Ron Burgundy Anchors A Half Hour Of Local News In North Dakota

Will Ferrel has been relentlessly promoting his upcoming film "Anchorman 2" as his ridiculous news anchor persona Ron Burgundy. His Dodge Durango commercials gave the SUV a 60 percent boost in sales in October, Boston's Emerson College renamed their communications school after him for a day, and he co-hosted the Canadian curling trials Sunday night.

And on Saturday night, Ron Burgundy got to anchor an entire half hour of local news in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Some fans may be disappointed to see Burgundy refrain from sheer absurdity, but that would be missing the point. Not much happened in North Dakota on Saturday, and watching Ferrel's character narrate the strangeness of the mundane is pretty great.

Here's the full half hour from CBS affiliate KXMB. We'll take a look at the highlights below it:

- (0:00) Hearing Burgundy's voice after co-anchor Amber Schatz's makes the intro worth watching.

- (3:40) Burgundy dramatically brings to life a trash fire started in a Sam's Club parking lot.

- (18:10) He introduces the story of how the sheriff of a town of 30 people has long used a dummy sitting in a parked cop car to trick speeders. Here's the dummy:

- (24:26) Ron encourages the sports anchor with a loving caress.

- (29:14) Burgundy introduces the night's top story, in which a local middle school teacher describes what it was like to have a beard for "No Shave November." Keep in mind this was not part of the joke, and that the story was teased before almost every commercial break:

On Sunday's newscast, the team showed a clip of Burgundy talking about his experience the night before. Through a beam of overblown lighting, he explained how the weatherman's performance was so good it was as if he were the reincarnation of legendary meteorologist "Jed Fishman":