1. Co-writer and director Adam McKay has stated that the idea for the film that would become Anchorman came about after,
"Will [Ferrell] saw an interview with a 70s anchorman, talking about how sexist they were. And it was that tone of voice he loved."Who that anchorman was? Well, prior to the release of the 2013 sequel to Anchorman retired news anchor Mort Crim, best known for his work at KYW-TV in Philadelphia and WDIV in Detroit, confirmed that he was chosen by Ferrell as the inspiration for Ron Burgundy.
2. According to Mr. Burgundy himself, Ron's full name is Ronald Joseph Aaron Burgundy.
3. Among Mort Crim's colleagues during his time in Philadelphia was Jessica Savitch, who would later go on to a prominent role at NBC News. Savitch served as a model for the character of Veronica Corningstone, played by Christina Applegate.
4. San Diego is such an important part of Anchorman, but in the original draft of the script it is nowhere to be seen. In fact, writer/director Adam McKay revealed that the first draft of the film didn't even take place in America. Instead the story opened with two planes colliding and crash landing in a remote mountain range. One of the planes was full of news anchors, the other was, naturally, full of monkeys and martial arts equipment! Ron and the gang play 'king of the hill' against the ninja-monkeys and the other groups of news anchors - eventually just the Channel 4 News Team survived to be rescued, having gone cannibal on the other anchors.
5. The film initially centered around the reporters tracking down a clumsy yet elusive group of hippie bank robbers known as "The Alarm Clock". This version of the film was met with poor test audience results, and a significant portion of the film was re-written and re-shot to replace the Alarm Clock with the panda story that appeared in the final version. The original Alarm Clock version was re-edited, along with alternate takes of existing scenes, into a separate direct-to-video film entitled Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie.
6. The Channel 4 News Team could've looked quite different. Will Ferrell was always going to be Ron Burgundy, but the other three actors all came to the parts quite late. John C. Reilly was offered the role of Champ Kind, Ben Stiller was sought out for Brian Fantana and Chris Parnell was the original choice for Brick Tamland.
7. Whilst on the subject of Brick Tamland. Once Anchorman was green lit, DreamWorks suggested that he was cut out of the movie completely! From reading the script they couldn't see that the character had any relation to what was going on in any scene he was in. But surely, that's the point of Brick isn't it?
8. Although neither of them appear in the movie, and were both relatively unknown at the time, Adam Scott and Jon Hamm are credited as writers in the Channel 4 News titles seen during the movie.
9. There's a Mexican restaurant featured in Anchorman that is called 'Escupimos en su Alimento'. If you're not fluent in Spanish you might not know that it translates to 'We spit in your food'.
10. Champ's line,
"I will take your mother, Dorothy Mantooth, out for a nice seafood dinner and never call her again"...is a paraphrase of a line from the comic book series "Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future", where Dare's nemesis, the Mekon, makes an identical threat against Dorothy Dare.
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