner script way of doing this??

Thanks
Wayne