|
Issue Date: March 6, 2005
DVD BONUS
Anchors away
A CNN journalist comments on the newsroom satire "Anchorman."
Soledad O'Brien says most anchors aren't as obsessed with their hair as Ferrell's character is.
|
The plot: Will Ferrell is Ron Burgundy, a chauvinistic news anchor in 1970s San Diego. Ambitious reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) enters the picture and challenges Burgundy, on and off camera.
Commentator's credentials: Soledad O'Brien co-anchors "American Morning" and is a columnist for USA WEEKEND.
Overview: "It's hilarious. Most of the anchormen I've worked with weren't as hysterically funny as Will Ferrell. But I have to say, all my early suits were like Christina Applegate's. They screamed, 'I'm a TV anchor!' Very bright colors."
Scene 3: Pool Party -- A woman tells Burgundy she's had a crush on him since she was little.
"People come up and say random things like that all the time. I get invited to the prom every couple years."
Scene 16: Bad Hair -- A brawl erupts after Corningstone insults Burgundy's 'do.
"This is where they took a lot of liberties. All the men I work with could care less about their hair. No one has ever said anything about my hair, and I've had some pretty bad hair days. If one of your peers says, 'I didn't think that was a good story,' and it was true, that would hurt a lot more."
Scene 17: Ron Gets Canned -- Burgundy reads a sabotaged teleprompter verbatim, scandalizing San Diego.
"You don't rely on teleprompters, because you have to know the story. But I did work at a station where the anchor would read anything you put on the teleprompter. If the script said someone else's name, like, 'I'm so-and-so with the evening news,' he'd make them change it. He couldn't ad-lib his own name."
-- Melanie D.G. Kaplan
|
