It's the early 1970s, the time of shag carpeting and mahogany and very wide collars. Since you received only three or four channels, the people you saw on those channels took on an almost mythic power. The most powerful among them was the anchorman on the local news. In San Diego, that was Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell). Along with his news crew—Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), and the deliciously named Champ Kind (David Koechner)—Burgundy ruled San Diego because he read the news: he was the source of all information. Or so the best comedy in quite a while, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, tells us. It's quickly obvious that Burgundy doesn't deserve the power that he has grown so blithely used to. We learn that he's not very smart, and that his big weaknesses are (1) that he will read whatever you put on the prompter and (2) that he buys into his own legend.

The film is utterly absurd, and that's its charm. It doesn't wimp out and try to get serious or normal. From beginning to end, it's a train of absurdity that threatens to derail for the entire running time. It doesn't, though, as far as I remember. I believe that I left the theater thinking that there was dead space between the riotously funny parts, but for the life of me I can't remember what they were. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time, and the slow parts didn't stick with me while I was gasping for breath between jokes. So much of the humor in this film is in the delivery. The alley rumble between the competing news crews-yes, they go at it West Side Story style, with knives, chains, and tridents-probably looks ridiculous on paper. In fact, a lot of the film looks ridiculous on paper. The members of the news crew, sitting around and trying to get at what love actually is, break into a popular 1970s easy listening song; this after Brick Tamland proclaims his love for various office furniture.

In fact, it's all in the delivery. I can tell you that I found it incredibly funny when Ferrell tells a prospective score that "I have many important leather-bound books, and my apartment smells of rich mahogany." But unless you hear him deliver the line, you won't understand how amusing his sincerity is. Sure, it's a pickup line, but he really believes that the books and the mahogany make him a more attractive mate. He's bought into the adulation poured on him as a result of being practically the Voice of God on local television. "I'm kind of a big deal," he says, and the funny thing is that he's right.

Burgundy's hegemony over the hearts and minds of San Diegans is unrivaled, although there are plenty of other news crews who would like to knock him off his pedestal. One is led by Vince Vaughn, who plays an anchorman with the delightful name of Wes Mantooth. Their rivalry is all the more hilarious because the rhetoric intentionally never rises above that of third graders fighting on the playground. In fact, Brick Tamland's attempt to insult Mantooth by inquiring whether he bought his suit at the toilet store fits right in to the dialog.

In a movie that teeters on the border between real and surreal sometimes, Brick Tamland, as played by "Daily Show" regular Steve Carell, jumps right over. He provides a running commentary on whatever pops into his head, and it's clear that he's not connected to the same world as everyone else. It might be because, as an opening narration informs us, he's got an IQ of 48 and is basically retarded. But he's polite and rarely late, and he is great with a trident. His lines are the ones you'll be quoting to your friends for months to come.

There's a plot, too. The head of the station decides it's time to enter the late 20th century and hire a female co-anchor, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate, looking like the victim of some ill-advised plastic surgery). This shakes up the entire crew, all of whom believe that women don't belong in the newsroom, and one of whom believes that women's periods attract bears. All of the guys attempt to make her, but she ends up falling for Burgundy, basically despite his personality. Things come to a head when she gets her crack at anchoring by herself, and Burgundy reacts badly, to say the least. "It's your old boy meets girl, boy offends girl, girl falls for boy anyway, boy loses girl, boy threatens to shoot girl in the back of the head with a BB gun" story. Only with a few twists along the way.

The movie was cowritten by Ferrell and longtime "Saturday Night Live" writer Adam McKay, but it's pretty obvious that a lot of the dialog must have been improvised on set. If you don't like Will Ferrell, I don't understand you. I mean, this movie might just change your mind. He's one of the most consistently funny actors working today, and he's reached a new plane with this film. It's the funniest movie since Bad Santa, although I realize that might not convince those skeptics among you.