Jeremy’s Tophunder №47: Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy

Anchorman is one of those movies that I’ve seen so many times, I can’t actually remember the first time I ever saw it. If this list were a ranking of movies I’ve seen the most often, it would almost certainly crack the top 10.

It’s a movie which, for a decent chunk of time, held the title of “The Funniest Movie I’ve Ever Seen.” As my sense of humor has evolved, I’d say it probably doesn’t hold that title anymore, but the movie came out when I was 14 years old, and it’s one of the funniest movies of the last 40 years. Just a perfect storm for a movie hitting a person at the right time in their life. At one point in time, it would have been ranked as the highest comedy on my list, and probably in the top 15 or 20 overall. Now, it clocks in as the fifth-highest comedy, and manages to sneak into the top 50 overall.

Here are some brief, scattered, barely organized thoughts about my 47th-favorite movie:

1. I know I’ve expressed this before in various ways, but still, to this day, nothing gets me fired up quite like Paul Rudd banging his fist onto the desk and screaming “He’s gonna put Corningstone on!”
2. Speaking of Paul Rudd (and, while we’re at it, Steve Carell), how incredible is it that two guys who would go on to become A-List comedy stars in their own right played two supporting roles and each absolutely knocked them out of the park? It almost makes you wonder what happened to David Koechner’s career.
3. At the time the movie came out, it seems like everybody’s favorite part was when the news team broke the fourth wall to introduce themselves at the party. While those quick monologues still hold up for the most part (they’re a bit over-quoted at this point but that’s not the point), I’d highly recommend watching Brick Tamland’s again and notice how it starts with Steve Carell calmly and matter-of-factly spooning Mayonnaise into a toaster oven.
4. I can’t think of any other movie — ever — that made better use of cameos. Danny Trejo as the bartender. Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, and my personal favorite — Tim Robbins — as rival news anchors. Jack Black on a motorcycle. Judd Apatow even appeared as an employee of the news station (he’s the one that says Sex Panther smells like a turd covered in burnt hair).
5. Ron Burgundy’s vocal warm-up remains one of my favorite movie scenes ever. Director Adam McKay (that’s five-time Academy Award-nominated Adam McKay to you, by the way) was sitting behind the camera feeding lines to Will Ferrell, and these are just the ones that ended up in the final cut. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of the internet, there’s a super-cut of McKay feeding lines and Ferrell doing his best to not just lose it. It’s like 20 minutes long. I looked for the better part of an hour but couldn’t find it. Alas.
6. Christina Applegate! She kind of came out of nowhere and delivered a great performance. Obviously, she did 10 years on Married With Children, but I never watched that show so I don’t think I had ever seen her before. And we really haven’t seen her since. She popped up in 2011 with Hall Pass (a perfectly watchable movie that didn’t have a prayer of cracking my Top 100), but I’d imagine that the only things most people would know her from are the 250+ episodes of a 90s sitcom, one of the funniest movies ever, and the (still underrated) sequel to one of the funniest movies ever. Not a bad career.
7. The reason its fallen so far down the list? It just got kinda old. Some of the most popular bits have been played out, the funniest lines were over-quoted by literal everyone (myself included, and I’m probably more guilty than most if anything). There are just some parts that on first viewing are legitimately can’t-breathe laughs, but at this point they’re only mildly funny. Considering the list factors in re-watchability, comedies just aren’t going to clock in quite as high — they lose some of their heat every time you see it. Don’t get me wrong — there are still some points of the movie that absolutely murder me, but they’re fewer and farther between than they once were.
8. On the other hand, I couldn’t let it fall too far for the simple reason that it’s an era-defining comedy. It’s unquestionably the role that Will Ferrell (one of, if not the de facto comedy star of the last 20 years) is best known for. The movie, and a lot of it’s biggest lines have been fully absorbed by the popular culture. 60 percent of the time, it works every time. I love lamp. A whale’s vagina. Tits McGee. I’m kind of a big deal. Milk was a bad choice. The party with the pants. I’m not even mad — that’s amazing. Boy, that escalated quickly! LOUD NOISES! Are they over-used to the point that they aren’t that funny in the actual movie anymore? Absolutely. (Except Tits McGee and Milk Was A Bad Choice. Those always get me.) But the point is, they were so hilarious and iconic that we, as a society, decided “yeah, we’re just gonna start using that all the time.” That’s the mark of a great movie, especially a great comedy.

Is Anchorman as good as it was when I first saw it? No. But is it an iconic comedy that can still make me laugh out loud enough that I disrupt the other people working from home around me? Apparently, yes. I re-watched it today and it still hits. For a movie that at one point in time I would have considered my favorite comedy ever, I couldn’t drop it below the top half of the list. And so, it clocks in at №47 overall.

If you want a refresher on the project and the process, you can check out my Facebook post about it. Here’s what the list looks like so far:

47. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy