The Anchorman Cast Couldn't Stop Laughing In An Unfortunately Deleted Scene
Can you believe that it's been nearly 20 years since "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" was released? The utterly gonzo workplace satire from Adam McKay and Will Ferrell is still probably the movie I've laughed the hardest at in the theater, and every time I have seen it since, I still weep from laughter. Obviously, lines like "Milk was a bad choice" and "60% of the time it works every time" are howlers, but it's even the small things, like the runner about Fred Willard being on the phone to his son's Catholic school about what a menace the kid is, still tickles me.
What I admire so much about "Anchorman" is for how expansive and crazy it is, the story it tells is actually quite focused, and the film comes in at a lean 94 minutes. For a Judd Apatow-produced movie, that is a minor miracle, as the films with his fingerprints on them routinely go over two hours and overstay their welcome. Not so here. But it very well could have.
There are entire plot lines and characters completely excised from the film, and you don't notice these missing pieces at all while watching the movie. But they had so much extra stuff that they were able to construct an entirely separate companion film of deleted scenes and alternate improvised sequences called "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie." All of the material in that film is still incredibly funny, but watching it, I am even more impressed with the film released in theaters and how not precious McKay was with the material, always wanting to make the best film. One deleted scene, however, was one of the scenes that made the entire cast laugh the hardest on set, and it's easy to see why.
A coffee filter burrito
One video I will always watch to lift my spirits is Steve Carell's audition for "Anchorman." Though he hadn't fully captured the Brick Tamland character yet, you see the pure comic genius of Carell as he mimes gagging while happily eating garbage, making everyone in the room absolutely lose it. It's brilliant. Carell's co-star Paul Rudd recalled to GQ that when it came time to actually shoot "Anchorman," this also was the scene that made them laugh the hardest during production:
"I think the scene we laughed the hardest — it was the first time I think even the crew was getting a little annoyed 'cause we just couldn't get through it — which was a scene of all of us sitting around a table, plotting how we were going to take down Veronica Corningstone. And Will [Ferrell] is asking Brick what he's eating, and Brick says, 'It's one of those delicious falafel hot dogs with cinnamon and bacon on top' ... [I]t looked like coffee, a real coffee filter, a cigarette butt, a wrapper, and then a dime. And every time Carell would take a bite of it, it was so repulsive, we'd all start laughing. We'd have to do it again, and then the build-up became funny."
And every time they did the scene, they would just laugh harder. Though the scene ultimately didn't make the final cut despite how funny it is, it does thankfully live on in "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy." A film like "Anchorman" can only sustain so many scenes of four guys sitting around doing nonsense before it feels self-indulgent and repetitive. I think it was the right choice to cut it, but I'm glad we can still enjoy it out of context as much as they did making it.