A hefty majority of the humor in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues comes from the channel 4 news team. While they all had a shared sense of male entitlement, the members of the KVWN boys club all brought a different aspect of the stereotypically macho mentality of the 1970s to the big screen.
Ron (Will Ferrell) was a textbook alpha male, Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) was the womanizer, and Champ Kind (David Koechner) was a bit of a burly brute. But, for many, the standout of the crew was Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), who often displayed the mental fortitude of a broom handle.
Even though the rest of the news crew felt a collective responsibility to keep Brick out of harm’s way, they also had a lot of fun at his expense through his impulsive actions and willingness to do whatever they said. But that’s also led to a whole lot of laughs.
Enjoy some of the laughs from the Anchorman films once again by looking at Brick Tamland’s best quotes.
“I’m Brick Tamland. People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks. Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48 and am what some people call mentally retarded.”
We all know that one kid that ate glue back in elementary school. Brick Tamland is an example of what happens when teachers don’t care enough to make that same kid stop. But modern day science and I.Q. scores tell us that he could’ve benefited from a little extra help.
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT!”
Brick was often clueless and just did whatever he felt was right at the time, which was often the least expected thing imaginable. In this scene, he felt the best thing to do was just to follow everyone else’s lead and make “LOUD NOISES!” even if he didn’t know what anyone was yelling about.
“I would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party.”
Brick’s that one friend in the group that’ll do whatever you tell him to for a good laugh. That’s all fine and dandy until he butchers his lines and becomes his own punchline. Sadly, he wasn’t quick enough on his feet to avoid taking the rest of the team down with him.
“I love lamp. I love lamp.”
Love is a complicated concept that many of us fail to understand. So you can’t really blame Brick when he tried to fake it and ended up looking more foolish than usual. But given how insistent he was, you may have to take his word for it. When a man says he loves lamp, he really might just love lamp.
“Yeah. There were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.”
The fight scene in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is one of the go-to classic moments. After the KVWN team headed back to the station to lick their wounds, they recapped just how out of hand things got.
“Behind me is the miracle of birth. Soon, a stork will fly overhead delivering a baby panda. Let’s me see if I can get a look at what’s going on there. Oh God! No… I don’t understand!”
There’s a reason that we can’t tell children where babies really come from. To serve as an example of what could happen, Brick, who has the emotional maturity of a child, has his belief in the stork completely destroyed when he gets a glance of a panda giving birth.
“Hey, Ron! I’m riding a furry tractor!”
At the end of Anchorman, the crew ends up in a bear pit to save Ron. Somewhere in that adventure, Brick went from being in danger of being eaten to riding a grizzly bear, bareback.
Note: If you never knew how big a bear was (they’re huge, by the way), this scene adds some perspective.
“Brick was a great man and I will miss him so much and I will not rest until I find his killer. It’s hard for me to believe that he is gone. [cries] I feel like I just saw him yesterday. When I got the news I didn’t even know how to make sense out of it. Why?! Why?! Why did you take him from us?! BRICK IS DEAD!”
It usually takes real skill and a lot of hard work to fake your own death. But something tells me that probably wasn’t the case with Brick. Which would explain why he showed up to deliver a eulogy at his own funeral in this hilarious scene.
“A black man follows me everywhere when it’s sunny… I call him Leon.”
It’s actually not surprising that Brick isn’t bright enough to know the difference between black people and shadows. It’s not his fault. It just sucks that he has a bad habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. (Let’s be honest though, there was never a “right” time to say this.)
“I can’t hear you, Ron!”
Brick got sent out of the station – not sure whose decision that was – to give a weather report and thought it would be clever to act like he couldn’t hear Ron back in the studio… by answering all of his questions. This may have been a practical joke that went way too long.
“Ron I don’t have any legs!”
The invention of the green screen was probably pretty shocking when it first hit the scene. Meteorologists all over the world had to learn to point at an empty space and imagine something being there. And they also had to learn to not wear anything matching the color of the screen. Which is apparently a lesson Brick missed out on.
“Ron, you’re a good man. But you’ve fallen victim to your own ego and your own hubris. And before others can forgive you, you must learn to forgive yourself… I’m wearing two pairs of pants.”
[Gasp] In Anchorman 2, Brick surprised everyone by having a seriously out of character experience when he was able to reach deep down and deliver the moral of the news team’s latest drama. But it was so short-lived that he immediately followed it up with an ordinary Brick-like statement.
