Traffic reporter man was playing 'Anchorman'

WCCO-TV's new traffic reporter Kerry McNally seems like too nice a guy on TV to have an image-killing Ron Burgundy act when he's off the air.

McNally claims that's all he was doing on a recent weekend when he met Chelanne Eisenman and her boyfriend, Raoul Miller.

Eisenman, a mytech.com staffer, said, "My boyfriend was in town from NYC and we got a room at the W and did some 'staying in.' Saturday night we were at Manny's bar and [McNally] comes over and I don't know if he was trying to make friends or noticed my cleavage." Her cleavage is that noticeable? "It is kind of big, I won't lie," she said, laughing.

There's not a lot of looking Eisenman in the eyes? "Exactly," she said, laughing again.

"So he comes over to comment on what an interesting couple we are and finds out my boyfriend's from New York and starts chatting him up. Then we say, 'What's your name?' And he says, Well, I work at Channel 4. I'm kind of a big deal," Eisenman said. As McNally prattled on, Eisenman was thinking, "How big of a deal? You're not Amelia Santaniello. You're not Frank Vascellaro."

After McNally disclosed his name, he reportedly suggested the couple look him up on Facebook.com, that they party with him on Lake Minnetonka, and told Miller to move here so he could live like a king.

Searching later for "Mr. Big Deal" on WCCO's website, Eisenman was surprised to find him and discover that "he wasn't even giving us a line about who he was."

Did McNally recall telling a couple he was a big deal?

"Oh, the line from 'Anchorman'? Yeah, just joking around," McNally said. "Totally. I do traffic for heaven's sake. I'm certainly not a big deal."

McNally added: "People always say I look a little like Will Ferrell, so I use that line from 'Anchorman.'"

O-K, then.

After reading that WCCO laid off anchor Jeanette Trompeter, Eisenman shot me an e-mail about the McNally encounter with these words: "They let Miss T go and he gets to stay?"

Now, I don't know whether to end this item with "Stay classy, Kerry" or this: Joan Rivers is right, "Men Are Stupid ... and They Like Big Boobs."

A success story Look for a People magazine story about Operation Glass Slipper, the nonprofit directed and founded by Pam Philipp to supply prom dresses free to girls who might not otherwise be able to afford them.

Phillipp said 1,020 girls took home donated dresses and accessories at last weekend's Mall of America giveaway.

Hell's peanut butter While worries about salmonella have taken peanut butter dishes off many menus, the sticky stuff continues to fly off the shelves of Hell's Kitchen.

Hell's owner Mitch Omer said the restaurant is "selling a ton of it," and making the homemade peanut butter about three times a week, 10 gallons at a time.

Given how little regard our society seems to have for kids and old people (both groups of which are represented all too well in poverty estimates), the tainted peanut butter served to these populations must have been especially tasteless. Really, had you ever heard of King Nut peanut butter before people started dying from salmonella?