'70s is the go-to decade for comedy (AP)

NEW YORK - Platform shoes, leisure suits, fondue, fro picks. What used to be cool is now the stuff of comedy.

When it comes to period comedies, the `70s are the equivalent of Victorian era costume drama. While serious-minded filmmakers are forever reaching back to the time of royalty clad in waistcoats and dressing gowns, comedians are more likely to cull from the less halcyon days of disco and sideburns.

Will Ferrell is again mining the decade with "Semi-Pro," a movie in theaters Friday about a fictional ABA basketball team, otherwise realistically set in the `70s. Ferrell earlier traveled back to the "Me Decade" for 2004's "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy."

"Whenever I look back at old photos and this and that, it just seems like such an alien time," Ferrell said. "The `80s are funny too, and I guess we'll look back and the `90s will be funny too, but the `70s are holding strong."

Ferrell is far from alone. In 2004's "Starsky that's when many of the comedians now currently dominating the scene came of age. It's only natural they would return to what all comedians perpetually contemplate: adolescence.

"I was just starting to have my opinion about what I thought was funny, and trying to be funny," recalled Ferrell. "All those things were happening around that period of time."

McKay, who was reluctant to make "Anchorman" in the `70s because it had been done before, is amazed the `70s -- skipped over by everyone else -- continue to be such fertile ground for comedians.

"I was shocked to see that it's still continuing," he said. "It's turned out to be a really deep well."