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FeedFunny Redefined
Malvern native Adam McKay’s passion for the absurd has inspired the likes of Will Ferrell and other comedic heavyweights, who’ve embraced his outlandish scripts with gusto. And hordes of moviegoers have followed suit.
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In the 2004 comedy smash Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, there’s a classic moment in which members of San Diego’s five news teams square off for a rumble in a trash-strewn parking lot. The rules are simple: Anything goes—except touching the hair.
Rick March laughed when he first saw the scene, but it wasn’t until a man ran across the screen on fire that he totally lost it. In the midst of the ridiculous on-screen confrontation, March’s childhood friend had turned absurdity into insanity. A man on fire? Makes no sense.
Unless you know Adam McKay.
“I saw [the man on fire] and said, ‘That was you!’” March says.
“You can’t believe what I went through just to get that in,” McKay told his pal.
“It turns out it cost an extra $50,000,” says March.
McKay and March were little more than low-level mischief-makers at Great Valley High School. “We threw snowballs at cars, made prank phone calls and did a little shoplifting here and there,” March recalls. “We were just having fun.”
McKay has been doing just about anything to get a laugh ever since. If turning a stuntman into a human conflagration cracks somebody up, then get the matches and gasoline.
Some choose a career as a way to make money. A fortunate few have a true avocation—something they were destined to do. And while you may find it hard to believe that anyone was born to make fart jokes, McKay makes a pretty compelling argument to support that theory. Since his grade-school days, McKay has thrived on producing big, loud, eye-watering laughs. Broad farce. Silly slapstick. Puns that make you groan. Off-the-wall scenes. They’re all in the McKay repertoire, and he won’t apologize for a minute to anyone who thinks he’s aiming low. Damn right he’s aiming low—a kick in the groin can be mighty funny. McKay knows that. 
Moreover, McKay thinks it’s good for America. Laughter is the great equalizer. Jam a pie in someone’s face and watch everyone let loose, from the buttoned-up executive type to the shot-and-beer guy on the corner.
“I think raunchy stuff can be helpful,” McKay says. “I think the country needs to laugh. There is a Puritanical stance here, and it’s time to realize that a little cursing is OK. The country is a tad uptight.”
So McKay sets his writing partner, comedic superstar Will Ferrell, loose on TV newscasters (Anchorman), NASCAR (2006’s Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby), family dynamics (last year’s Step Brothers) and a former president (Broadway’s You’re Welcome, America. A Final Night with George W. Bush). In the producers’ role, he and Ferrell are now poking fun at car salesmen with The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, due in theaters Aug. 14.
McKay’s comedic reach isn’t confined to the big screen. He’s always busy creating delivery systems that induce laughs using the most technologically savvy methods. If it’s funny, McKay doesn’t care where it comes from or how you see it. He just wants to get it out there—all of it packaged in that unmistakable way.
And that’s what kills March. Here he is, looking up at the work of a guy he used to play basketball with at 3 a.m.—the kid who got good grades without really trying.
Not that he’s jealous or anything. March takes pride in everything McKay does. He runs out to see every movie and buys the DVD as soon as it’s available. OK, so he has to schedule appointments to talk to his old friend and would like him to come back to the area more often, but March acts as if he made it big, too—because he was there in the beginning.
“I go see his movies, and right away I see him in them,” March says. “It’s the same off-the-wall, crazy stuff we would think about when we were younger.”
