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Manhattan — When Will Ferrell walks into the room, he struts past the life-sized cardboard standee of himself decked in "Semi-Pro" attire.

The comedian is no longer sporting an exaggerated afro, grizzly sideburns and unmercifully short shorts, but he maintains the same curiously vacuous stare - like some homeless guy who is always on the verge of tackling you.

Ferrell takes great pleasure in the freakish accoutrements of the 1970s, which is the setting of his latest sports-oriented romp.

"I think it's remarkable ... where when we look back and think back to clothing styles and hairstyles and attitudes, that it was actually a period of time that happened," Ferrell says. "People wore the clothes they wore and looked the way they looked, and thought, 'I'm looking great. I will never get higher than this.' For some reason, it's just intrinsically funny."

Ferrell is making a rare appearance in Kansas for several reasons. He is in the midst of a cross-country comedy tour (which provoked a sold-out visit on the Kansas State campus), but he is also ready to talk basketball, ABA style. Ferrell's film takes place in 1976, the year before the fledgling league was assimilated into the more successful NBA.

"Semi-Pro" opens today in theaters nationwide.

"We just loved that title," says Ferrell during a Feb. 4 press gathering at Manhattan's Bramlage Coliseum. "Even though the ABA were fully paid, salaried guys, for the most part a lot of these guys had to work other jobs in the offseason. It was such a rinky-dink league.

"I was reading something just recently about this one guy who was negotiating a deal who wanted $10,000 and a new refrigerator. They came back, and the counter offer was $10,000 and a used refrigerator. 'I'll take it!' It was a professional league, but it had a semi-professional feel to it."

Sport to sport

It may seem that every summer the 40-year-old Ferrell appears as a clueless egomaniac in another sports movie. From ice skating to NASCAR racing to soccer coaching, he's managed to keep in competitive shape.

"It just kind of lined up this way that I ended up doing three sports movies," says the comedian, who graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in sports information.

"'Blades of Glory' happened because Ben Stiller was originally going to do it, then asked me to do it. We actually talked about 'Semi-Pro' before 'Blades of Glory' even happened. (I doubt I'll do another) unless someone can write a really good part for me to play a thoroughbred jockey - the joke is: I'm too big."

The 6-foot 3-inch Ferrell adjusted easily to the physical demands of basketball on the set of "Semi-Pro," even though his character is depicted as more of a celebrity businessman than a hotshot athlete.

He says there were constant opportunities to perfect his game while filming.

"It was kind of a problem because you're working with a packed arena of extras, 10 different guys on the court, and you have these choreographed plays we'd run to make it look like free play. Any time it was 'cut' and they had to move the camera, we'd all start playing. ... They literally had to take the balls away from us," he says.

While co-stars such as Woody Harrelson and Andre Benjamin were decent B-ballers, most of the other faux ABA teams were composed of ex-college players or pros from European leagues.

"It was very seductive in a way because these guys were going half-speed. A couple takes the coordinator of basketball stuff - Mark Ellis, who had this thick South Carolina accent - he'd say, 'OK, let's go full speed.' And these guys would turn it on, and you forgot they had a whole other gear. You started getting cocky thinking you could play with these guys, then they'd blow by you."

Character building

As Jackie Moon, the owner-player-coach of the flailing Flint Tropics, Ferrell creates another personality that has already burrowed its way into pop culture. (Remember that swarthy Super Bowl ad?)

Between his seven-year stint as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" and his numerous movie roles, Ferrell has developed an entourage of favorite characters and impersonations.

"It's so fulfilling that the crazy ideas I have people actually think are funny. From the show ('SNL'), I loved doing Harry Carey, Robert Goulet, Alex Trebek. I loved the middle school music teachers I did with Ana (Gasteyer). The cheerleaders were great because that was kind of the first thing people started to notice. I'm just lucky a lot of those things I had so much fun doing," he says.

As a repercussion, Ferrell is forever being bombarded by fans with catchphrases that stem from these characters.

Will "Semi-Pro" generate a few quotable slogans?

"You never know," he says. "I was just in Ireland for two weeks, and for some reason 'Anchorman' is huge in Ireland. I would get yelled at in Irish accents, 'I want to be on you. ... I'm kind of a big deal.' A lot of 'Anchorman' quotes have come back around."

One of the obscure lines from 'Anchorman' that I get is, 'Milk was a bad choice.' I never would have picked that as something anyone would have ever picked to recite back to me. Or even, 'You're my boy, Blue,' from 'Old School.' I just made that up that night at 3 a.m., yelling at this poor actor. It's tough to predict."