Was inspired by a biography show that Will Ferrell watched about Jessica Savitch, and how one of her male coworkers confessed to being a total chauvinist back in the day.

The first draft of the screenplay included suggested actors for various roles: - Champ Kind: John C. Reilly - Brick Tamland: Chris Parnell - Brian Fantana: Ben Stiller - Ed Harken: Ed Harris - Garth Holiday: Dan Aykroyd - Frank Vitchard: Alec Baldwin - The script also specified another member of the news team, Marshall Connors, with William H. Macy suggested for the part.

The Mexican restaurant Veronica visits with the girls from the station is named "Escupimos en su Alimento". In Spanish, that means, "We spit in your food".

Ron Burgundy's license plate is "IM #1."

Ron Burgundy's dog is named Baxter. "Ted Baxter" was the name of the self-obsessed anchorman played by Ted Knight on "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970).

The head of the newsroom is named Ed in honor of Edward Asner who played Lou Grant, the head of the newsroom on "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970)

The deleted scene where Ron Burgundy gets smashed in the face by the filing cabinet and proceeds to tell everyone of his dilemma is a subtle reference to his character Mustafa in _"Austin Powers, Man of Mystery" (2000)_ who did something similar when he was injured.

The filmmakers compiled so many extra scenes and sub-plots that a second film entitled Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004) (V) was edited together and included in the 2-disc Anchorman: Special Edition.

A good portion of scenes from the trailers are completely omitted from the film's final cut. These scenes include Burgundy taking a bullet for Veronica and a later shot of him and her emerging from a TV van to a cheering crowd with Burgundy visibly showing a bandaged wound. The line where Ron asks Garth about his divorce while at a party is also missing. Other shots cut include Ron walking into a filing cabinet and falling over, alternate dialog when Ron asks Veronica what her dream is, Veronica and Ron tackling each other on the conference room table, collapsing (with Ron shouting "Let's make a baby!"), Ron admiring his own billboard, Ed Harken asking what a "lead" is, sitting by a poolside, standing by the side of the road with a long beard and guitar on his back trying to hitchhike, and others.

The sound effect heard when the News Team jumps into the bear pit is from "The Six Million Dollar Man" (1974) and "The Bionic Woman" (1976) shows of the '70s. On the shows, the sound was heard anytime they were performing a 'bionic' or super-human feat (jumping high, running fast, etc.)

The man on the motorcycle, that Ron tosses a burrito at, is Jack Black.

Many of the actors as well as Will Ferrell are well versed in the art of improvisation and would sometimes do up to 20 different versions of reaction lines trying out the first thing that popped into their heads.

Adam McKay has said that in the first draft of the script, the story was about a planeload of news anchors who crash in the mountains and discover that the plane which they collided was carrying monkeys and martial arts equipment, leading to a battle between cannibalistic newsmen and star-throwing monkeys.

In the night club, Ron plays jazz flute in the style of Ian Anderson, lead singer and flautist of Jethro Tull. Ron blurts out "Hey Aqualung!" at the end of the song, a lyric from the Jethro Tull song "Aqualung", the title track of their 1971 album. In addition, the riff that he plays on the flute just before he does so is the main riff of the same song. Indeed, the scene is rife with Tull references, as the pose Ron strikes at the end of the song is also a clear imitation of the band's logo of a flautist turned sideways with one leg up.

The bass player at the Spanish restaurant where Ron plays the flute is Jerry Minor, a sketch comedian with whom Ferrell worked for a season on "Saturday Night Live" (1975).

The title is a play on Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy (2001), as is the tagline "His news is bigger than your news".

Director Adam McKay was supposed to have a small cameo as a network producer named Aaron Zimmerman who acted much like Robert Evans but the idea was cut midway through production. The idea was reprised however in the feature introduction commentary to "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy".

The car Ron owns is a 1970 Pontiac, quite possibly a low line Catalina two door hardtop.

This film had been pitched to DreamWorks nearly 20 times before, following the successes of "Old School" and "Elf". DreamWorks had little faith in the film, doubting Ferrell and McKay were able to pull off an entire film based on news anchors. Despite the doubts the film would bomb, it grossed $84 million domestically and the director had so much extra footage they were able to make a second film out of it.

WILHELM SCREAM: in the fight sequence between the news groups, when Champ throws another man incredibly far into a car window.

One of the outtakes during the closing credits was actually taken from Smokey and the Bandit II (1980). That film was one of the first to include humorous outtakes at the end of the film and it became a fixture for many of 'Burt Reynolds' 's films.

Amy Poehler was completely cut out of the movie.

There are 23 people in the street fight.

Maggie Gyllenhaal auditioned for the role of Veronica.

Several actors from Judd Apatow's "Freaks and Geeks" have uncredited appearances in the film. Noteably, Seth Rogan as the cameraman at the cat fashion show, Dave Allen as a customer at the fondue restaurant and Joe Flaherty as the Texas TV Station Manager (scenes deleted).

In the credits Brick is seen saying "I ate fiberglass insulation once, it didn't taste like cotton candy like that guy said it would, my tummy itches." In the Nirvana song “Beeswax”, the lyrics are "Fiberglass insulation disguised as cotton candy".

In the scene in which Brian Fantana hits on Veronica in the news office while wearing Panther cologne; Judd Apatow makes a cameo as the man who says that the cologne smells like: "A turd covered in burnt hair".