Kind of a Big Deal: How Anchorman Stayed Classy and Became the Most Iconic Comedy of the Twenty-First Century

by Saul Austerlitz

From the author of Generation Friends, featuring brand-new interviews with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, a surprising, incisive, and often hilarious book about the film that changed comedy, Anchorman.

It’s been nearly twenty years since Ron Burgundy burst into movie fans’ lives, reminding San Diego to “stay classy” while lampooning a time gone by—although maybe not as far gone as we might think? In Kind of a Big Deal , comedy historian Saul Austerlitz tells the history of how Anchorman was developed, written, and cast, and how it launched the careers of future superstars like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, also setting the stage for a whole decade of comedy to come and influencing films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad , and so many more.

But Kind of a Big Deal isn’t only a celebration of Anchorman —it’s also a cultural analysis of the film’s significance as a sly commentary on feminism, the media, fragile masculinity, 1970s nostalgia, and more. Featuring brand-new interviews with stars such as Will Ferrell, director Adam McKay, and other key players, the book includes insider commentary alongside updated pop-culture analysis. And it also shares surprising stories and from the film’s original conception as a plane crash/cannibal comedy mashup to the surprising, real-life newscaster who inspired the character of Veronica.

Overall, this is a celebration of a movie that millions love—but it’s also an unsparing look back at what has and hasn’t changed, since the 1970s and since 2004. Perfect for fans of the film and anyone who cares about comedy today, Kind of a Big Deal proves that the movie was, and is, exactly that.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Pop Culture, Media Tie In, Humor, Audiobook, History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

I am a freelance writer whose work has been published in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Slate, and The New Republic, among others.

I am an adjunct professor of writing and comedy history at New York University, as well as the author of Kind of a Big Deal: How Anchorman Stayed Classy and Became the Most Iconic Comedy of the Twenty-First Century (Dutton, 2023), Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era (Dutton, 2019), Just a Shot Away: Peace, Love, and Tragedy with the Rolling Stones at Altamont (Thomas Dunne Books, 2018), Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes from I Love Lucy to Community (Chicago Review Press, 2014), Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy (Chicago Review Press, 2010), and Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes (Continuum, 2007).

Booklist named Another Fine Mess one of the ten best arts books of 2010, and Just a Shot Away received rave reviews, including from the New York Times Book Review, which called it “the most blisteringly impassioned music book of the season.” Generation Friends was named the second-best comedy book of 2019 by New York magazine, as well as one of New York’s 15 best books on TV comedies.

I grew up in Los Angeles and am a graduate of Yale University and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. I lives with my wife and two children in Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Jeanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I love this movie so so much this book left a lot to be desired for me at least. I felt like I was reading a half thrown together research paper and half the time it wasn’t even about the movie itself. There were some fun facts that I wasn’t aware of but nothing that kept my attention. I still would recommend this for any Will Ferrell it Anchorman fans. Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Books for this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Ashley Dobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anchorman (and quoting Anchorman) was such a staple of my teen and early college years that I could not wait to read this book! This book soars when it recounts the process of making the film, the history of how it even got made, and as it highlights what a risk it was at the time. I loved all of the behind-the-scenes tidbits and really appreciated the extra look at the role costuming had in developing the characters.

This book falls short when it tries to look beyond the film and situate it in the larger landscape. It mentions the ways that many elements don't hold up (the homophobic jokes, Ben Stiller cast as a racist stereotype, etc.) but doesn't aim for any accountability or even seem to have interviewed anyone about those elements. It mentions that despite Will Ferrell's and Adam McKay's politics that Ron Burgundy is often used as a way to soften the far right but doesn't interrogate it any further. It discusses the "frat pack" movies that came after Anchorman but doesn't try to dig deeper into the impact.

Overall, I enjoyed revisiting the movie but wish it either would have only been an oral history type of piece or a deeper reflective focus through the lens of 2023. The attempted mashup of the two did not work for me.

[Natalie - FerryGoodBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who grew up saying “stay classy” rather than goodbye and randomly telling people “I love lamp”. This book was made for me. An extremely entertaining book that gives fans of both this movie and Will Ferrell a unique insight to one of the most iconic movies of the 2000s. This book is “kind of a big deal” and will definitely leave you in “a glass case of emotions”

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for this ARC

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lower end of three stars. This book was fine for what it was. It taught me some things about one of my favourite movies, it made me laugh remembering some of the best scenes. That said, it took me far too long to read with plenty of work activity robbing my brain juices.

[Kelly Sedinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoying this book is probably a function of how much you like either Anchorman, or Will Ferrell, or both. I love both, so I enjoyed the hell out of this book. I'd give it a bonus .25 star for the author throwing a rock at Christopher Hitchens, too.

[Jon Hewelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little heavy-handed at points, but overall a pretty classy read! Nice mix of praise, analysis and behind-the-scenes trivia.

[Jed Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give it 3.5 or 3.75 stars.

Some interesting and funny anecdotes surrounding the making of the movie. I appreciated the author’s defense of comedy as a uniting and self-deprecating source of good within community, but could have done with a little less political commentary. It felt obligatory and forced. The strongest parts were celebrating the impact and hilarity of the movie.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was billed a little differently than it really should have been. As a book that leads you to believe it will be entirely about anchorman, a significant amount of time is used discussing movies and things other than anchorman. While still interesting, not what I was hoping for.

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

A verbose, obnoxious, unprofessional book that grossly overpraises Anchorman and is filled with non-stop subjective opinions without corroboration or attribution.

The problem starts with the subtitle alone: Anchorman is not "the most iconic comedy of the 21st century." The Hangover singularly changed how movies were made, The 40 Year Old Virgin made Judd Apatow the producer/director/writer king of comedy; then add Wedding Crashers, Meet the Parents, Old School, Bridesmaids, Mean Girls, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, etc. I'd even argue there are some animated comedy features that are more iconic, such as Shrek. And Anchorman isn't even Will Farrell's best movie.

So from the beginning we know there's a problem. Saul Austerlitz writes like a besotted cheerleader for the film. He is a part-time college teacher who shows the movie in its entirety to the first week of his classes. Seriously? Then he asks such cutting-edged questions like, "How might you put this movie in context?" or "Discuss Will Ferrell as a cultural phenomenon." Wow, deep.

The book is just one long expansion of that shallow and biased analysis, often making a big stretch to justify its premise. You have to really know and love this movie to get through the book. To many of us the cute film is just a very long bloated SNL sketch that gets away with some extremely offensive male chauvinism. The Mary Tyler Moore Show did the same premise much better and with a whole lot more humor.

The writer goes off on tangents and includes unrelated information that seems distracting. The major issue with the very poor writing style is that the author doesn't provide specific attributions or footnotes for the many subjective claims that are made. For example, when one of the early drafts is presented to a movie studio with John C. Reilly and Harry Dean Stanton performing at a script reading, Austerlitz writes: "The actors were uniformly brilliant. Reilly channeled the loony sidekick energy of his role as Dirk Diggler's aide-de-camp in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights for his turn as sports reporter/sidekick Champ Kind. The script was an obvious smash hit."

One major problem--how does this author know that? He wasn't there! He doesn't have any right to proclaim performers as brilliant or the reaction as being a smash hit unless he heard it from someone who WAS there and attributes it to them. Even worse, he does quote things from the meeting, but we have no idea how he got them because there are no footnotes, only a tiny "Source Notes" section in the back that gives a short random statement of a few sources for that whole chapter. So he hides his extreme bias with vague references and no specifics. Namely, you can't trust any of it.

Of course there are insights that fans of the movie will enjoy, but despite the title this book is no big deal.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. It's a great read for 'Anchorman' fans, obviously, and a great trip down memory lane for people like me who have seen the movie a few dozen times at least and can quote most of it from memory (I even have 'Wake Up, Ron Burgundy' on DVD and have watched that multiple times, despite it barely even being a movie). So for super fans like me, it's a real treat, and even had some interesting tidbits that I was not really aware of, such as Veronica Corningstone being loosely based on the career or Jessica Savitch, or Ron Burgundy being loosely based on legendary Detroit newscaster Mort Crim (of 'Detroiters' fame to Tim Robinson-stans like me, and probably others outside of the Detroit metropolitan area).

I also appreciated the seriousness with which Austerlitz treated the movie's comedy. He appreciates the absurd humor of the film, and the larger Ferrell-McKay oeuvre, but he also does a good job at getting at what makes it so special and hilarious, without dampening your enjoyment of the source material. He also acknowledges some of the jokes or characters that haven't really stood the test of time without being preachy about it (mostly), while also acknowledging how progressive the politics of the film are (again, mostly).

Finally, he delves into each of McKay and Ferrell's post-Anchorman careers and how they have grown together and diverged, and it's an interesting postmortem on both the movie and the careers of the principle architects of it.

Ultimately, I think the subject matter has a ceiling - how great can a book about 'Anchorman' really be? But the answer was surprisingly good, and that's a credit to Austerlitz, who clearly did his homework in researching the book and the history of the film itself. It's a must-read for die-hard 'Anchorman' fans, and a nice read for people who liked it.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I primarily enjoyed this book for two reasons: (1) I love ANCHORMAN, and (2) I love it when someone deep-dives into a film and reveals a treasure trove of information that could completely change the way you think about it.

Must also give love to the book title. Clever.

A great deal of the power of what Austerlitz has done here is present to you a film you otherwise wouldn't give a ton of credence to and then rock your socks off with in-plain-sight evidence that proves his points. When people think of ANCHORMAN, they think of a raucous, wacky comedy that appeared to have been just an extended SNL skit and assuredly a whole lot of fun to shoot; what you'll find in this read is that it's been exceedingly meticulous about how it has executed its comedy and that there was a ton going on both in front and behind of the camera.

It addresses how some of the "wrong" people have misinterpreted the film and appropriated it for their sub-par causes, along with how Ron and crew continue to inspire those out in the world that aren't as yucky.

During the several instances wherein I mentioned that I was reading this book, the response I received back was pretty standard: A "huh?" look + an immediate explanation as to why anyone would go to such lengths to prove that it's "the most iconic comedy of the 21st century". If you give Austerlitz a shot here, you'll find that he has more than enough ammo to be correct in his statement.

Finally (and maybe most importantly to me), this allows me to not only re-watch the film with renewed vigor, but now I can see it through a much different lens. I truly appreciate that.

Many thanks to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for the advance read.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped trying to read this about halfway through. Austerlitz opens by letting readers know that he's an NYU film professor and shows Anchorman in classes. So far, so good. That intro lets me know his background is going to equip him to generalize the kinds of reactions students interested in film tend to have to Anchorman and leads me to assume he's eventually going to tell me why Anchorman is relevant beyond its existence as a lighthearted comedy. But you know what they say about assuming.

I should be upfront about the fact that Austerlitz's use of a casual anecdote about Horatio Sanz while describing the dedication of UCB players put a negative light on my read of this book that I wasn't able to shake before I gave up. The assault allegations against Sanz are not againt Sanz alone. The woman who accused him of grooming her as a minor described a culture at SNL in which Sanz's castmates viewed the sexual assault taking place while doing nothing to stop Sanz and in some cases enabling the grooming. That case is only tangentially related to Anchorman, but that fact is a fantastic reason not to include any anecdotes about Sanz in the first place.

To read Austerlitz praise Sanz's dedication to improv with no mention of the accusations of his sexual predation made it clear Austerlitz doesn't think that the culture of predation among comedians in the early aughts is worth mentioning. Nothing would have been lost if Austerlitz had left Sanz out entirely, but to read praise for a child predator then hear Austerlitz talk about sexism in 1970s newsrooms? No fucking thanks.

Austerlitz gives lip service to saying that today's corporate world isn't much safer for women than the 1970s. Maybe try first casting out the beam out of thine own eye, motherfucker.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do love a good movie history.

I am a big fan of Austerlitz's Generation Friends so I absolutely had to read Kind of a Big Deal--despite not being the biggest Anchorman fan (my most prominent memory of it is suffering through all my male classmates in high school quoting it incessantly. Ahh, the early- to mid-2000s.)

This particular telling of Anchorman and its massive influence on pop culture is very much seen through the lens of recognizing that it--along with many comedy movies of this time period--is centered around middle-aged, middle-class white men and their propensity for inappropriate behavior. While that can be problematic in and of itself, especially for the time we're in now, it's still important to have these stories available so men can, let's be frank, work out their own shit. Comedy is a wonderful vehicle to poke fun at who we are; at the same time, it invites serious reflection. The fact that this book ends with diving into the #metoo movement is not surprising.

To make a few lighter notes, it's always a joy to read about the comedy process, how improv works, and knowing that people who make movies can have such a fun time. And I am beyond tickled that Craig Wedren helped arrange Afternoon Delight. Is there anything he can't do?

Thanks to the publisher and NG!

[Sarah Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s hard to believe but it has been 20 years since Anchorman was released. While that feels like forever ago, it’s also hard to believe that it’s only been 20 years given the influence the film has had on popular culture and society in general.

Saul Austerlitz’s exploration into the history and legacy of the film is one that will be appreciated by comedy fans and cinephiles. He gives an in-depth review of how the film came to be while also evaluating how the film would fare in today’s social climate (unsurprisingly, some bits likely wouldn’t be as well received today as they were in the early aughts).

The book also offered a brief history of broadcast journalism in the 1970s to give additional context for the film’s story. I wasn’t expecting that historical tangent but found it wildly interesting and kept putting my Kindle down to look up more details about the people and places mentioned.

If you’re a fan of film/comedy history in general, I can recommend Austerlitz’s writing enough. He does a great job of balancing between an academic and journalistic tone which makes for some easily digestible nonfiction. If Anchorman isn’t quite your jam, I also recommend his book Generation Friends, which dives into the world of the classic sitcom.

Kind of a Big Deal is out now. Thanks to Dutton and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun little recap of what made Anchorman such a hilarious movie, peppered with lots of great behind-the-scenes nuggets. The first half is more about the making of the movie with lots of info straight from Ferrell, McKay, and the rest of the cast, while the second half of the book goes a bit deeper into some psychoanalysis of Anchorman and several of the R-rated comedies that followed in its wake, like Knocked Up, Superbad, Bridesmaids, and Step Brothers. That part read more like an academic research paper than the first half, but still any book that includes most of a chapter focused on Ron Burgundy's mustache (both poking fun but semi-serious at the same time) is worth checking out. I'll finish with an excerpt from that chapter:

"Ron's mustache is slinky and disarmingly smooth. It creeps beyond the ends of his lips and towards his cheeks. If mustaches, like sports cars, are socially acceptable visual substitutes for the unmentionable, then Ron's deceptively vast mustache is yet further testament - or so he hopes - to his sexual potency."

If you love Anchorman, it's definitely worth a quick read.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I throughly enjoyed this book. Looking at some of the background to the creation and filming of a favorite film of mine had me instantly purchase this book when I found out it was being released.

I loved learning about things that happened in development and shooting that I was not privy to. The behind the scenes pieces had me flying through the book.

My only criticism is my consistent personal problem with a lot of film analysis. I know the author collected many interviews for the book where some of the information may have come from but I never am a fan of someone writing as fact what actors intentions or thought-processes were during specific actions or lines of dialogue. Some may have been shared but I doubt all. I never am a fan of being instructed on what a scene should’ve meant unless it is directly coming from the filmmaker.

That being said, the author writes in an engaging way where even the parts I was less enthralled with flew by through the author’s voice and never stalled out the experience.

[Maurice Tougas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This deep dive into the making of, and the impact of, Anchorman, is alternately entertaining and tedious. When recounting the history of the film, the book is very good. But Austerlitz, an "adjunct professor of writing and comedy history" (a professor of comedy history?) goes all academic and, worse, woke when discussing the film itself. In an otherwise entertaining breakdown of the film's famous anchorman fight scene, he calls the casting of Ben Stiller as a Spanish-language anchor "tone-deaf", and he writes "others" found the character's use of a whip "offensive, a cheap stereotype crudely employed". Cue the eye-roll. If you can get past the occasional wokeness and skim the chapters on the societal impact of this comedy, Kind of a Big Deal is a decent read, even if the author nearly sucks the comedy out of a laugh-out-loud classic.

[Stephen McNamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could have attained the rare 5-star rating, as the author does a superb job of describing the background behind the Anchorman movie. Focused solely on that pursuit, this could have been a top-tier book. What diminishes it is Austerlitz's inability to sideline his extreme leftist complaints, whining about perceived slights against minorities (Ben Stiller's character), alphabet people (striving to insert gay themes into the movie in order to boost liberal bona fides), and fabricating "far right" extremism about Ron Burgundy's willingness to speak without a filter. Very amateurish.

Otherwise, this is a decent read about Anchorman, with good work done on alternative takes, background to key scenes, etc. In the hands of a neutral author, this would be required reading at an unbiased film school.

[Dave Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of both Anchorman movies, so the story of the movie’s origin and the behind the scenes tales were totally worth the read. I was laughing out loud at some of the ideas that the actors had along the way. So much comic genius packed into a studio. The author did great research and had a lot of cool stories. I did not give it 5 stars because parts of the book are a) just recapping what happened in the movie; b) summaries of other movies made by the same crowd (which you’ve probably seen if you are considering this book; or c) attempts at social commentary. I found myself skimming certain pages until it got back to the making of the movie. Nonetheless, if you loved the movie, you’ll appreciate most of the book.

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was...kind of a good book. However, it wasn't a great book. Some good information at the start on how the movie Anchorman came to be made and written, but much of the book is just a retelling of exactly what happens in the movie. I'm not sure what I was expecting with this book, and it had its moments describing how the writers and actors made the first movie come to fruition, but nothing too memorable. You learn a little about some actors that were close to being in the movie such as James Spader almost playing Steve Carrell's part as Brick or John C. Reilly as Champ, but most of the other stuff was just a re-telling of the movie without much insight. It's not bad, more like a 3.5 star, but closer to a 3.

[Chris Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Anchorman" is one of my all-time favorite comedies, a film so quotable and loose on its feet that it almost hides the fact that it has something to say about toxic masculinity and the American news. Austerlitz's book is a fantastic history of the making of the film -- told by someone who clearly loves and appreciates the Legend of Ron Burgundy -- as well as a consideration, for good and ill, of its cultural impact. A great read that makes me want to rewatch the film as soon as possible. Whammy!

[Andrew Chandler · Rating 2 out of 5]

This look back at the comedy movie Anchorman doesn't follow the now-common format of stitching together hundreds of hours of interviews into a behind-the-scenes look at a phenomina (aka "Blood, Sweat, and Chrome", or "Meet me in the Bathroom".) Rather this book is essentially a written retelling of anchorman (with all the best lines written out) combined with a Radio Television and Film lecture series on the politics of writer/director Adam McKay as seen through his movies.

While Anchorman is still funny, even in written form, you don't buy a book for a lesser form of what the movie has to offer. It was enlightening to be provided a more serious investigation into the deeper meaning of Adam McKay's movies, though the author goes a little too college professor and makes a few ridiculous claims ( like having a mustache in the 70's meant some level of homoerotic desires). I think the biggest issue with this book is that there is a reason why entertaining, funny movies have always been a vehicle to deliver a political or social messages - these messages are much more palatable when hidden. By extracting out the viewpoints on feminism and sexism in the book, the author also extracts out a bit of the joy.

[John Schorg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Obviously, if you like the movie, you'll probably like this book. As someone who doesn't consider Anchorman the pre-eminent comedy of this century, I found the book more interesting for the looks into the careers of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay and the cursory history of Frat Pack comedy. None of it was satisfying enough, and the author's overheated praise gets a bit too thick on too many occasions.

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love "Anchorman" and love in depth histories of TV shows and movies, but this one was so different from other similar histories that I've read. I assumed the book was only about Anchorman, but it went in so many directions at the end that I didn't even know when it stopped being about the original Anchorman movie. I didn't necessarily dislike anything, but expecting to read an entire book about one thing that ends up being about several different things is just strange.

[Trisha L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for a preview copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review. Personally, I love behind the scenes stories. I love spoilers and to learn how the sausage was made, so I found this book fascinating. We enjoy Will Ferrell and his comedy and his movies, so I found this book very entertaining.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fans of the film will probably enjoy this rose-tinted look back at some of the most memorable moments of the film, but most of what you'll find here is surface-level at best. Then, as if needing to meet a minimum word count, we get a long tangent into other, unrelated comedy films, which never circles back to Anchorman.

[Jeff Colston · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you don’t like Anchorman, don’t read this, but if you do, you totally should. I think you’ll find it hilarious and interesting. I loved learning about all the fun facts, background, and behind-the-scenes stuff.

Some of the more nerdy film analysis was too much for me, but overall it was very readable and just a good break from more serious books. Fun read!

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love that this book was even written and I’ve enjoyed other stuff by this author. He manages to be thorough and incisive without sucking all the fun out of Anchorman. He also calls out the few things that don’t work/have aged badly. I always give my full throated support to books like this and this is a pleasant reminder why.

[Niki Mackedanz]

I absolutely love Anchorman, but I just could not get into this book. I'm not sure if it was the writing style or the pace of the quips and anecdotes, but I could not finish this.
However I would still strongly suggest it to anyone who is a HUGE Will Feral fan!

[Len or Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must for any fan of “Anchorman”, with behind the scene stories and comments from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. The author’s commentary is a little hit or Miss, but I give him credit for talking about the equally hilarious “Step Brothers”.