tput is a utility frequently used to set the terminal colors (if TERM is set to xterm).

echo "$(tput setaf 3)highlight $(tput sgr0)normal"

ansicolor works as expected here, too, however, when using $(tput sgr0) to reset the font properties, ansicolor leaves a "(B" visible.

So the output when using ansicolor looks like:
highlight normal(B

I assume that's a part of the control sequence that ansicolor doesn't yet know about.