Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004): Favourite Films Series

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004): Favourite Films Series

 

Everything has its moment. The first decade of this century was Will Ferrell’s heyday, and if we had to narrow it down, through retrospection, it’s easy to look at Anchorman as his moment, as well as the crowning achievement in a very particular era of comedy filmmaking. When I look back on Anchorman, I fondly remember renting it from the video store with my best friend simply because it starred “that guy” who was “pretty funny” and knowing nothing else about it. Part of what makes comedy work is being caught off guard, with setups and payoffs you don’t expect which instigate laughter, or, alternatively, simply seeing or hearing something you don’t anticipate completely out of the blue without any setup. Anchorman does both of these things extremely well, but there’s so much more to it that makes it one of the enduring comedies from the golden age of Ferrell. “I don’t know how to put this, but…I’m kind of a big deal.”

The premise of Anchorman—news anchors in 1970s San Diego threatened and lovestruck by a female anchor cutting in on their boys club—is perfect to showcase Will Ferrell’s strengths as a comedic actor, but I will say right out of the gate that if you don’t like Will Ferrell, it’s unlikely this film will place among your own favourites, or even be enjoyable at all. Unlike some of my other favourite movies, I can’t defend this one as being something anyone who likes movies should watch. The comedic timing is incredible, there are numerous setups and payoffs in terms of both jokes and plot points, and it is endlessly quotable (as you shall see), but it is also all so, so dumb. Veronica Corningstone, played by Christina Applegate, is one of only a handful of characters with any shred of common sense, self awareness, or intelligence, but even she can’t resist the ridiculous charm and allure of Ron Burgundy. Ron and his cronies are blatantly silly, stupid, and sexist, but they are all part of a hilarious tapestry of a skewed world where logic is unimportant and absurdism rules supreme.

Ron Burgundy is considered by many to be Will Ferrell’s greatest comedic role. Anchorman came at a time when he had already been in some great supporting roles and was most well known from Saturday Night Live, but this was only a year after his first lead role in Elf and a year before one of the busiest year’s of his career, starring in Bewitched, Kicking and Screaming, and Wedding Crashers, among others. Anchorman also acts as a showcase for many other comic actors who were about to go on to bigger and better roles in movies and TV, and as great as Ferrell is through and through, the supporting cast generates just about as many laughs as the lead.

Steve Carrell had a very memorable supporting role in Bruce Almighty the year before this, and debuted as Michael Scott in The Office the next year. His supreme idiocy as Brick Tamland makes him the most quotable next to Ferrell. “Where'd you get your clothes... from the... toilet store?” Paul Rudd had already been working pretty regularly, but this started a recurring collaboration with producer Judd Apatow, with the two going on to work together on The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and This is 40. I don’t know if I’ve ever disliked Paul Rudd in a movie, and while Brian Fantana is not quite as consistently quotable as Brick, the Sex Panther cologne joke is one I’ve personally quoted the most. “60 percent of the time it works…every time.”

A couple smaller supporting roles were played by actors many know by name today, Seth Rogen and Kathryn Hahn, but I have to talk about one of the film’s most iconic scenes: the battle between the rival news stations. The first time I saw it my jaw literally dropped with how many recognizable actors showed up. Apatow and Ferrell and director Adam McKay made an Avengers-level comedic crossover before The Avengers was even a thing. It’s great that a couple of them like Luke Wilson and Tim Robbins come back again later for the film’s climax. Some of the jokes that I found the funniest as a kid/teen are in this scene and the one immediately after, like when Brick is just screaming and holding out a grenade or when Ron recommends he lay low afterward because he’s “probably wanted for murder.” After seeing the movie so many times and having grown up (somewhat) since my first viewing, I do find some jokes a little less funny after hearing them so many times over, but other comedic aspects stand out as even better with the passage of time.

In early Anchorman viewings, the parts my friend and I laughed at the hardest were any of Brick’s lines and another unexpected comic cameo. Ron accidentally throws a burrito at a biker played by Jack Black, causing him to crash, and when the biker punted Ron’s beloved dog Baxter off the bridge, we were in pain from laughter—then backed it up to watch it over again, just to laugh even harder. Now, some of the more underrated jokes and running gags stand out to me more than they used to, like with Fred Willard’s Ed Harken constantly on the phone about his delinquent son, or the fact it’s setup that Ron and his friends deliberately throw their food and garbage away carelessly, which results in the incident with the biker later. That said, Anchorman is considered one of the most quotable comedies for a reason. The dialogue is stupidly perfect—“It’s so damn hot! Milk was a bad choice!”—and there isn’t a single scene without a laugh-out-loud moment, for me.

Just like with The Naked Gun, Anchorman is a comedy that I can watch endlessly because there are just so many jokes and so many layers to what makes it funny. I could go on and on about all the parts that make me laugh, but what it comes down to is Anchorman just happened to be something that came along at the right time with the right combination of talented people. It may not be the most clever comedy I’ve ever seen, but it’s extremely effective, and makes me laugh right from the first moment with the title card that claims it’s based on a true story (just names, locations and events have been changed) to the end credit bloopers, which help emphasize how much comedy gold there was to mine with these actors working within this premise. “You stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy?”

“Dammit. Who typed a question mark on the Teleprompter?”