AH, the masculine smell of the 1970s, when news anchormen were men and men were Burt Reynolds.

It was an American era of big moustaches, buffed-up barnets, industrial-strength sideburns and intimidating, tightly permed chest hair. A time of colognes with the aroma of panthers and a strange media obsession with pandas giving birth in zoos.

You must remember those days: Hollywood has already had a knowing, all-too-easy laugh at Starsky & Hutch that wasn't much cop but set the tone for the comic flavour of the moment: a series of sketch gags with only a loose relationship with a plot.

Dodgeball hit the mark - oh the simple pleasures of seeing a ball knock merry hell out of health freaks, geeks and humourless foreigners alike - with more consistency than any Ben Stiller laugh-in since Meet The Parents.

Now Anchorman has the same manic energy, surrealism and retro style pastiches, but falls short of Dodgeball's phenomenal strike rate on the gag count.

Nevertheless, it gives Saturday Night Live sketch graduate Will Ferrell the chance to capitalise on the surprise success of Christmas hit Elf: he is given open season on ad-libbing in an excessive comedy that has the crazy, free form improvisation of Ron Burgundy's beloved jazz-flute noodling.

Burgundy (Ferrell) is the pampered regent of San Diego news anchormen: dim-witted sex god of the six o'clock news with an all-male team of fawning goofballs joining him in macho japes.

Into this world of flares, flared nostrils and Western-style high-noon showdowns with rival news teams comes the whiff of emancipation: Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), a new employee with even more ambition than Nicole Kidman's weather girl in To Die For, and no less ruthless.

Burgundy does his schtick, wooing her but promptly announcing his conquest on air. Bad decision, and bad news day for Burgundy, who finds himself suddenly sharing anchor duties with his blonde nemesis. Where will their rivalry end?

Directed by Adam McKay with the indulgence of a latter-day Sir Bobby Robson, Anchorman is daft and demented, and it delights in taking risks by stretching a gag to the limit, then still going further. It is very hit and miss, but such is its enthusiasm and bravura spirit in sending up Seventies fashion and primitive television that its faults are easily forgiven.

Ferrell's interplay with his dog, aided by replies in subtitles, is but one of the cameo pleasures, along with quick-fire turns from Dodgeball's Stiller and Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson and Jack Black.

Anchorman puts the broad into broadcast news and is another guilty pleasure in an Indian summer for American comedy in 2004.

Updated: 15:40 Thursday, September 09, 2004