Reviewed - Anchorman: The legend of Ron Burgundy:  Here's an amusing satire on 1970s attitudes and lifestyles played out to the accompaniment of an aptly retro soundtrack. Anchorman is set at a time when, as we're told in an opening voiceover, everyone believed what heard on the TV news and only men were allowed to read the bulletins.

At Channel 4 in San Diego, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) reigns supreme in the ratings. Absurdly vain and hopelessly immature, Ted has big hair that never moves, a precisely groomed moustache, and a large wardrobe of polo-necked sweaters, sports jackets and slacks. His best friends are his even dimmer colleagues, each of them as irredeemably sexist as he is: chief reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), weatherman Brick (Steve Carell) and sports guy Champ (David Koechner).

Their bulletins seem to be composed almost entirely of the fluffy ephemera that is a staple of the "And finally ... " portions of today's newscasts, and their show goes into overdrive when a panda at the San Diego zoo becomes pregnant.

This male bastion - and Burgundy's dream of ascending to a networked show - come under threat when the station hires an ambitious female new reporter (Christina Applegate), who is miffed at being fobbed off with covering a cat fashion show as her first assignment.

Everyone involved with this production appears to have had a ball working on it, and their sense of fun is infectious. Ferrell and Rudd, in particular, chew into their stock characters with undisguised relish, and several of their well-known film industry pals pop up in cameos to make fools of themselves.

The agreeably silly screenplay (by Ferrell and director Adam McKay, a former head writer at Saturday Night Live) piles on the verbal and visual gags, although it eventually becomes over-preoccupied with the encumbrance of advancing its slender plotline.