Ron Burgundy Does the News in North Dakota. For Real.

By Alexander Joenks | Videos | December 2, 2013 |

By Alexander Joenks | Videos | December 2, 2013 |

There have been several other stories of Will Farrell showing up to things in character as Ron Burgundy, but I think this one is my favorite. He actually co-anchored the news in North Dakota. They didn’t make any announcements or let the audience know in any way, the camera just came up one day and there was Ron Burgundy in the co-anchor chair.

Here’s the entire news cast for your enjoyment (warning: it is a real local news broadcast, which means that it is the most tedious exercise in banality in television. Ron Burgundy cannot change this):

KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Honestly, I only half believe that Will Farrell is doing any of this to promote the movie, or is operating by anything like a plan at all. I’m pretty sure that he just wanders around the country in character as Ron Burgundy. If you wear a mask long enough, you forget what’s underneath, but what you haven’t realized yet is that Ron Burgundy was never the mask. Will Farrell was. And now our dark avatar of local news has been born again.

Of course you also have to question the self-awareness of a news crew that is willing to put Burgundy on the screen and read the news. This character is a lampoon of television journalists being nothing more than barely literate moppets translating the teleprompter into audio. While putting Burgundy on air to co-anchor is admirably good-natured of this crew, it also demonstrates that the lampoon is less exaggeration than should be even remotely comfortable for local news stations.