Trivia / Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

• All-Star Cast: This Frat Pack movie had nearly all the members (save Owen Wilson) playing a role.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • In a minor way. Ron's surprised statement, "Boy... That escalated quickly!" is often misquoted as a deadpan "Well, that escalated quickly..." instead.
  • Similarly, Ron's line, "I'm not even mad...that's amazing!" is often misquoted as, "I'm not mad...I'm impressed!"
• California Doubling: Much of the film was shot in Los Angeles and Glendale, on backlot sets designed to look like '70s San Diego, and additional outdoor shots were done in Long Beach.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Chris Parnell was originally considered for Brick Tamland before being cast as Garth.
  • Ben Stiller was originally considered for Brian Fantana. He makes a cameo as Arturo Mendes.
• The Cast Showoff: Will Ferrell has played flute since elementary school.
• Creator Couple: Adam McKay's wife, Shara Piven, plays the girl's mother.
• Defictionalization: You can buy Sex Panther in real life. Fortunately, it's a fairly normal aftershave, rather than the horror described in the film.
• Deleted Scene: So many that they were able to make a whole other movie out of them.
• Deleted Role: Joe Flaherty had one as a Texas TV station manager whom Veronica Corningstone works for before joining Ron Burgundy and his crew. A bit of Actor Allusion as Flaherty was previously best known for playing corrupt TV network owner/president Guy Caballero, among other roles, on SCTV.
• Development Hell: The sequel. Paramount had expressed interest then lost it then renewed interest...then stepped off again...and finally greenlit the project come 2012, over seven years after the first movie.
• Fake Nationality: Ben Stiller has a cameo as a Mexican newsreader for a Spanish-language station.
• Focus Group Ending: Bad test audience reactions more or less shaped it into an entirely different movie. Originally, the film centered around a group of bank robbers calling themselves 'the Alarm Clock' — yes, the footage that became the direct-to-video film Wake Up, Ron Burgundy! When this story failed to strike a chord with audiences, all references to the Alarm Clock were removed, and a sizeable chunk of the film was reshot to include the familiar panda subplot. Also, Baxter (initially a large, masculine dog) became little, fuzzy and cute, adding another memorable element to the film.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Like many of the films that Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow would go on to create throughout the rest of the decade, the final film is the result of hours upon hours of improvisation and multiple-rapid-fire takes of the same gags (aka "Line-O-Rama") being edited into a feature presentation.
• Missing Trailer Scene: A good portion of scenes from the trailers were omitted from the final cut. These scenes include Burgundy taking a bullet for Veronica, and a later shot of him and her emerging from a television van to a cheering crowd, with Burgundy visibly showing a bandaged wound. The line where Ron asks Garth about his divorce while at a party, is also missing. Other shots cut include Ron walking into a filing cabinet and falling over, alternate dialogue when Ron asks Veronica what her dream is, Veronica and Ron tackling each other on the conference room table, collapsing (with Ron shouting "Let's make a baby!"), Ron admiring his own billboard, asking Ed Harken what a "lead" is, sitting by a poolside, standing by the side of the road with a long beard and guitar on his back trying to hitchhike, and others.
• Real-Life Relative: Adam McKay's daughter, Lili Rose, makes a cameo as a girl insulting Ron while he's walking on the street.
• Star-Making Role: While Elf had proven that Will Ferrell could carry a feature, this was the film that made him a star as both an actor and a creative force, as it would define the particular comedic niche he'd become famous for throughout the rest of the 2000s. It was also one of David Koechner's first big roles and helped put Steve Carell on the map.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Will Ferrell and Adam McKay took the script to several studios before DreamWorks SKG that all turned it down. Even DreamWorks SKG only greenlit the film after Old School became a hit.
  • During the production, a lot of alternate takes were produced and a lot of plotlines were cut, including a major plotline about an inept terrorist organization known as "The Alarm Clock". So many, in fact, that instead of being included in a Director's Cut version, they were edited together to produce a Direct-to-DVD sequel Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie.
  • Champ Kind was initially written with John C. Reilly in mind, but he was busy working on The Aviator. (Reilly would eventually appear in the sequel as the ghost of Stonewall Jackson.)
  • Ed Harris for Ed Harken, Dan Aykroyd for Garth Holliday, and Alec Baldwin for Frank Vitchard.
  • The script specified another member of the news team, Marshall Connors, with William H. Macy suggested for the part.
  • Maggie Gyllenhaal auditioned for Veronica.
  • The original producer was, of all people, Paul Thomas Anderson. In fact, he instigated the film! After director McKay and Ferrell wrote a different screenplay and couldn't get it greenlit, Anderson said that they should make a new script and whatever they made, he'd produce it. For one reason or another, he couldn't produce after all.
  • Adam McKay has said that in the first draft of the script, the story was about a planeload of news anchors who crash in the mountains and discover that the plane which they collided was carrying monkeys and martial arts equipment, leading to a battle between cannibalistic newsmen and star-throwing monkeys.
  • The scene with Jack Black as the biker was intended to go on a lot longer, but was heavily trimmed down for the final product. The original version of the scene can be seen here.

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