Will Ferrell Returns as Ron Burgundy for New Podcast

Will Ferrell's Anchorman is a bonafide cult-classic piece of comedy filmmaking (it's sequel, not so much). Well, fans are always jazzed (see what I did there?) to hear that Ferrell is suiting up as Anchorman's Ron Burgundy - and now the scotch-swilling newsman is throwing his hat into the modern ring of podcasting!

As you can see in the trailer above, The Ron Burgundy Podcast is a thing that is happening. The show is reportedly getting two scenes (12 episodes each), and is a joint venture between iHeartMedia and Ferrell's Funny or Die comedy production company. The show is set to debut on February 7th.

The trailer asserts that Ron Burgundy is the man who will ask the hard-hitting questions, but what we really get is scenes of Ferrell in full character, asking the kind of irreverent-to-absurd sort of questions that one might expect of Ron Burgundy. A few choice quotes include:

"Let's talk about Pete Rose. Do you every run into that guy? Because he owes me money."

"What do you do about the haters?"

"Do chickens have epilepsy?"

"Have people ever thrown batteries or pennies at you?"

"So you hatch out of the egg, onto the field, what was that like?"

Or one that this Philadelphia sports fan takes rather personally:

"What is the deal with the Philly Phanatic? That guy's a weirdo, right?"

There's even a nice little jab thrown at controversial director Lars von Trier, just for good measure.

All in all, this project seems like so many of the things that Ferrell takes on: walking a fine line between playing in a particular sub-culture, and mocking it. This Ron Burgundy Podcast will basically do to podcasting what Anchorman did to newscasting; Talladega Nights did for NASCAR; Casa de mi Padre did for telenovelas; The Campaign did for politics, etc...

This is the second big character resurgence that we've seen in recent weeks; Jeff Bridges recently made major headilines when he suited up as "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski again. While fans initially went crazy with excitement of a Big Lebowski sequel, it turns out Bridges revisit of the character was all part of a Super Bowl ad for Stella Artois beer. Some Anchorman fans might similarly feel disappointed that Ron Burgundy isn't coming back for a threequel movie; then again, after the massvie disappointment of Anchorman 2, a lot of fans may be more relieved than disappointed to hear that Ron Burgundy is only getting a limited return to the spotlight...

Catch episodes of The Ron Burgundy Podcast starting on February 7th.