For one thing, there’s the abundance of lines which barely register when you first hear them – “You stay classy, San Diego”, say, or “Sixty per cent of the time, it works every time” – but which have since been repeated often enough to assume catch-phrase status.įor another, there’s the film’s commitment to sheer nonsense. But there’s no doubt that Anchorman plays a good deal better at home, with a few beers and a few friends, than it did at the cinema.
Personally, I’m closer on the spectrum to the reviewers who shrugged in 2004 than to the fans who hail it as a masterpiece today. The movie’s ideas are none too fresh – the crazy sideburns and ugly neckties of the 1970s will only yield so much hilarity – but there is a reasonably high quotient of funny jokes and off-the-wall, nutty gags.” will nonetheless satisfy, for now, the national hunger for Will Ferrell’s special brand of goofiness. “Neither as crazy as Old School nor as charming as Elf”, wrote A O Scott in The New York Times, “this extended comedy sketch. At the time, Anchorman was greeted with a patronising half-smile by critics.
Resplendent in a red suit and a Tom Selleck moustache, he played a puffed-up 1970s San Diego newsreader, whose Scotch-guzzling, jazz flute-tootling confidence was dented when a woman (Christina Applegate) joined his channel’s on-air staff. For the benefit of the uninitiated, he was first sighted in 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. It’s a publicity blitz worthy of One Direction, but there’s no need to feel embarrassed if you’re still only vaguely aware of Burgundy’s existence.