Ferrell drops anchor in North Dakota

IS THERE ANYTHING Will Ferrell won't do to promote his upcoming sequel to "Anchorman"?

He and his franchise are pitching Dodge Durangos in a series of goofy commercials, Jockey underwear and a new flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream ("Scotchy Scotch Scotch").

On Saturday, Ferrell, as Ron Burgundy, went on the air at KXMB-TV Bismarck, N.D., to read the news.

The actual news.

Dressed in his signature three-piece suit and a striped tie, Ferrell punctuated the news with exaggerated eye blinks and engaged in witty banter with weekend anchor Amber Schatz and the rest of the Bismarck news team.

Schatz said she has watched the original "Anchorman" about 30 times, and the hardest part of co-anchoring the newscast with Ferrell was holding back laughter every time he spoke in character.

"The second he said, 'Good evening, I'm Ron Burgundy,' I lost it," Schatz said yesterday.

Ferrell also clowned around, popping into Schatz's screen while she read a story and telling her after a commercial break, "Amber, you look lovely tonight," before asking her if she was married.

When Schatz told him she wasn't married, he replied, "Well I am, so don't get any ideas."

Thanks to social media, Bismarck's small-market newscast now has a global audience and "Anchorman 2" has a lot of really cheap publicity.

Why KXMB? No one's sure, but it is a CBS affiliate and CBS, Viacom and Paramount Pictures, the "Anchorman" distributor, all have Sumner Redstone in common.

No money changed hands for the promotion, and station managers did get some assurances that the stunt wouldn't go too far. Sales manager Tammy Blumhagen said Ferrell was on board with maintaining the integrity of the newscast.

Uh, sorry, Bismarck, that ship sort of sailed when you let a fictional character who mocks news anchors be a news anchor.

Schatz, 31, who typically anchors the weekend newscasts alone, said she didn't learn about her new co-anchor until Wednesday. It was a complete surprise to viewers.

The crew got to hear Ferrell say "Stay classy, Bismarck," during the credits, but his microphone had already been cut off.

"He did say it, it just didn't air," Schatz said.

* Yesterday, Ferrell/Burgundy was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to help open the Canadian curling trials.

He even tried his luck on the ice and donned a kilt to the delight of fans. In speaking with reporters, he said the name Winnipeg was Latin for the small tundra bunny who lives in the hole on the hill.

As for curling jargon, Ferrell said he knows what "hurry hard" means, but uses it mostly when he's stuck in traffic to get the driver in front to start moving.

One of the Daily News' favorite local movie stars, Maria Bello, came out Saturday in the "Modern Love" section of the New York Times.

Maria, 46 (looks 36), wrote about telling her 12-year-old son, Jack (from a relationship with ex-boyfriend Dan McDermott), about the relationship with her longtime friend Clare.

"I was with someone romantically and I hadn't told him," Maria wrote. "I had become involved with a woman who was my best friend, and, as it happens, a person who is like a godmother to my son."

"We had an immediate connection but didn't think of it as romantic or sexual," she wrote. "She was one of the most beautiful, charming, brilliant and funny people I had ever met, but it didn't occur to me, until that soul-searching moment in my garden, that we could perhaps choose to love each other romantically."

Bello added, "My feelings about attachment and partnership have always been that they are fluid and evolving. Jack's father, Dan, will always be my partner because we share Jack. . . . Just because our relationship is nonsexual doesn't make him any less of a partner. We share the same core values, including putting our son first. My more recent ex, Bryn, remains my partner because we share our activism. And Clare will always be my partner because she is also my best friend."

You can read the entire piece, including how Maria's "traditional" Philadelphia parents and her very LA son responded, on the New York Times website. She has a future as a writer if this acting thing doesn't work out.

Just a few years ago, people were worried about the health of Wizard World Inc., the company behind late spring's annual WizardPhilly comic con. But with an expansion from eight to 16 cities on the docket for 2014, Wizard is nearly as healthy as Harry Potter.

"We're expanding to Sacramento, Louisville, Minneapolis, Atlanta, San Antonio, Richmond, Tulsa and Reno," Wizard World CEO John Macaluso told Tattle Comics Guy Jerome Maida. "We will be returning to Philly, as well as Portland, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Nashville, Austin and Columbus."

"We are the largest comic-con company in the world," Macaluso said. "We do more shows than anybody else, and we want to be a force to be reckoned with nationwide and internationally. We want to grow this business in a healthy way, by expanding without hurting our existing shows. That is definitely true in regards to Philadelphia."

Macaluso was already talking up the 2014 Wizard Philly show (June 19-22), which has already booked such notable first-timers as Laura Vandervoort (Supergirl on "Smallville"), legendary comic-book writer Marv Wolfman, Sean Astin ("Rudy," "Lord of the Rings"), David Hasselhoff ("Knight Rider") and Jaleel White (Urkel on "Family Matters") as well as returning favorites like the legendary Stan Lee and Norman Reedus, Jon Bernthal, Michael Rooker and Sarah Wayne Callies from "The Walking Dead."

- Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

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