A Scott Pukos Pop-Ed: Scotchy Scotch Scotch: Ron Burgundy and the 'Anchorman' Crew Nailed It Again

I was one of the first to arrive at the pants party. On a related note, I also joined the bandwagon for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy during its early stages. During summer 2004, my twin brother and I made it a goal to check out as many movies as we could. After enjoying a successfully wacky comedy about dodgeball earlier in the summer, we were eager to see if the new Will Ferrell movie could live up to the Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughan film (Spoiler: It did).

We saw Anchorman during its opening weekend (a decision I did not immediately regret), and it instantly became one of my favorite comedies. It was consistently hilarious and caused some serious belly laughs (mainly the Baxter punt scene and the news brawl).

It remained comedic genius upon repeated viewers, and as word of mouth spread, the legend of Ron Burgundy, Champ Kind, Brian Fantana and Brick Tamland grew. Funny lines turned into brilliant lines, and eventually they transformed into classic lines. One of my favorite things to do in the newsroom is to randomly yell out, “News team, ASSEMBLE!” Today, if someone tells you they haven’t seen Anchorman, you’d probably gasp and perhaps even exclaim, “Great Odin’s raven!”

I guess what I’m basically saying is, I was super pumped for Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. For me, it may have been the most anticipated movie of the year. Ferrell was everywhere — in character — to promote the sequel. Seeing him on ESPN, local news broadcasts, talk shows, basically everywhere, irked some. Not me though. I loved it all. Sixty percent of the time the sound of Ron’s voice makes me laugh all the time.

Upon first viewing of the sequel, I don’t think I laughed as much as I did on that first glimpse of the original. Of course, that was in 2004, nostalgia could have warped my memory. Still, the sequel didn’t have as many of those laughing-so-hard-you-cry scenes as the original. Having said that, it was very funny.

Anchorman 2 was best when it stuck with its own jokes, not when it simply tried to outdo jokes from the original (with the possible exception of Brian’s condom collection … that may have been even funnier than Sex Panther cologne). Giving Brick a love interest was hit or miss too — most of the hits came simply because Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig are two of the funniest people around.

A minor complaint: Not enough Baxter in this one. He didn’t even get a chance to eat a whole wheel of cheese! And the ending? Boy, THINGS ESCALATED QUICKLY.

The blu-ray release for Anchorman 2 should be interesting. It seems there is a lot of extra footage — some reports said there was enough for a whole other film. Which isn’t surprising since there was a second film made from the discarded plot of the original Anchorman. That movie — Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie — was probably best left on the cutting room floor (to be fair, I only saw it once).

Overall, Anchorman 2 stays classy. I haven’t seen all the comedies this year, but as of now, I rank it second behind This Is The End in the Best Comedy Oscar race. Basically, if you loved the 2004 classic, you’ll laugh at this one too. If you can’t stand the first one, then clearly you should just stay home, drink Scotch and skip this one. Oh, and stay until after the credits. There’s a brief scene — it’s nothing groundbreaking — but it put a smile on my face.