Artwork by BRANDON PIKE
FRESH AIR
Way back in the 2004 film Anchorman, Ron Burgundy was a local TV-news host in ’70s San Diego. Fast-forward to this year’s sequel, and that epic haircut is national news: Set in 1980, Anchorman 2 follows Will Ferrell’s vain, shallow character as he graduates to a CNN-style cable news network. “We felt like we needed to jack up the stakes,” director and co-writer Adam McKay tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “It was just perfect timing that, in ’79, ’80 — that’s when you saw 24-hour news come about. You saw ESPN, MTV, the whole broadcast media [universe] completely changed. And anytime you say the word ‘change,’ that’s a fun world to throw Ron Burgundy into. You know he’s not going to handle change well.” 
Ferrell and McKay, who co-wrote both Anchorman films, started working together on Saturday Night Live. They’ve collaborated on the films Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, among others, and co-founded the website . They joined Fresh Air to talk about why the sequel took so long — and the meaning of that mustache. MORE
RELATED: Katisse Buckhingham starred as the kid who gave Alyssa Milano a hickey on Who’s the Boss. It gets better: He also played flute and saxophone on The Chronic. Actually, it gets even better than that: He recorded Will Ferrell’s jazz flute solo in Anchorman. Since then, Buckingham has made a living through his original music and session work, playing with everyone from Prince to Lionel Richie to Herbie Hancock. Perhaps his best-known performance came in the realm of comedy, in Anchorman, for the scene which, as he notes, has become synonymous with the phrase “jazz flute.” “It was just another recording session. I’m not going to lie — it’s been a great calling card.” MORE