The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 17 - ‘Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy’

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1:02I have many leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany. Amanda, how do you feel about those facts? I didn't realize until I rewatched that I had that full speech memorized. Like I could, I could say it word for word, very important and important film, important text for our generation. Yes. Let's explore why that is the case, because I suspect we will be repeating a lot of lines of dialogue from this movie. As we talk about it, we do love lamp here. This movie was released on July 9th, 2004. Special time in my life. Was living in New York City. It is co-written and directed by Adam McKay.

1:39It's his directorial debut. After an incredible run at Saturday Night Live where he formed an extraordinary partnership and bond with the other co-writer and star of this movie, Will Ferrell. It also stars Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, Chris Parnell, Fred Willard, cameos galore. This is the beginning. The beginning of the Apatow McKay era of comedy, which also began to sort of suck up, hoover up and grow a great many stars. Basically for a 15 year period, I would say roughly through 2018, 2019. Right. And then the pandemic kind of killed it. Yeah. And then the slap put an end to that.

2:21Was it the slap that ended comedy? Well, I just kind of, yeah. Wow, the slap killed comedy. Yeah, I guess so. We've already made great progress here on this episode of 25 for 25. So let's talk about it. This was a tricky one to choose because there are a number of representative mega comedies from this era. There's The Hangover. There's other Pharoah McKay projects like Talladega Nights or Step Brothers. There's This Is The End. There's Forgetting Sarah Marshall. There's... We could go on and on. Really the entire Apatow universe. 40-Year-Old Virgin. Yeah. Knocked Up. Girls Trip. And I think the most egregious.

3:00And what was the alternative on the list for me? Superbad. Right. So let's go there. Superbad was, I think, the leader in the clubhouse at the start. We made a couple of pivots over time. I think we made the right decision because of everything that this movie brings together. And it is the starting point both for Aptow Universe, Adam McKay Universe. It brings in the tail end of the SNL stuff. Mean Girls is another movie, spoiler, that's not on our list. But is a... Was a contender. Yeah, and is an SNL figure transitioning in a different way to the big screen. So you have everything in this one movie.

3:38But yeah, Superbad's not on our list. So I feel sad about that. I feel sad about it too. I love that movie very much. Superbad, obviously, I don't believe would be possible without this movie and without Judd Apatow. You know, this is not the first thing Judd Apatow did by any stretch of the imagination. but I think what it showed is his great strength colliding with another great filmmaker strength and then making something very special and unique. Apatow had been making television and movies in the 90s, you know, but this style of filmmaking that he pursues, which is very improv-based, which is very manic and absurdist, hitting with McKay, who had a ton of experience writing sketch and a ton of experience performing in sketch on stage, those two energies fit together beautifully.

4:21Right. The other thing is that Apatow was a concept guy and McKay is an idea guy. You know what I mean when I say that? Yes. So, you know, Apatow is really good at saying like, what if this was the situation? And McKay is really good at dumping thematic stuff into those concepts. versus theme exactly right so this is both a funny setup and like in a world you want to be in and crucially like a setup that can sustain the whole movie where a lot of snl to movie uh pivots are just an snl sketch that we just do for sometimes two and a half hours which is inexplicable um but so the premise works and then mckay is there is like no this is about you know sexism and and chauvinism in the 70s and can craft the comedy correctly and um and like and make it be about something while also being funny and also crucially edit it so this is the other thing i i i had allotted like three hours to re-watch this and because in my mind it was one of the late apatow production like bloated forever and ever and the improv just goes on 90 minutes god bless you it's a lean machine yeah exactly now that being said we know that they made a lot more movie totally um there are a lot of cut scenes and bloopers there's an extended edition that i think is five minutes longer the unrated edition and then there is also a movie that is now available called wake up ron which is an entire other movie that they cut together that i would say has less narrative strand right sure um but nevertheless like it's just rippling with jokes has got a ton of material And this is what these guys do.

6:01They write a lot. Yeah. And then they improv a lot. And then they collide it all together. This film is simultaneously feels like, I don't want to say the cheapest, but the sort of like the most fly by night, the least like hard studio movie out of this generation. Yeah. It's got a silliness to it, but also has kind of a really strong core at the center of it because it has real relationships between real people that is kind of keeping you invested in the story while the joke machine flies at you. So this is my favorite comedy of the century. I think it's representative of something that is great, but also to sit inside of it and watch it is just fun.

6:42Yeah. Do you want to speak on Will Ferrell and what he means to you? Sure. This is not the first movie that he co-wrote. He co-wrote a movie in 1998 called The Night at the Roxbury, which was based. I can't do it. Like, which way? It's hard. Yeah. I think that's it. Based on a sketch about guys in a club. Sure. He, Chris Kattan, and the eventual, you know, whoever the guest was that week, Jim Carrey famously participated in a funny Night at the Roxbury sketch where he kind of out-Roxburied Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan. That's an interesting example of what you just cited, which is that Will Ferrell, when he hit Saturday Night Live in the 90s, was a supernova.

7:16He was an instantaneous megastar. He felt like, to me, he was the heir apparent to Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy. And you could say John Belushi before him. And to me, that's the heir when I came in. So Will Ferrell is like my SNL star forever. Yes. And that's a great stretch of SNL. Obviously, we remember it fondly because we were adolescent. But, you know, the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler stretch. But then there's also Jimmy Fallon. And then there's folks like Sherry Oteri, Horatio Sands. Very, very good. The Spartans. Yes. And the cheerleaders, which is one of the things that vaulted Will Ferrell to mega fame, among many other characters that he created, many of whom were created with Adam McKay.

7:54So for me, he was an icon. He is my favorite SNL cast member, aside from Phil Hartman. Like he is just, he was an immediate rock star, but that didn't mean that he was an immediate movie star. and the jump has proved has foiled many people it has and he I think he did some interesting things he had a very memorable cameo in a movie that I think is a nice setup for this movie which is Austin Powers International Man of Mystery where he plays I think his name is Mustafa he culturally appropriated and was wearing what are those hats called the red hat with the you know what I'm talking about that's not his name in Zoolander what's his name in Zoolander isn't that Mugatu yes you're right thank you okay yeah so i mean we're like edging on you know and it's again 2000s very different a lot of appropriation going on it's possible that that character in austin powers is meant to be white but he's informed by a certain kind of james bond villain okay um nevertheless he's really really funny in that movie and he gets a very small role where he's like i'm badly hurt at the bottom of the whatever where whatever trap door he's falling down um but night at the roxbury was like a reach it didn't work it was it was what you described it was a stretched out sketch and he needed a vehicle that was more appropriate for his how to describe his essence i think he is the ultimate full of it man baby you know he is the overconfident idiotic representation of false masculinity right and or his performance let's not let's not Not as a man.

9:30Slammer Will Ferrell. Yeah. Not as a man. I do. I want to talk a little bit about him and McKay's dynamic, especially since they no longer work together. I know, which is sad. And what they gave to each other and kind of what they mean to each other. But I find him to be funny in a primal way. I tend to intellectualize these things and verbalize these things as much as I can. Right. But he has something that just makes me happy. Yes. I mean, it is presence. There's physicality. There's what he does with his voice. And the Steve Carell performance in this is also early Steve Carell and very funny and is playing with volume, which I associate with Steve Carell now.

10:09But I realized watching this again, I was like, oh, OK, so that is first and foremost a Will Ferrell thing and weird sounds. And it's like pre-language in some ways, his level of humor. He's the Crow Mag non-comedy man. Yes, but it speaks to us on that level. I'm in a glass cage of emotion. Obviously him shouting just makes people laugh. Get off the shed. All the SNL sketches are born of him seeming calm and then quickly losing his shit. Ron Burgundy especially, presentational character that he is. He's a 1970s newscaster. I'll describe the setup of the movie for anybody who has not seen Anchorman, which is, I don't know who that is.

10:50Is anybody alive who hasn't seen Anchorman? Anybody at least under the age of 20 maybe hasn't seen it. Um, hotshot television anchorman Ron Burgundy welcomes upstart reporter Veronica Corningstone into the male-dominated world of 1970s broadcast news. That is until the talented female journalist begins to outshine Burgundy on air. Soon he grows jealous, begins a bitter feud with Veronica, and eventually makes a vulgar slip on live TV that ruins his career. However, when an outrageous story breaks at the San Diego Zoo, Ron may get a chance to redeem himself. So, we can talk about the reasons why we added this movie to the list.

11:24One is obviously the Apatow-McKay collision, which kicks off an era of comedy, right? The other is obviously Will Ferrell movie star. He goes on to make some of... Is he the signature comedy star of the 21st century? I think is an interesting question to explore. Right. I mean, Vince Vaughn being in this is another one because you get old school and Wedding Crashers very soon after that. no one from Hangover is in this. So, and those I feel are sort of like the tentpole. Those are the big box office sensations. At least at the first 10 years, right? But to us, probably, because Will Ferrell's also an old school.

12:12What else do we have? I mean, Step Brothers. Step Brothers is the only other one besides Superbad that I seriously considered. I mean, I also, when we were doing our like you know a devil's advocate i was like are we sure it shouldn't be stepbrothers instead of anchorman and i think that you have to be a little boring when you're making this listen like anchorman brings together all the themes and everything we're talking about and stepbrothers is just like uh it is like performance art it is like avant-garde almost it is but is really really really funny i love it we did a rewatch about it many many years ago i don't want to say there's less to talk about with stepbrothers and that being the reason why we didn't choose it but it does feel like you are watching a live exhibit of some kind you know like them kind of like going to the absolute ends of their quest for the like lost masculinity of the american man in the 21st century as opposed to a movie like this which actually is maybe just like a little bit thematically richer plus this movie also has christina applegate yeah um which is the kind of performance that we do not have in Step Brothers.

13:19There's not a lot of female depth explorer. It's true. There were a couple of other movies that I considered. 21 Jump Street, which I think is very, very well liked. Really, really funny. By me as well. Yeah. And we have no, like Jonah Hill is not represented here in either Superbad nor 21 Jump Street. Once upon a time, he was a huge comedy star. It's okay. No spoilers, but Jonah will be back. He will be back. Tropic Thunder. Yeah. This one... Not a big one for you? No, I'm like, I, I, I know it's importance. But as a, as a, as a fan of movie documentaries, Tom Cruise, inspired by hearts of darkness.

13:59Wasn't there at that time. Like it's good, but it's not on the level of, of, of really any of, and it's not like culturally significant in the way that Anchorman, Superbad, Knocked Up, Hangover. over like those were really at the center of pop culture for a while they they felt to me forgive this comparison because it's gonna annoy you but they felt to me what it was like to go to marvel movies in like the late 2010s yeah no i get it where it was like friday night is a party everyone is everyone knows when the movie's coming out and they're excited and it is loud in the theater with laughter and they also like we had like so many like discussions and think pieces about, you know, like, is Knocked Up sexist and, like, all these sorts of things.

14:45Like, we were... The fan culture was different, but the fan culture was applied to these movies. It was. And now it's to Marvel. These were very bro-y and very white movies. There's no doubt about it. And they received a lot of criticism in the aftermath of their success, the same way that basically, like, every generation of comedy bro gets their criticism. This one's interesting to me, though, because it's an open acknowledgement of the quote-unquote problem with these movies, with culture, with American life. It's one of the best things about it. It's like a very nifty comedic, like not even trick.

15:21I think it takes a lot of work. They are the men, the sexist buffoons, like they are the topic of the joke, but they are also the butt of the joke. And so quickly and in like in any other hands, you would be asked to laugh at their sexist jokes, you know and that would be the thing that you're you're that is supposed to be quote unquote funny and somehow in this movie they are like they are being gross and it is a send-up of 70s like and and just general chauvinist culture but like the joke is always on them and that's really hard to do i agree i think it would not work without exactly feral at the center of it you know without somebody who basically is comfortable being the butt of the joke but who has his physique and is willing to have his shirt off all the time.

16:06You know what I mean? Who is willing to have an erection in a sequence and be the object of embarrassment. I mean, I agree with you that it's like a very effective idea movie in that way. I think it's also like ensembles are hard to do in comedy and a lot of movies try to ape this. And this is a collection of people who like, even if they didn't work together a lot after this, all were kind of destined to be in a movie together in some ways. Like Paul Rudd had been in comedies before this, but not quite like this. Not like Sex Panther. Not in this register specifically. Sex Panther is the part of the movie when Zach, who was eager to watch this one with me, was just like speechless convulsed, you know?

16:51Just like literally couldn't breathe. 60 % of the time it works every time. I think the other thing too is that it's in a really great tradition of movies like Airplane, like Mel Brooks movies, like the Marx Brothers, like Jerry Lewis, where it's just like joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. You don't get to go more than 90 seconds, even if something incredibly dramatic has just happened, without getting hit with a joke. Which, I actually don't know how that has aged, for lack of a better word. I don't know if that brand of comedy, obviously our consumption patterns, the way we use our phones and the way we like look at TikTok, for example, works in the same way, but not in sustained spaces.

17:35Like we've been lamenting the loss of the studio comedy for 10 years now. Yeah. And the like people laughing over a joke in a movie theater thing. You must remember this as like an issue, especially for a movie like this that is so loaded. Yes. But I mean, it just is kind of like rolling. And in the movie theater, it's so loud that, you know, it just keeps going and it builds also. And what's interesting to me about it is you mentioned that there are like actual relationships between people and ideas in this. But the comedy like never stops to have a moment of like, you know, what is Veronica like going to you know, what's she going to do and how it is.

18:17It must be really hard to. That's all in the movie. But she's also making fun of herself or the movie is. She's playing the comedy of it. Yeah, exactly. And the movie is playing the comedy of it. And it does somehow manage to, you know, it's like it's funny that they're so hot for each other. And that is like part of the joke. So you don't have to go into some like actual emotional development that's believable. I don't really know whether movie audiences allow for that anymore. in the same way? It's a good question. I wonder because... I wish they would. I think you and I would, but all our Marxist materialist girls, I don't know.

18:54You know what I'm saying? I do. We can't make movies based on that, though. I feel like, oddly, this movie has more respect for its audience because it doesn't pretend to have this false, dramatic sense of urgency. You and I agree, but I do think people expect a speech where the moral is read aloud to them. Yeah, it's just not necessary because... For example, let's take a scene. The scene when Veronica arrives into San Diego and she doesn't know the town well. She's just come in from a different place where she had been working as a newscaster. And Ron wants to take her out on a date. But he's using it as a sort of like, let me show you around the town.

19:34And he takes her to the overlook where you would presumably make out with someone. And he delivers this famous San Diego, you know, founded by the Germans in 19... You know, you don't once you have that scene where she's smarter than him, you know, whale's vagina, all that stuff. It kind of eradicates the necessity of any overwritten speech about what this movie is really about. This guy's a fucking buffoon. He's kind of at the absolute core kind of sweet. You know, like he does. He loves his dog. He. Yes, he does. He loves his dog. And as you know, I have a complicated relationship with the deployment of animals and pets in movies.

20:17But this is perfectly done. Yeah. And also funny. Well, the real dramatic hinge of the movie is not Veronica versus Ron. It's Ron throwing a burrito at Jack Black on a motorcycle. Jack Black skidding out and then going over to Ron. First of all, Jack Black's character asking Ron, what do you love? and Ron's immediate response is, I love poetry. It always gets me. But then him grabbing Baxter, his little dog, and punting him off of the side of a bridge. And then that's sending Ron into a tailspin, which then disallows him from reading the news that day. Sure. That being the narrative crux of the movie is fucking hilarious.

20:59And then also setting up the final resolution of the movie, which is Baxter, bless him, still alive. And can speak bear and comes to save them. It's an amazing movie. Even the bear and dog dialogue in Sotel is so funny. It is truly ridiculous. I will tell tales of your compassion or whatever. We all live in the animal kingdom. It's really funny. If you want to throw down fisticuffs, fine. I've got Jack Johnson and Tom O 'Leary waiting for you right here. it's rare that a movie from this century for me can conjure the desire to just say movie dialogue men saying movie dialogue together and I'm not gender essentializing I'm merely speaking of my experiences is just that is a love language a friendship that is a way to communicate with your boys and I don't have it as much anymore now there are like a million reasons for it we don't have as many comedies I live in a house with two women and not my boys anymore I am in my 40s and that would seem a little bit ridiculous.

22:04Although, I found myself in Atlanta with my brother and we shared a room in a hotel. That's very cute. And we just said big Lebowski dialogue to each other the whole time. That's really nice. So, you know, it's still, it's very deep, but it's still there. I always, like, try to do that, but there's no one else who has my references, you know? So where do you go? You know, like, no one, you know, everywhere in LA is 20 minutes. What's that from? I know where that's from. Yeah, see, there we go. It's done. What is it? clueless come on but I have like a lot of I have things that are either it's basically you've got male or clueless that I repeat as if everybody would know it you need more clueless gal pals well I know clueless is a very popular thing I do know that but it's not wired in us to be speaking the same way you might just be stuck working at the ringer yes I know it's kind of an issue yeah it's a problem refresh your good vibes with Tic Tac with the right vibes oh man

23:24Talk to me about Christine Applegate before, because I feel like she's come up in the past and you've been like, eh, a little bit, like she's not my favorite, but I feel like this is... That's unfair. Okay, tell me. I don't know. I guess that this is this is probably my number one connection because I married with children was not in. We just didn't watch it. She's fantastic in this. Amazing. Really, really funny. And like Veronica has like a very hard job of hanging with, you know, 45 men. She is like in in this the script in the movie has like a lot more love for her and wants to help her. but it's like you have to play the the sexist interloper you know like you got to get it just right and she does she's hilarious she is lit so beautifully i just want to say that whoever did that and he can did a really good job she looks gorgeous that first scene when they're cutting at the party when they're cutting between her and feral i'm like okay so we have different setups yes he doesn't get the same lighting treatment which is i think purposeful and adds to the text but she looks great.

24:28I think it must be really... I mean, comedy is hard. I think comedy is hard. Also, these people also, all the men have worked together or have some sort of training together and she's coming in. So hats off to her. It's really good. There's not a lot of female comedy actresses that have her bona fides, her experience. You know, she obviously... I think she's a bit underrated in that she comes from a tradition of like Carol Lombard, Marilyn Monroe, you know, the like the stunning blonde. Yes. Who can hang with the boys, so to speak. Who's just as funny. Who's just as funny as all of them. And I think this movie for a certain generation of guys, maybe just a little bit younger than me, is like the first time that they ever saw her.

25:14But it wasn't just Married with Children. It was like, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. It was Sweetest Thing. It was like there were a bunch of movies that were happening in the 90s and the 2000s where she was the lead of the movie. She was the lead of movies when she was like 20 years old. So she's an old hand, so to speak. And she's also like won an Emmy, Golden Globes, Tony's like she's extremely accomplished. She's not as much in the culture because she was diagnosed with MS. And so she doesn't perform nearly as much as she used to. but I think her character is pretty well written because it also doesn't she doesn't take herself too seriously like very early on in the film she gets to do voiceover which shifts the perspective pretty dramatically in the movie and then she says this is definitely a man's world but while they're laughing and grab assing I'm chasing down leads and practicing my non-regional diction you know there's like a recognition of the fact that she also is like kind of an insecure hustler just like all these other guys so as much as the movie is about the fragility of the male psyche even in the 1970s when men ran everything.

26:19It's also about her own vulnerability, fragility. I even think that the scene like the end of their night out when she is like desperately attracted him and is like but I never mixed professional and something she is playing that as a parody of that type of woman who's been in that situation before and she's also weak and can't help it so it's it's very funny. The rest of the cast is a pretty amazing collection of people who are great with like three shots a night. Yeah. You know, Fred Willard in a, in a kind of a glory third generation. He's already smoking the Christopher guest movies by this point after all of his years in comedy.

27:06It's one of the first times I can remember seeing Catherine Han. Oh, interesting. This is 2004. so you wouldn't have seen How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days before this? I probably did. Okay. Well, she is a very vital and memorable... Is she best friend? She's the one who keeps doing everything wrong. And she's like calling and crying and being like, I showed up at his door after one coffee. Are you surprised at all that Katherine Hahn has emerged as an icon? No. I get it. I love her. Her funniest performance to me is in Step Brothers. That's where she's at her best. But I like that she gets to do other things now.

27:46And I'm like, I'm very drawn to her. I mean, never forget her performance on the Bill Simmons podcast where she read her husband's letter. That was elite stuff. That's that's a comedy icon. She's an excellent podcast guest. She's also in the meme. Is is she staring at Rachel Weisz like very lovingly during one of the roundtables? Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's you relate to that. I really relate to that. But listen, she has range. She has longevity. She does. I have been with Katherine Hahn since the beginning. You mentioned Carell. The Office was on at this time, was it not? I'm trying to think. What year did the American Office launch?

28:24American sitcom. 2005. So no, this was before. Yeah, so this would have been Daily Show and he was familiar. Interesting. But not before. This is before Office and before 40-Year-Old Virgin. Well, thank you for saying The Daily Show because that's also an important part of this The fake news as an idea. And that's something that obviously SNL had been doing for years with Weekend Update. But that being a part of the culture and also at a time, even though this movie, I would not say is overtly politically about America in 2004. Right. This era of everyone in charge is a fucking moron. Yes. Which then would go on to become kind of definitional to what Adam McKay's movies were.

29:04it being steeped in that without being about that I think also hugely helps the movie absolutely so let's talk about McKay a little bit um it's been on the show a couple times I really like Adam's movies I think he has taken a turn in the culture sure where he takes more blows than he used to yeah well I you know you're just if you're tweeting about the politics of wicked once again everybody that we've just talked about apatow adam mckay just you hit twitter you post too much and then things fall that's a big part of it that's a big part of it i think if you don't and obviously i think both of those guys would say it's my duty to speak out about what i think is wrong in the world but i think most people in the world perceive their duty to be to entertain them and there's a there's a right tension there yeah um i think Adam as a filmmaker, the more he's gotten interested in his ideas and less interested in the comedy, people have been a little bit confused as kind of like what he wants, what he's going for.

30:05Does he want to be strictly an ideologue? Does he want to be somebody who thinks entertainment first? You know, him and Farrell were very, very special together. Right. And, you know, there's some suggestion that the Winning Time series was where things got a little bit fractured between them. They obviously had a company together for many years. Gary Sanchez Productions which produced a ton of really funny movies. They're still like the Gloria Sanchez arm of the company. They're still producing stuff but not necessarily in tandem the way that they used to. Remember the landlord? Yeah. I mean that digital comedy, you know, the online viral comedy thing.

30:43They helped launch that. Was that Adam's Daughter? I think so. They My money! There is a long tradition of the kind of like festering, angry comedy writer at SNL going all the way back to Michael O'Donohue powering the dopey tall guy, you know, the Chevy Chases of the world and making them an avatar for the idiocy of the world at large. One of the key roles that Farrell played when he was on the show was George W. Bush. George W. Bush is a target of Anchorman. He is the kind of person that this movie is about. And modeled and, you know, maybe not the look specifically, but certainly the affect, the staring into the camera and we'll say whatever's on the prompter and won't even think about it.