Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a master class in improvisation, as much of the dialogue was adlibbed by its actors. There was so much improv that it even has an alternate version, Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, which is made up of the same scenes just with completely different lines of dialogue.
While all of the actors did an incredible job at keeping up with the rapid-fire improv master Will Ferrell, nobody in the movie is more quotable than the anchorman himself, Ron Burgundy. Even the sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, is full of memorable Ron lines, even if it doesn't quite touch on the magic of the original.
Anchorman is one of Will Ferrell's best movies, and though it's the gold standard for comedic improvisation, there are still some incredible set pieces and action sequences in it. Midway through the film, all of the anchors from different channels battle with a huge variety of weapons.
What follows is a hilarious debriefing of the battle in Ron's office, where they discuss Brick getting his hands on a grenade and stabbing somebody with a trident. It's at this point when Ron delivers some of the most sound advice he's ever given. But what makes it so funny is just how cavalier Ron, and the rest of the anchors are about the fact that Brick straight-up murdered somebody.
Though everybody who worked at the news channel was so thrown off by a woman having such a high-ranking role at the network, it didn't stop them from creepily hitting on her. Most of the humor in Anchorman comes from the fact that Ron thinks he's much more charming than he actually is, and that's on fine display here.
When Ron first meets Veronica Corningstone, he immediately attempts to use his status to seduce her, and it's made funnier by the fact that he fails miserably. The quote doesn't end there either, as he continues, "I am very important. I have many leatherbound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany," as if he genuinely thinks that pick-up line would ever work on anybody.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues heightened the relationship between Ron and Veronica. Now divorced but with a child, the mother and father obviously have two very contrasting ideas on how to raise the six-year-old son, Walter.
The quote comes when Veronica gets mad at Ron for essentially telling Walter that he'll never amount to anything and that if he's lucky, he'll work in the adult movie industry. Though the sequel isn't as celebrated as the original, the way Ron unapologetically exclaims this to a six-year-old is classic Anchorman comedy.
The vocal warm-ups in both movies are some of the best moments of the Anchorman series, and in those short scenes alone, there are enough iconic quotes to fill up a list. Between "The garden gnome had a normal-sized penis," and "They're coming in through the back door! Grab the children! Save the children!" it's a delight to watch Ron prepare to eloquently read the teleprompter.
But the most memorable of them all and one that has been quoted endlessly for close to 20 years is "The Human Torch was denied a bank loan." And strangely enough, it predicted the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though he isn't the Human Torch, the Falcon was denied a bank loan in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
The thread throughout the whole of the first Anchorman is misogyny, and the most obvious example of that is the very public fight that Ron and Veronica have in the middle of the office. After Ron exclaims that women have brains a third of the size of men's brains and claims that it's "science," his co-workers start to switch sides.
Clutching at straws and with nothing left to say, Ron is desperate to get one last insult in there. He resorts to childish playground insults and slut-shaming, with "smelly pirate hooker" the most famous of the lot.
Though audiences thought they saw the end of Baxter when he was literally dropkicked off of a bridge, that cut little Border Terrier was the source of so many jokes up to that point. There are many instances in which Ron speaks with Baxter as if the dog's barks translate to English and Ron can understand it.
It's another ingenious way of allowing Ferrell to adlib whatever he wants, as he can interpret the dog's barks as saying anything. In one scenario, according to Ron, Baxter starts barking in Spanish, and it's the most random line of dialogue that somehow made it into the main movie.
Ron Burgundy is a man of many talents, and one that appears almost out of nowhere is his ability to play the jazz flute. It's a hilarious scene that sees Ron playing the flute in incredibly awkward situations, as he walks over tables and even rolls under a toilet cubicle.
But what led to that moment is one of the best visual gags in the first movie. When being coerced into giving an impromptu performance by a nightclub owner, Ron explains that he's embarrassed and not prepared whilst pulling a foot-long flute out of his jacket sleeve.
2004's Anchorman is now a classic, and no classic is without an iconic catchphrase that everybody knows, even if they haven't seen the movie.
Every news anchor has a final signoff line, and in Ron Burgundy's case, it's "You stay classy, San Diego." It's one of the most iconic comedy catchphrases ever. And as Ron always has to have the last word, it's made even funnier when co-anchor Veronica adds her "...and thanks for stopping by," as it leads to another hilarious battle of the sexes.
Anchorman is a lowkey great drama with a life lesson that everyone can learn from, which is what can happen when fame absorbs a person's whole being. They get too big for their boots, become too much of a diva, and start rubbing people the wrong way, and in Ron Burgundy's case, it led to his downward spiral.
This perfectly summed up when Ron is in a telephone booth and yells that he's in a glass case of emotion when nothing is working out for him. Not only is it absurd and hilarious, but given that everybody's felt like the world is against them at least once, it's oddly relatable too.
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