LOS ANGELES — Ron Burgundy, his salon-quality hair gleaming on a drizzly late November evening, alighted from the stretch limousine in front of the Barnes & Noble in the Grove shopping mall here.
Dapper in a glen plaid polyester suit, brown ribbed turtleneck and dark-green leather jacket, Mr. Burgundy strode into the store, stopping to hold aloft some merchandise. “Free Legos for everyone!” he cried to the hundreds of people crowding the aisles and leaning over the railings on the levels above.
They were here — some had arrived as early as 5:30 a.m. to secure a place in line — to get an autographed copy of Ron Burgundy’s memoir, “Let Me Off at the Top! My Classy Life and Other Musings.” As the book-jacket copy helpfully points out, Burgundy is America’s most trusted and beloved news anchor.
Of course, he’s also fictional.
A creation of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, and brilliantly inhabited by Mr. Ferrell in the 2004 movie “Anchorman,” Ron Burgundy is a 1970s white male in all his entitled, chauvinistic and jazz-flute-playing glory. And millions of fans have embraced the conceit.
Their passion turned a movie that performed decently at the box office into a catchphrase-spawning sensation on home video and ushered in a new type of smart-silly comedy that in its wake spurred the careers of comedic talents like Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen. And on Dec. 18, nearly a decade later, there will be a sequel: “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.”