Will Ferrell: Master of mirth

Will Ferrell is god.

Not God as in the Creator of All Things. But god as in the master of all things funny.

The former “Saturday Night Live” cast member has followed a lot of funny people on their paths from television to the big screen. John Belushi, for example. Bill Murray. Gilda Radner. Eddie Murphy. And more.

Ferrell, a seven-year veteran who left the show in 2002, may not be quite in their class. Yet. But he has put out a body of work, on television and in film, that is as consistently funny as anything any SNL grad has achieved.

Ferrell’s latest film “Anchorman” opens today. In celebration of that fact, I give you 10 of his funniest moments:

10. In the first two “Austin Powers” movies, Ferrell plays Mustafa, one of Dr. Evil’s henchmen. His specialty: the off-screen lament. As in 1997’s “International Man of Mystery” when he flies off a cliff. Or in the 1999 sequel “The Spy Who Shagged Me,” when Dr. Evil dumps him in a fiery pit and he screams for the next couple of minutes. Before being shot. Pain has never sounded funnier.

9. Darrell Hammond is SNL’s resident impressionist, but Ferrell was still able to capture the essence of a variety of subjects. One was Janet Reno, the U.S. Attorney General under Bill Clinton. No male cast member had ever better portrayed a manly woman than Ferrell … except maybe for Dan Aykroyd’s impersonation of Julia Child.

8. “Elf” is a one-joke film made by people whose sense of comedy is so skewed that they think James Caan is funny. It works only because of Ferrell’s willingness to do anything for a laugh. As Buddy the Elf, Ferrell’s innocence underlies everything his character does. Example: When told that Santa is coming to appear at a department store, Buddy screams, “SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA’S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!” I guess you have to see it. …

7. These days, we journalists are fair game for nasty parody. In “Dick,” Ferrell lampoons the self-important Washington Post editor Bob Woodward who, along with Carl Bernstein (Bruce McCullough), broke the Watergate scandal, the biggest story of the second half of the 20th century. He said, “Deep Throat, heh-heh-heh-heh.”

6. In “The Suburbans,” the independent film about a one-hit wonder group that gets a second chance, Ferrell plays the band member who breaks into tears during an interview. At interview’s end, he says something that many of us have wanted to scream for years: “Shut up, Kurt Loder!”

5. For the better part of a decade, James Lipton has been interviewing celebrity actors for the Bravo television show “Inside the Actors Studio.” More full of himself than Larry King, Ferrell’s Lipton tends to ask questions as stupid as any dreamed up by Barbara Walters (“If you were a twee, what kind of twee would you be?”).

4. Those who show an overabundance of school spirit beg to be made fun of. That explains such movies as “Bring It On” or “But I’m a Cheerleader,” both of which get their laughs at the expense of bouncing girls bearing pom-poms. As the Spartan Spirit cheerleaders Craig and Arianna, Ferrell and Cheri Oteri may be losers, but somebody forgot to tell them. And that’s the joke.

3. “Old School” is what finally made Ferrell into a star. Here he plays the clueless Frank who, when his marriage falls apart, decides to join the adult fraternity formed by his friends (Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn). You could include a number of scenes from this movie, from Frank’s playing with a blow-up doll to his winning a debate by impressing James Carville. But here I’ll just mention his getting shot by a tranquilizer dart – and speaking his lines in slow motion.

2. Or there’s Frank, in couples counseling with his wife, taking advantage of what the therapist calls “a nest in a tree of trust and understanding.” They’re at dinner, Frank says, “And, uh, I happen to look over at a certain point during the meal and see a waitress taking an order, and I found myself wondering what color her underpants might be.” He just can’t understand why his wife would be upset.

1. And, finally, we come to the best example of Ferrell’s willingness to bare all for laughs. After drinking himself blind in “Old School,” Frank breaks up a Snoop Dogg concert by inviting everybody to go streaking. Which is exactly what he does.

All together now, “Eeeeeeeewwwww!”

But laugh as you say it.