The movie "Anchorman" forces me to disagree with King Arthur -- not the dutiful fellow in Antoine Fuqua's new release but the leader of the knights who don't say "Ni!" (except to little old ladies) in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." As they approach Camelot, the movie breaks into a ridiculous song-and-dance, after which King Arthur (the late Graham Chapman) declares: "Let's not go there. It is a silly place."

		'Anchorman' Rating: PG-13 for sexual humor, language and comic violence. Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Fred Willard. Director: Adam McKay. What did Adam Lynch do?

"Anchorman" is one very silly movie. But that's precisely why you would want to go there.

The movie takes place at a San Diego television station during the 1970s. As a voiceover informs us, it was a time before cable, when top news anchors at the network affiliates were regarded by the public (and paid by their stations) like kings.

And, of course, the overwhelming majority of them were men, the late Patti Burns notwithstanding. According to a study by the Missouri School of Journalism, women comprised 12.8 percent of the workforce in TV news in 1972. As late as 1994, the figure was only 36 percent.

"Anchorman" chronicles the upheaval that rocks the fictional KVWN-TV when news director Ed Harken (Fred Willard) announces that, in the name of diversity and a changing outlook in society, he has hired a female reporter, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). The incumbent newsmen, led by anchor Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), respond as if she'd been hired to neuter them. In a figurative sense, that's exactly what they believe.

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when sexual harassment was dismissed with a wink and a naughty laugh, when female news anchors on morning radio shows were the butt of jokes about their sexual proclivities, when a female Kansas City TV anchor won a lawsuit for being demoted by male bosses who said she was too old, too ugly and not deferential to men. In the movie, the boys do everything to trip up Veronica, either on the air or off.

So, you say, this is no laughing matter? You're right. Fortunately, the men who made "Anchorman" -- Ferrell and his co-writer and director, Adam McKay -- are smarter than Ron Burgundy and his band of male chauvinist pigs. The filmmakers turn the tables by making Veronica more competent and more serious than the men, who come off mostly as buffoonish cases of arrested development.

Burgundy and his pals -- sports anchor Champ Kind (David Koechner), reporter and self-styled Geraldo/Lothario Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and utterly clueless weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell, who nearly steals the movie playing a grinning nitwit) -- have never left the macho side of the playground.

This becomes most evident not in their disdain for Veronica (although all of them, predictably, would like to bed her) but in their blustering encounters with the news teams of other San Diego stations, which trail KVWN in the ratings. At one point, they engage in an all-out street rumble, armed with clubs, brass knuckles, tridents, hand grenades and other implements of destruction.

Besides its utter inanity, one of the funniest things about this scene involves the actors who appear as the rival anchors. You won't have to look hard to spot Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Tim Robbins and The Ubiquitous Ben Stiller. I hereby decree that to be his official name, in that he has seemingly appeared in every movie released in the past two years (that's him reading "My Pet Goat" in "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- I'M KIDDING!).

But not everything about the movie is chauvinist. Ed Harken hires Veronica and defends her, even as he gives her inane stories to cover (then again, the station doesn't seem to cover any other kind). When Burgundy doesn't get to the station in time for the broadcast after an unfortunate encounter with a biker (Jack Black), Veronica brushes aside Harken's objections and fills in as anchor -- flawlessly, of course. Harken is man enough to acknowledge it and to advance Veronica's career. You've got to admire a movie that makes Fred Willard the straight man.

Veronica is not perfect -- Applegate knows comedy cannot be too pretty. In spite of her desire to be professional and against her own better judgment, she succumbs to Burgundy's romantic advances and is woman enough to admit she likes it, at least until she achieves equality on the air. The next thing we know, they're throwing things at each other across the newsroom -- including each other.

If "Anchorman" weren't so silly, it would probably be obnoxiously overbearing -- kind of like the KVWN news team. It also helps that the movie is set in the '70s, when certain anchors did wear big hair, polyester suits and white shoes. Remember what you wore in the '70s? How can you not laugh?