Will Ferrell is a comedy superstar. Why should we ditch him?

In the early 2000s, "The Will Ferrell Movie" entered the moviegoing lexicon. The film is famous for a new, wild actor who blows up the screen as the body of a middle-aged man's child. His curly hair, innocent eyes and wild smile made him an extremely gifted comedian, and he really was a new generation of clowns. Will Ferrell is slender, stocky, and obnoxious in his brash manner. He put on a hat and tie and was a real life Yogi Bear. Ferrell is a regular guy, but owns a Lamborghini for comedy time.

In the mid-2000s, he stood out in a slightly different way. As a leading member of the fraternity movement (the name given to Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller and the Wilson brothers who would appear in each other's movies), he preceded the Judd Apatow comedy empire of the late 2000s. During the Bush administration, his films stood out for Americans and American culture. His high-strung characters are big-mouthed, obnoxious jerks that Americans can spend an hour and a half laughing at and empathizing with, while the rest of the world giggles at his stereotypes that are exaggerated to the extreme.

Brick, where do you have a grenade?

In 2004, The Anchorman: The Legend of RON Burgundy was a modern version of The Naked Gun, with jokes ranging from the very silly (a grown man plays a jazz flute, a dog gets kicked off a bridge) to the very mature (RON Burgundy asks out his female colleague while having an erection). To this day, Anchorman and its characteristic sense of energy have not been replicated, or better. It's the gold standard of modern comedy classics, thanks to a huge supporting cast that can not only improvise, but the cast and director are exactly the same style.

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Paul Rudd, who plays Brian Fantana, summed up the absurdiousness of "Newsman" on and off screen, looking back at the Newscast's epic fight scene, telling Vulture:

Will Ferrell has mentioned in the past that he and frequent collaborator Adam McKay share the same "comedy brain" and that their language is unique. Having directed five films each (" Anchorman, "" Talladega Nights," "Other Brothers" and "The Other Guys"), the two are an unstoppable force in this R-rated comedy, thanks in no small part to Ferrell's ability to play the silliest of major roles.

A special comic language and extraordinary characters

As a stand-up comedian and studying with famed improv troupe The Groundlings, Ferrell rose through the ranks on Saturday Night Live to become a standout performer (Lorne Michaels says he thinks Will Ferrell is "one of the top two or three people who have performed the show"). He gradually dabbled in film, and his characters were elevated to such a degree that their stupidity verged on cartoonish.

Well into the n00s, Ferrell played the double-dyed blonde fashionista/dictator in Zoolander, Mugatu, the Christmas-obsessed elf Buddy in Elf, and the aforementioned stubborn news anchor RON Burgundy. Each of these characters feels like they grew up in a dream of their own design, but beyond their chosen particular realm.

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Even after watching Ferrell's confident "Saturday Night Live" audition tape again, Also shows the same blueprint: the angry BBQ father becomes more intense, his children refuse to pull themselves from behind the scenes, or the man who can't help playing with cat toys like a curious Tom, showing a playful energy that is hidden in a normal, basic man ready to be very silly. He'll only continue that trend with diehard jerkwads Chazz Michael Michaels in the Blades of Glory and Jackie Moon semi-pro games, and will command salaries to support the comedy superstar attraction lead (Forbes wrote that Ferrell was paid more than $15 million in dollars in Hollywood Bomb, Lost Land).

America Vs American comedy

Ferrell's extremely Ricky Bobby American in 2006, NasCAR driver in Talladega Nights, cuckold, his best friend over a Frenchman, was the first American self-satire on the big screen -- against a very real moronic backdrop of American politics and war on foreign soil. Fiction and non-fiction go well together. Ferrell's work was never deliberately political, but it was certainly silly - which was very fashionable in America at the time.

In the same way that Ferrell's infamous impression was introduced by President George w. Bush's Obama administration in 2008, Ferrell will gradually become obsolete and new, laid-back and effortlessly real characters starting to emerge in comedy competition (most of them just stoned to death, though).

SONY Pictures Release

Ferrell's theatrical career has never really been as successful as Thin Logan's and Thin Hill's, made all the rarer by their lack of success, though the comedian has made great theatrical films. The Fantasy Life premise is perhaps one of the most brilliantly creative and simple ideas of the past 22 years (a man is blocked by a narrative writer who loves to kill her characters), and both have to be a sad, drab movie about a man selling all his possessions).

Yet Ferrell's dramatic performances are the antithesis of his rowdy comic characters, who, even when they're well behaved, seem remarkably quiet and bland by comparison. As an audience member, the speed of jumping from one person to another is too fast and uneven. We need a middle ground, not a midlife crisis.

Times are changing... So when RON Burgundy fell, he fell hard

As we enter the 2010s, America seems to embrace its decline, as millennials realize that nihilism and anger are everyday troubles, and so are smoking a joint without thinking about them. Judd Apatow, the producer of "Anchorman" and later Step Brothers, built an empire on his films about true-life love stories based on sticky green shoots. Though Ferrell has had some hits since then, such as the cop drama The Other Guys, his acting can't seem to keep up with his kids. By 2015, Will Ferrell co-starred in a harrowing double-header - Get Hard and Daddy's Home - that was particularly bad (the previous film was also arguably just racist).

He then split with former co-writer and director Adam McKay, who moved on to more meaningful and ambitious projects. (They very publicly announced the creative couple's split to the world, And liquidated their co-production company, Gary Sanchez Productions. Ferrell no longer speaks to McKay, and the failure of their partnership has dealt a blow to their comedy careers.

Will Ferrell has dominated the 21st century box office with his rowdy comic pranks and weirdly colored, self-centered characters, but maybe as a fan base we've all gotten too stressed out about the current global situation and have moved on to something else. Paul Rudd has said Ferrell is one of the last people he knows with his own cell phone, which may mean it will take a while for the comedian to catch up with the world.

But after his memorable performance on the dark Apple TV+ show "Shrink Next Door," and upcoming films such as "Chihiro," "Barbie" and "The Wandering," the actor is perhaps trying to make amends. For an actor like Ferrell, as long as Ferrell is the one laughing, he'll admit that he's just going with his gut.