On the day that "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” has a red-carpet premiere in New York City, two Detroit news anchors talk in the Free Press about how they have nothing hardly anything in common with Will Ferrell's puffed-up newscaster.
Devin Scillian of WDIV (left) and Stephen Clark of WXYZ. (Station photos)
Julie Hinds tees it up:
Devin Scillian of Channel 4 and Stephen Clark of WXYZ-TV (Channel 7), agreed to take our written “Anchorman” questionnaire. Fox 2 passed on a request to include Huel Perkins of WJBK-TV (Channel 2), another Detroit news veteran with a knack for staying classy.
The responses we got prove that Detroit’s anchormen have a good sense of humor to accompany their news skills.
Clark acknowledges that he comes uncomfortably close to Burgundy-style blather:
"I’ll occasionally find myself saying something that could have come right from Ron Burgundy’s mouth, and I cringe.
"I also have a fear that someday somebody will write something totally off-the-wall in the teleprompter and I’ll read it without thinking."
See how a pro sidesteps? If he ever slips into comic parody, it'd be a writer's fault. (Pure Burgundy, that.)
Clark also has experience with what Hinds calls "a Ron Burgundyesque fashion crime."
"“My first job was at a station [KSN in Wichita, Kansas] where the men all wore matching blazers with the channel number emblazoned on the pocket. There was a closet full of these awful brown jackets, stained and threadbare. I was told to pick one, but at 6 feet 4 there was nothing close to fitting me. The station owner refused to invest in a new blazer, so that was the night the station abandoned the matching blazers. I was a hero in the newsroom my first day.”
Though Scillian doesn't cop to any on-air wardrobe humiliation, he concedes his senior portrait from high school "got a little too close to ‘Saturday Night Fever’ for my taste."
The Channel 4 broadcaster feels one degree of separation from the film counterpart character because "I succeeded Mort [Crim] in the WDIV anchor chair."
Ferrell, co-writer of the original "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" film from 2004, recently told Rolling Stone that Crim inspired the character. The retired WDIV anchor plans to attend tonight's premiere, Hinds writes. -- Alan Stamm
Related coverage:
- Now You Know: The Inspiration For Ron Burgundy Was Detroit Anchorman Mort Crim, Dec. 4
- Dodge Durango Sales Skyrocket After Ron Burgundy Ads Air, Nov. 22
