3: ‘Anchorman’ and ‘Zodiac’ | Mission Accomplished

Summary

The Big Picture – “Anchorman” and “Zodiac” | Mission Accomplished

Date: August 19, 2025
Host: Brian Raftery (for The Ringer / Mission Accomplished series)
Guests/Voices: Adam McKay, Brad Fisher, Will Ferrell (voice clips, in-character as Ron Burgundy and others), and others.

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Overview

This episode of The Big Picture’s “Mission Accomplished” series explores how two very different films—Anchorman (2004) and Zodiac (2007)—reflect the societal anxieties and nostalgia of early 2000s America. Host Brian Raftery examines how both movies, set in 1970s California newsrooms, serve as commentaries on the George W. Bush era's media, political climate, and the myth of “the good old days.” Through interviews with filmmakers Adam McKay and Brad Fisher, archival clips, and analysis, the episode connects these films’ settings and messages to the cultural undercurrents and uncertainties of their time.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The 2000s: A Retreat into Nostalgia

[00:02–03:12]

• Following the uncertainty and bleakness post-9/11 and amid the George W. Bush presidency, Americans turned to nostalgia for comfort.
• Hollywood revived past decades via biopics, remakes, and reboots (e.g., “Ray,” “Walk the Line,” “Starsky and Hutch”).
• Both Anchorman and Zodiac, though set in the 1970s, use their settings to comment on the instability and anxieties of the 2000s.

Memorable Quote:
“Nostalgia is one of our oldest industries. I mean, it’s literally nothing new.”
—Brian Raftery [00:20]

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2. Media & Misinformation: The Bush Years

[03:17–15:32]

• Raftery links the explosive nostalgia to the failures and limitations of media in the early 2000s, especially regarding the Iraq War.
• Adam McKay, director of Anchorman, discusses his own long-standing disillusionment with the trajectory of American culture since the Reagan era.
• Media consolidation, government pressure, and self-censorship led to the silencing of dissent (e.g., Bill Maher’s firing, Donahue’s show canceled for anti-war stances).
• The media, once trusted, became part of the machinery manufacturing consent for war and suppressing uncomfortable truths.

Notable Quotes:
“Comedy is always about the subconscious. Same with horror movies.”
—Adam McKay [04:22]

“I was legitimately...actively upset every day. That was during the Bush years and the invasion of Iraq. It was the first time I genuinely was afraid for the United States.”
—Adam McKay [08:21]

“They need to watch what they say, watch what they do… there never is [a time for remarks like that].”
—Ari Fleischer (White House Press Secretary), quoted by Raftery [11:01]

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3. Anchorman: Satire as Political Outrage

[15:12–20:50]

• Anchorman emerges as a sharp satire not just of 1970s sexism and cluelessness, but also as a reflection of Bush-era “mediocre white male” leadership and media.
• McKay and Ferrell consciously made Ron Burgundy a stand-in for the powerful-yet-inept men controlling media and politics.
• The only competent character, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), faces belittling sexism, underlining that the so-called “good old days” were not good for everyone.
• The “Mediocre White Men Trilogy” (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers) channels McKay and Ferrell’s outrage at Bush-era politics.

Notable Quotes:
“The joke with Anchorman was that it is Veronica Corningstone’s story.”
—Adam McKay [19:01]

“There were a lot of, like, mediocre white guys steering us into these disasters, and that mediocrity wasn’t…”
—Adam McKay [18:06]

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4. DVD Boom and Comedy’s Rise

[20:50–22:43]

• The rise of DVDs made comedies commercially viable; Anchorman and similar films thrived as both box office and home video successes.
• Comedies became an escape for a public desperate for humor amid national crises.

Memorable Quotes:
“DVDs helped ensure that moviemaking remained a thriving industry… for movie studios, that DVD revenue was like found money.”
—Brian Raftery [21:42]

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5. The Inner Rage of Comedy

[23:13–24:32]

• The popularity of Anchorman wasn't just due to its jokes—its simmering anger matched public frustration.
• The film’s ending even lampoons Bush-era politics, with Brick Tamlin becoming a top advisor to the Bush White House.

Notable Quotes:
“What really gave the film its kick...even now, decades later, is the movie’s inner rage.”
—Brian Raftery [23:13]

“Live in a glass case of emotion.”
—Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy [23:41]

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6. Zodiac: Information, Obsession, and a Darker Past

[28:06–47:14]

• Shift to Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007), a film about obsession, information overload, and the myth of the benevolent past.
• Producer Brad Fisher and writer James Vanderbilt struggled to get the story—based on real-life cartoonist Robert Graysmith’s pursuit of the Zodiac killer—off the ground due to its unresolved ending.
• Fincher, who grew up during the Zodiac’s reign of terror, saw the story as “a newspaper story… the closest bedfellow is All the President’s Men,” more about obsession and information than traditional detective work.
• The “rabbit hole” of Graysmith’s investigation mirrors the explosion of online information, conspiracy, and endless debate in the 2000s (rise of YouTube, Loose Change 9/11 documentary, 9/11 truthers, etc.).

Notable Quotes:
“It’s really more about the journey and the nature of obsession and how we can kind of be sucked down the rabbit hole and...can’t remember which way was up.”
—Brad Fisher [34:18]

“Just because you can’t prove it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
—Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy/film clip [42:04]

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7. Obsession, Uncertainty, and the Endless Search

[47:14–49:35]

• Zodiac’s uncertainty and lack of closure resonated in an era of online conspiracy, government mistrust, and endless information without resolution.
• Despite initial box office disappointment (losing to “Wild Hogs”), Zodiac became a cult favorite on cable, alongside Anchorman.
• Both films, despite wildly different tones, ultimately echo the reality that “the kinder, gentler America…never really existed.”

Memorable Quotes:
“You can absorb endless information without ever finding the truth. And that America is a place where things always escalate quickly.”
—Brian Raftery [49:35]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “The present had become a bummer. And so movie makers and moviegoers began racing back to the past.” — Brian Raftery [00:20]
• “And I’m Ron Burgundy. Go fuck yourself, San Diego.” — Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy) [02:58]
• “Comedy is always about the subconscious. Same with horror movies.” — Adam McKay [04:22]
• “Watch what you say, watch what you do. And this is not a time for remarks like that. There never is.” — Ari Fleischer, cited by Brian Raftery [11:01]
• “I have many leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.” — Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy) [15:22]
• “Discovered by The Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale’s vagina.” — Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy) [17:29]
• “The joke with Anchorman was that it is Veronica Corningstone’s story.” — Adam McKay [19:01]
• “This reads like two guys that are really angry at the Bush administration. And Ferrell and I both were like, yeah, that’s accurate.” — Adam McKay, quoting Judd Apatow [20:26]
• “Live in a glass case of emotion.” — Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy) [23:41]
• “He dresses well. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. I like him. I think you like him.” — Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy on George W. Bush) [25:08]
• “I don’t see it as a detective story. I see it as a newspaper story… the closest bedfellow is All the President’s Men.” — Brad Fisher, quoting David Fincher [33:22]
• “I need to look him in the eye and I need to know that it’s him.” — Jake Gyllenhaal (in Zodiac) [39:14]
• “Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true.” — [42:04] (Referenced both in Zodiac and thematically in the podcast)
• “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September 11th.” — George W. Bush [45:42]
• “Nothing makes sense anymore. Did it ever?” — Zodiac clip [47:14]
• “The movies are reminders that the people in charge are just as clueless as the rest of us. That you can absorb endless information without ever finding the truth. And that America is a place where things always escalate quickly.” — Brian Raftery [49:35]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:02–03:17: Introduction—context of 2000s-era nostalgia and popular films
• 03:17–08:10: How Anchorman and Zodiac reflect Bush-era instability
• 06:17–15:32: Adam McKay on the culture of disillusionment and media failures
• 15:12–20:50: Making of Anchorman, its themes, and satirical intent
• 20:50–22:43: DVD boom and comedy’s cultural dominance
• 23:13–24:32: The inner rage and catharsis of Anchorman
• 28:06–34:18: Making of Zodiac, true crime, and obsession
• 34:18–37:22: “Rabbit holes” of information: Graysmith’s research and the dawn of YouTube
• 43:05–47:14: 9/11 conspiracy, the Internet, and parallels to Zodiac
• 49:35–End: Conclusions—Anchorman and Zodiac as cultural mirror and caution

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Conclusion

The episode compellingly maps how Anchorman and Zodiac, though wildly different in tone, were responses to the disillusionment, paranoia, and longing for a “simpler past” that characterized the George W. Bush years. Both films subvert nostalgia—Anchorman by lampooning the myth of the lovable, authoritative anchorman, and Zodiac by exposing the endless, fruitless search for answers in a world of ever-mounting information and doubt. Raftery’s analysis, balanced with filmmaker insights and cultural context, illuminates how these classics speak as much to their own era as to the times in which they were set.

Transcript

[Brian Raftery]

By 2004, a lot of Americans were feeling, well, pretty lousy. And you can't blame them. Within a few years of George W. Bush taking office, the excitement and promise that people were feeling when the new millennium began.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

1, 3, 2, 1.

[Brian Raftery]

Had given way to a depressing new day to day existence. There were constant terrorist threats, multiple wars, and a general feeling that nothing was going as planned. The present had become a bummer. And so movie makers and moviegoers began racing back to the past. That's not entirely surprising. After all, nostalgia is one of our oldest industries. I mean, it's literally nothing new. Yet the pop culture revivalism of the 2000s was more than just a diversion. It was part of a full on retreat. Audiences were so eager to forget their current reality that they happily tried to relive any decade, even the ones they'd missed the first time around. They traveled to the 1950s and 1960s through music biopics like Ray Walk the Line, I'm Not There and Walk the Dewey Cox Story. That was freaking transcendental. Paul McCartney, don't you agree? John Lennon?

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Yes, Dewey Cox. With meditation, there's no limit to what we can imagine.

[Brian Raftery]

And the 1970s came back too, just like they always do. I had totally forgotten this, but somehow in the early 2000s, we got not one, but two primetime Brady Bunch TV specials. Those were followed by a bunch of Hollywood remakes of films from the Nixon Ford Carter era. The Longest Yard, the Bad News Bears, Freaky Friday, the Amityville Horror. There was even a movie version of the 70s TV show Starsky and Hutch. I like your Lincoln.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

It's the 76. It won't be out till next year, but I know some people that know some people that rob some people.

[Brian Raftery]

By the way, did I ever mention that I was on the set of Starsky and Hutch? And that I spent most of my time there in a corner watching Snoop Dogg calmly stroke an iguana and staying out of Owen Wilson's eye line. Anyway, that's my Starsky and Hutch story. It's not that memorable. Kind of like the movie. And as for the 1980s, they really blew up in the early 2000s. You could hear it in the next wave of synth pop bands or see it in the fashion of the time. GQ did a whole fashion shoot dedicated to the Reagan era and even ET Came back making tens of millions of dollars in theaters. Some of these blasts from the past offered a vision of America that was idyllic and idealized an America where everyone felt safe where bad guys went to prison and where everyone mostly got along. You know, the good old days. But these good old days that people were nostalgic for in the early 2000s were a myth. And two major films from the Bush years made that point clear, albeit in very different ways. The first movie is the story of an obnoxious local news anchorman named. Well, you know his name.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

And I'm Ron Burgundy. Go fuck yourself, San Diego.

[Brian Raftery]

The second movie is the real life account of a serial killer, one who haunted Northern California on and off for years. I think you know his name too.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

This is the Zodiac speaking.

[Brian Raftery]

The movies Anchorman and Zodiac are both set in 1970s California. And both are workplace stories with a lot of the action taking place in big city newsrooms. One's a fast paced spoof of the TV industry. The other's a slow burning thriller about police work and journalism. And while these are wildly different films and take place way in the past, both movies reflect reflect the rapid onset instability of the Bush years. I mean, Anchorman could have been set in the Bush White House. It's about a bunch of powerful dudes who are cocky, careless, and eager to rush into combat.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

This is gonna end right here, right now. Let's dance, dickweed.

[Brian Raftery]

And the main character in Zodiac is an amateur investigator played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who finds himself going deeper and deeper into an information abyss. The kind that millions of conspiracy obsessed Americans were falling into after 9 11.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true.

[Brian Raftery]

Look, I'm not trying to say that these movies were a direct response to what was going on in the early 2000s, but I don't think it's an accident that they arrived during the Bush years.

[Adam McKay]

Comedy is always about the subconscious. Same with horror movies.

[Brian Raftery]

That's Anchorman director and co writer Adam McKay.

[Adam McKay]

I think what was going on was we were participating in this culture that was taking a dark turn.

[Brian Raftery]

Anchorman and Zodiac would bring that darkness to light in surprising ways. They were reminders that the violence, paranoia, and general uneasiness that people were experiencing in the 2000s was nothing new. They were just coming together at a pace none of us could have expected or controlled. Ron Burgundy summed it up in one of Anchorman's most quotable lines. You know, the one boy that escalated.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Quickly.

[Brian Raftery]

From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network. I'm Brian Raftrey and this is Mission Accomplished, episode three, Anchorman and Zodiac.

[Narrator/Advertiser Voice]

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[Brian Raftery]

There by the mid 2000s, a lot of Americans were starting to feel disillusioned about the state of the country. Adam McKay wasn't one of them. He'd been disillusioned for years.

[Adam McKay]

I'm old enough to remember when Reagan got elected how the culture started to change. Conspicuous consumption kind of became the goal, and it was alarming.

[Brian Raftery]

McKay had voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, hoping that a Democrat in office would turn things around.

[Adam McKay]

I'm like, all right, we're going to get back on track. And that didn't work out very well.

[Brian Raftery]

Though a lot of people tend to glamorize what life was like in the 1990s, something I'm very much guilty of at times. McKay was frustrated by what he saw happening that decade, and he's right. There were plenty of problems during those years. The country underwent drastic shifts. Jobs went overseas, courts began sending a shockingly high number of black Americans to prison, and there were multiple billion dollar media mergers giving corporate America more control than ever over the news. McKay channeled some of his disappointment into his comedy, including his work on Saturday Night Live, where he was made head writer in 1996. That's where McKay met Will Ferrell, who'd go on to become one of SNL's biggest stars and who spent the early 2000s doing a spot on Impression of George W. Bush. Farrell's version of Bush was an amiable ding, a linguist, one whose speeches were littered with all kinds of weird malapropisms.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I believe it was the great poet Leonard Skynyrd who wrote Ooh, that smell. Can't you smell that smell? Well, I can smell that smell, and it's the smell of George W. Triumph for Tonight, I am Victorian.

[Brian Raftery]

McKay left SNL in 2001, not long after Bush took office over the next few years, McKay became despondent about the government's response to the terrorist attacks of 9 11.

[Adam McKay]

The first time I was legitimately hair on fire. I don't want to say traumatized, but like, actively upset every day. That was during the Bush years and the invasion of Iraq. It was the first time I genuinely was afraid for the United States and started to really feel uncomfortable with being a part of what was going on.

[Brian Raftery]

McKay was also upset by how the Iraq War and the response to the Iraq War was playing out in the media. Several media outlets had consolidated in the 1990s, and new laws had made it easier for big companies to team up. Disney bought abc, Viacom merged with cbs, and Clear Channel gobbled up hundreds of radio stations. These companies didn't want to upset their audiences or their advertisers, especially after 911 when things were so heated, one stray comment could get you silenced. Which is what happened with Bill Maher. Look, I get it. None of you want to hear from Bill Maher. Even circa early 2000s, Bill Maher back then, he was pretty much the same leaky smugboat that he is now. But Maher played a crucial role in the post 911 crackdown on media. On the September 17, 2001 episode of his ABC show Politically Incorrect, Maher got into a debate with conservative commentator Dinesh d'. Souza. Again, I know Bill Maher and Dinesh d'. Souza. This is the ultimate no matter who wins, we all lose kind of scenario. Anyway, they were discussing a recent speech by President Bush, one in which he described the 911 hijackings as a cowardly act. Here's Bill Maher's response.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

We have been the cowards. Lobbing Cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it, not cowardly.

[Brian Raftery]

That comment set off a firestorm. Advertisers dropped out of the show, and at least a dozen ABC affiliates announced they'd stopped carrying Politically Incorrect altogether. A few days later, Maher's comments were brought up at a White House press briefing.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Surely his commander.

[Narrator/Advertiser Voice]

He was enraged.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I'm getting there, Les.

[Brian Raftery]

Okay, sure, that's Ari Fleischer, who was the White House press secretary at the time.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say.

[Brian Raftery]

As if Fleischer hadn't made his point already, he added, they're reminders to All.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. And this is not a time for remarks like that. There never is.

[Brian Raftery]

While we're pretty used to the White house attacking specific TV personalities nowadays, this was unheard of back in 2001. And while Fleischer would later say his quote was taken out of context, it wasn't hard to hear this as a warning, one that TV executives took seriously. Bill Maher's show was ended by ABC in 2002. And in the years that followed, the corporations that owned some of the country's biggest news networks became skittish about any program that questioned America's military role in the Middle East. Case in point, in February 2003, just a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war, MSNBC canceled a talk show starring longtime TV host Phil Donahue. The network blamed the decision in part on low ratings, and Donahue's numbers were pretty disappointing. But he'd also just aired an episode in which several panelists, including actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, debated whether Americans should be protesting the war. At one point in the episode, at many points, in fact, a commentator accuses Sarandon of being un American.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I love this country. I'm raising my children here and they are terrified that we will be kicked out of this country because they I am asking questions I don't want.

[Brian Raftery]

This episode is wild. If you have an extra 45 minutes to kill and need proof that Americans have been polarized forever, look it up on YouTube. It gets really heated. And there are some pretty amazing call in guests like Wanda from Indiana.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Think that their opinion is worth so much more than anybody else. I don't know. As far as I know Susan Sarandon and that Tim, whatever her boyfriend is, they're not even married.

[Brian Raftery]

Donahue's show was canceled not long after this episode aired. Here he is in 2011 discussing his firing in an interview with the program Democracy Now.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Anti war voices were not popular. And if you're General Electric, you certainly don't want an anti war voice on a cable channel that you own.

[Brian Raftery]

For Adam McKay, the clampdown on dissent was maddening. So was the fact that as he saw it, the media wasn't asking enough questions about why the US was going into Iraq. Some news outlets even seemed to be cheering on the war, like Fox News, which experienced record high ratings after 9 11. Many of the network's anchors pushed the pro war narrative night after night. Here's a typically chest thumping Fox broadcast about the invasion of Iraq from April 2003. You'll probably recognize the host's voice.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

My question of you is those people that have not supported the effort and raised questions about the president and his diplomacy efforts.

[Brian Raftery]

Yep, that's Sean Hannity.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Will they be embarrassed when we find all these weapons of mass destruction?

[Brian Raftery]

It wasn't just the big TV networks that had disgusted McKay. He was also enraged by the way some major newspapers handled the war in Iraq. In 2004, the New York Times published an editorial about its own coverage of the lead up to the war, saying that some of it was, quote, not as rigorous as it should have been. The Times also acknowledged that they'd unknowingly printed misinformation. So you've got pro war propaganda, sloppy reporting. It was all just a mess.

[Adam McKay]

So the media, the news media scape was getting really ugly and started for the first time in my life at that point to looked like they were really focusing on manufacturing a level of consent for that invasion.

[Brian Raftery]

Things had felt different when McKay was growing up, when he trusted the people he saw on the nightly news. It was a time he'd revisit in his first film with Will Ferrell, the Legend of Ron Burgundy.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

There was a time, a time before cable, when the local anchorman reigned supreme, when people believed everything they heard on.

[Brian Raftery]

TV set in 1974, Anchorman is the story of Ron Burgundy, a San Diego news anchor with a giant mustache and an ego to match.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I'm very important. I have many leather bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.

[Brian Raftery]

Anchorman wasn't an easy movie to get off the ground in the early 2000s. McKay had never directed a feature before, and Ferrell had never been the lead in a hit film. No studio wanted to make it.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

We had, I think, 10 rejections in one day.

[Brian Raftery]

That's Ferrell in 2017 talking about the movie's origins with Bill Simmons. At one point, Ferrell and several other actors even did an anchorman table read for a financier who was interested in funding it.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

And the guy was like, oh.

[Brian Raftery]

That.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Was the funniest read through I have ever sat through. But we can't make the movie.

[Brian Raftery]

That was it.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

They had already determined that for whatever reasons, they just weren't gonna make any money off that subject matter.

[Brian Raftery]

The movie's fortunes changed after the 2003 release of Old School, the college comedy that proved Farrow could find an audience outside SNL. He and McKay would get a pretty decent budget, about $26 million. They'd also get to fill out their cast with a bunch of comedy performers, including Steve Carell, who plays Brick Tamlin, a dim bulb weatherman.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I ate a whole bunch of fiberglass insulation. It wasn't cotton candy like that guy said.

[Brian Raftery]

Ron Burgundy and his crew are impulsive, dim, and surprisingly aggressive. At one point in Anchorman, they get into a violent brawl with news teams from competing networks. Public News Team is taking a break from its pledge drive to kick some ass. Hey, it's Susan Sarandon's former partner, Tim Whatever.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

No commercials, no mercy.

[Brian Raftery]

Though set in the 70s, the characters in Anchorman embody the kind of high testosterone, low IQ behavior that would define the 2000s. Especially when it comes to Ron. He's supposedly a journalist, yet he often has no idea what he's talking about. Sometimes he just straight up invents facts and sticks with them, no matter how foolish they might be.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Discovered by The Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego, which of course in German means a whale's vagina.

[Brian Raftery]

And other times, he just repeats whatever he's told to say.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

You stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy, dammit, who typed a question mark on the teleprompter.

[Brian Raftery]

Watching Anchorman now, decades later, you can see how McKay was incorporating all of his disillusionment with America into his movie, as if to say, yeah, all these dudes telling you they know what's going on. They're full of shit.

[Adam McKay]

Farrell and I were pretty conscious of the fact that there were a lot of, like, mediocre white guys steering us into these disasters, and that mediocrity wasn't.

[Brian Raftery]

Limited to the media or to the White house. The early 2000s was a boom period for middle aged dudes with lots of power and no scruples. I'll get into this a little more in our next episode. But corporations like Enron and WorldCom wound up getting caught in big scandals that took their entire companies down. And it was all happening around the time McKay and Farrell were working on their Anchorman script. That makes Anchorman, in a weird way, one of the few happy byproducts of the Bush era. And the movie was evidence that America's past, as alluring as it might have seemed back in 2004, wasn't as great as people remembered. The only competent character in Anchorman is Veronica Corningstone, a smart, ambitious journalist played by Christina Applegate.

[Adam McKay]

The joke with Anchorman was that it is Veronica Corningstone story.

[Brian Raftery]

Veronica is surrounded by mediocre guys, and no matter how hard she works, she's never taken seriously by her male colleagues, including Ron.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

You're Just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science.

[Narrator/Advertiser Voice]

I will have you know that I have more talent and more intelligence in.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

My little finger than you do in your entire body.

[Brian Raftery]

So, sir, the sexism that Veronica faced in 1974 would still be a problem in 2004, as Anchorman makes clear. The quote, unquote, good old days that Americans were pining for during the Bush years weren't good for everyone. And while Anchorman had a lot of Fun with its 70s setting, the garish suits, the AM Gold soundtrack, it's definitely not a nostalgic movie. In fact, when it comes to the past, Anchorman is actually kind of antagonistic. I realize it's a little ridiculous to give Anchorman so much weight. I mean, this is a movie where Will Ferrell plays the jazz flute and where a dog negotiates a peace treaty with a bear. But according to McKay, anchorman in some ways, was a reflection of the outrage he felt during those years. So were the other films he and Farrell co wrote during the Bush era. Talladega Knights and Step Brothers. They were all part of what McKay and Farrell called the mediocre White Men trilogy.

[Adam McKay]

It was very conscious. I remember when we turned in our first draft of Talladega Nights. Judd Apatow was a producer on it, and he said, this reads like two guys that are really angry at the Bush administration. And Farrell and I both were like, yeah, that's accurate.

[Brian Raftery]

The movies that McKay and Farrell made during the Bush years were huge hits, and not just in theaters. The home video market had exploded in the early 2000s, thanks to a technology that had become a cash cow for Hollywood. A technology promoted via some very excitable advertisements.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Dvd.

[Brian Raftery]

It's a movie on a disc the size of a CD. The picture DVDs had been around since the 1990s, but by the time Anchorman was released in 2004, movie fans were spending $15 billion on DVDs every year. And if they weren't buying discs, they were renting them from one of the hottest companies in Silicon Valley. A company that advertised a unique new business plan that seemed like it was never going to work.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Go to netflix.com, make a list of.

[Brian Raftery]

The movies you want to see, and.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

In about one business day, you'll get three DVDs. Keep them as long as you want without late fees.

[Brian Raftery]

Netflix had launched in 1997, and within a few years, the company had more than 2 million customers. Netflix got so big that Blockbuster Video tried to launch its own mail order DVD plan. In the early 2000s, DVDs helped ensure that moviemaking remained a thriving industry. I realize I'm using a lot of terms that young listeners might not recognize. Dvd, blockbuster, video, thriving industry. All you really need to know is that for movie studios, that DVD revenue was like four found money. And that impacted what kind of movies got made back then. That's one of the reasons why, during the Bush years, comedy was king. A movie like Anchorman wasn't just relatively cheap to make. It also sold millions of DVDs, and it would be followed by more comedies. Wedding crashers, the 40 year old virgin, tropic Thunder. I mean, even this movie made more than $100 million at the box office. Welcome to Daddy Daycare.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Don't panic, because they're like animals. They can smell fear.

[Brian Raftery]

Of course, there were other reasons why comedies were so big in the early 2000s. When you consider what was going on in the country and in the world, it's not surprising that people were desperate for anything that would make them laugh. For a lot of people, Anchorman was the best of the Bush era comedies. And while some fans just loved the movie for its whale vagina references and Brick Tamlin quotes, I love.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Carpet, I love lamp.

[Brian Raftery]

I don't think it's just the comedy of Anchorman that made the movie so popular. What really gave the film its kick back in 2004 and even now, decades later, is the movie's inner rage. I know it sounds crazy, but really, in the early 2000s, as the country was marching to war and the media was cheering it along, McKay felt the same way millions of other Americans did. Deeply pissed off and in need of a release. It was almost as if he was. What's the term I'm looking for here?

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Live in a glass case of emotion.

[Brian Raftery]

Exactly. And anchorman gave McKay a chance to address the madness of the Bush years. His cynicism even comes through in the film's hilarious, yet ominous ending, in which we learn what happens to the characters 20 years later. Brick Tamlin, the guy who can't even form a coherent sentence. Well, he did okay for himself. Rick Tamlin is married with 11 children.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

And is one of the top political.

[Narrator/Advertiser Voice]

Advisors to the Bush White House.

[Brian Raftery]

And you can probably guess how the unquestioning, uninformed Ron Burgundy felt about George W. Bush. In July 2004, just a few days before Anchorman hit theaters, Burgundy made a quote unquote appearance at the Paley center for Media. He was asked for his opinion on Bush.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

George W. Bush who? I gotta say, he looks like a fine chap. He really does.

[Brian Raftery]

It had been a tough summer for Bush, who was running for reelection. His approval ratings, which had been dropping all year, had just hit an all time low. Voters were especially frustrated by Bush's handling of Iraq. In one survey, 60% of Americans said they thought Bush hadn't been truthful about why America had gone to war in the first place. Still, not everyone saw Bush as a mediocre guy with lots of credibility issues. Despite the lack of WMDs in Iraq or the revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib, tens of millions of Americans still looked at Bush and thought, yep, that's my President.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

He dresses well. He's got a good head on his shoulders. I like him. I think you like him.

[Brian Raftery]

He wasn't alone. That November, Bush won a second term, getting just over 50% of the popular vote. One major reason for his victory, according to polls, was that a large number of voters felt Bush symbolized a return to traditional values. What those values were remains debatable even today. But people saw that things in the country were escalating quickly, and some began wondering why we couldn't go backward to a time when America was peaceful and worry free. That version of America never existed, a point that would be reinforced by another movie from the Bush years. Like Anchorman. It takes place in the world of media, and it's set in large part in 1970s California. But you wouldn't want to go back in time after being in the world of David Fincher's zodiac.

[Narrator/Advertiser Voice]

This episode is brought to you by Pretty Litter. Keeping your house clean when you've got a cat is no easy feat. But with Pretty Litter, you don't have to choose between a fresh house and a healthy cat. This litter is practically magic. It's low dust, controls odors, and lasts up to a whole month. But the best part? It monitors your cat's health every time they use the box. Plus, Pretty Litter ships free right to your door, so no heavy bags to carry and no last minute pet store runs right now. Save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at PrettyLitter.com BigPicture that's PrettyLitter.com BigPicture to save 20% on your first order and Get a free cat toy. Pretty Litter.com BigPicture Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. See Cite for details. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn when you release a movie, the first thing you want to do is make sure people know about it. And even more importantly, you want to make sure that people who like the genre know it's out. Because horror fans are more likely to go see new horror movies. Disney fans will go see new Disney movies. Rom com fans will go see new Rom com movies Targeting the right audience is key when it comes to marketing. If you're selling expensive new kitchen appliances, you probably want to sell to people who actually like to cook, not people who rely on food delivery services for every meal. And that's the tricky part. Making sure your message gets to the right people. You have to use the right tools. If you're in B2B marketing, that means using LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has a network of over 130 million decision makers and the targeting tools to make sure you're connecting with the right ones. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, or company revenue so you can stop wasting your time and budget on the wrong people. LinkedIn will even give you a hundred dollar credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Just go to LinkedIn.com thebigpicture that's LinkedIn.com thebigpicture Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads.

[Brian Raftery]

This episode is brought to you by Bleacher Report Football is back, and downloading the Bleacher Report app puts you in the middle of the action. Make Bleacher Report your Go to this season for the fastest breaking news alerts covering NFL and college football. And don't miss a moment with highlights, scores and live reactions in the app. Get expert analysis on your favorite teams and the news that you want this season. Download the Bleacher Report app today. Brad Fisher was one of those people who spent the Bush years thinking about the 1960s and 1970s. But he wasn't doing it for nostalgia's sake. He was doing it for research. In the early 2000s, Fisher was a young movie producer who just landed his first film, Basic, a military drama starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. At some point during production, he began talking to the movie's screenwriter, James Vanderbilt, about future projects.

[Brad Fisher]

One thing I made a practice of asking writers who I started to work with and get to know is like, what's the one thing that you always wanted to do?

[Brian Raftery]

Vanderbilt had a quick answer. He'd always been fascinated by Robert Graysmith, a political cartoonist who'd spent years trying to find one of the most feared criminals of the late 20th century. The Zodiac Killer. Starting in the late 1960s, the Zodiac Killer terrorized Northern California, where he was believed to have committed at least five murders.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Early last Saturday evening, Celia shepherd and Brian Hartnell, both in their early 20s, were sitting on this knoll of land overlooking part of Lake Berryessa.

[Brian Raftery]

This is a 1969 news report on one of the Zodiac's deadly attacks.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

They thought they were alone, but there was a third man on this knoll, a man who wore a medieval style executioner's hood, carried a knife and gun, and intended to use them.

[Brian Raftery]

The Zodiac communicated by sending a series of encrypted letters to newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle. That's where Graysmith worked when he became interested in the case. Soon he began his own investigation, which Graysmith chronicled in his 1986 book Zodiac. It had a famous cover, one I remember seeing in the library as a kid. It was bright yellow with the words Zodiac in big red letters running down the spine. Vanderbilt had read the book, and he thought Graysmith's search for the Zodiac Killer could be a great movie. And he wasn't alone. Here's producer Brad Fisher again.

[Brad Fisher]

The book was under option by Disney, of all places. It just sort of, I think, had died on the vine in studio development.

[Brian Raftery]

Fisher knew Disney was never going to make a film about the Zodiac Killer, but he had to wait until the rights expired. Once they did, Fisher got in touch with Graysmith, who was about to hold an unusual bidding war for anybody hoping to adapt his book.

[Brad Fisher]

I was like, is there an agent or who should we send the offer to? And he said, well, there's a Kinko's downstairs. And so if you can fax your offer to the Kinkos and make sure it's in by 5 o', clock, you know, on this date. It was bizarre, but it was. It was the first in a series of bizarre moments throughout the journey of this film.

[Brian Raftery]

They got the rights, and soon Vanderbilt was at work on the Zodiac script. He wouldn't be the first to bring the killer's story to the screen. In the early 1970s, an aspiring filmmaker named Tom Hansen released a low budget drama called the Zodiac Killer.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

The Zodiac. That's me. I'm the Zodiac.

[Brian Raftery]

Decades later, Hansen claimed that the movie's release was partly an attempt to catch the Zodiac just in case the killer happened to show up in the theaters. Spoiler. That didn't quite work. The Zodiac Killer even inspired one of the biggest action films of the 1970s, Dirty Harry, in which Clint Eastwood plays Harry Callahan. A hard ass inspector hunting a San Francisco serial killer who calls himself Scorpio. You know, you're crazy if you think you've heard the last of this guy.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

He's gonna kill again. How do you know?

[Brian Raftery]

Cause he likes it. Audiences love Dirty Harry, which ends with Scorpio being shot dead. But the real world story of the Zodiac killer didn't have a satisfying conclusion, or any conclusion, really. He was never apprehended. And there are still debates today as to his identity, all of which presented a big challenge to the filmmakers.

[Brad Fisher]

So many people would say to me, like, how are you going to do a film about the Zodiac killer? There's no ending.

[Brian Raftery]

But that wasn't a problem for the director who'd wind up making Zodiac. David Fincher, the guy behind inventive, twisting dramas like Fight Club and Panic Room, not to mention seven, one of the most influential serial killer thrillers of all time. Fincher had a personal connection to the Zodiac story. He'd come of age in Northern California during the 1960s and 1970s. His memories of that time were fleeting but intense. When Fincher was seven years old, the Zodiac threatened to attack school buses, claiming that he would, quote, pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out. For the next few days, police cars escorted Fincher's bus to school. And for years, he and his friends had to come home early on Halloween. But Fincher's ties to that era weren't the only reason he was interested in making Zodiac.

[Brad Fisher]

He said, obviously, I've done a serial killer movie before, but I don't really see this as a serial killer movie. I see this as. I don't see it as a detective story. I see it as a newspaper story. You know, it's, to me, the closest bedfellow is all the President's Men.

[Brian Raftery]

Now, I don't know who needs to hear this, especially on a Ringer podcast, but all the President's men is the 1976 drama about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the journalists whose investigations into Watergate helped bring down Richard Nixon. It's more than two hours long with no action, no sex, and no murder. It's mostly just a bunch of excitable or nervous people talking to one another. And it's maybe the most perfect movie ever made. All the President's Men was about the hunt for information, how it drives you and consumes you in equal measure. That's what Fincher wanted for Zodiac. As he explained to producer Brad Fisher.

[Brad Fisher]

It'S really more about the journey and the nature of obsession and how we can kind of be sucked down the rabbit hole and to the point where, you know, we've totally lost our bearings and can't remember which way was up.

[Brian Raftery]

Graysmith's pursuit of the Zodiac killer may have begun in the late 1960s, but to modern moviegoing audiences, the film's depiction of obsession would feel very familiar. During the George W. Bush years, a new kind of rabbit hole had emerged online. Though rabbit hole doesn't really seem like the right term. This was more like a massive black hole. One that could easily suck you in for hours and hours on end. So Amber's here to show us one of her favorite sites online that lets you upload, tag and share your video with the rest of the world. Or just family and friends, if you prefer.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Yes. The site's called YouTube.com and that's Y O U.

[Brian Raftery]

This is an episode of the tech news TV series Call for Help, which aired in September 2005, just a few months after the launch of YouTube. Back then, video sharing was still a novelty and user generated content was barely even a thing. YouTube would change that all of a sudden. People could easily put all kinds of homemade clips online. At first, the videos were short and silly. Goofy stunt clips, cute animal footage, TV bloopers, stuff like that. But people quickly started uploading homemade rants, explainers, and even DIY documentaries. It all grew insanely quickly. When Google bought the stock in 2006, YouTube had more than 100 million clips. By then, you could watch hours of videos in one sitting, all from your own home. It didn't seem exactly healthy. In fact, one of the first genres to emerge on YouTube was videos about spending too much time on YouTube. Like the clip for this catchy little tune, which came out in 2006.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I'm addicted to YouTube. I'm addicted to YouTube, yes, I am.

[Brian Raftery]

YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, they'd all blow up. During the Bush years, information and opinions became almost like a utility. You switched them on the second you woke up and you let them run all day. It was easy to get lost in it all. The filmmaking team behind Zodiac would also become inundated with information, though in their case it was a bit more analogous. Fincher wanted them to actually re report the case as much as they could. He asked producer Brad Fisher to create a massive timeline of all the Zodiac related events. A document that spanned years and wound up taking over Fincher's headquarters in Los Angeles. Here's how Fisher remembers it.

[Brad Fisher]

We started to have these kind of regular meetings at Fincher's office, and we taped up the timeline like on the walls. So it'd start in his office and then eventually as it got bigger, it sort of snaked out his office door, down the hallway toward the conference room.

[Brian Raftery]

The Zodiac team also took trips to actual murder sites like Lake Berryessa, the spot where Cecelia Ann Sheppard and Brian Hartnell were attacked in 1969. And the filmmakers interviewed survivors and witnesses from that era. That included police officers from various cities in California, some of whom hadn't even talked to one another during the heyday of the Zodiac investigations. At one point in my conversation with Fisher, he held up a small stack of audio tapes.

[Brad Fisher]

So here's one. This is, well, this is just Graysmith.

[Brian Raftery]

They were recordings of the interviews he'd been a part of in the years leading up to making Zodiac. He read off some of the labels to me.

[Brad Fisher]

1-13-04. Graysmith, Vanderbilt, fisherman. This day three. Oh, this was Toski.

[Brian Raftery]

He's talking about Dave Toski, a San Francisco police detective who spent years pursuing the Zodiac and who influenced not only Clint Eastwood's role in Dirty Harry, but also Steve McQueen's ultra cool cop in the movie Bullet. In Zodiac, Toschi would be played by Mark Ruffalo, part of an equally ultra cool cast that included Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Graysmith and Robert Downey Jr. As the ball busting crime reporter Paul Avery. Those three characters are rarely on screen at the same time, and when they are, they don't quite get along. Hey, Bullet. Been a year and a half.

[Adam McKay]

You're gonna catch this fucking guy or not?

[Brad Fisher]

Go fuck yourself.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Happily.

[Brian Raftery]

But all three men get pulled into the search for Zodiac, and as a result, they're slowly pushed away from their regular lives. At one point, Gyllenhaal's character is taken to task by his wife, played by Chloe Sevigny, for his Zodiac obsession. When is it going to be finished?

[Narrator/Advertiser Voice]

When you catch him?

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

When you arrest him? Be serious. I am serious. I. I need to know who he is. I. I need to stand there. I need to look him in the eye and I need to know that it's him.

[Brian Raftery]

A list actors, a tightly researched script, a 70 million dollar budget. By the time Fincher and his team began shooting in late 2005, they were ready to bring the Zodiac era back to life. Not that everyone was thrilled by their efforts to recreate the past. One late night, while trying to shoot on a street corner in San Francisco, the filmmakers were blocked by scaffolding that had been left up by some locals. On purpose. Were they against it because you were filming late at night, or was the kind of thing where they were like, we don't want the Zodiac movie being made here. We're, we're, we're done with this story.

[Brad Fisher]

It was the subject matter they didn't want. I, you know, look, I get it. I mean, you know, they're worried about that. You know, they don't want it, a tourist destination, to be that late.

[Brian Raftery]

I get it too. I mean, this is the director of Seven taking on a real life serial killer. But Fincher wasn't setting out to glorify the Zodiac killer. Here's Fincher in a behind the scenes video talking about why he initially didn't even want to make a Zodiac movie. Get ready for some very 2007 ish background music to make a movie about.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Zodiac and who he might have been. As he once wrote in his letters, I wonder when there's going to be a movie about me. I wonder who will play me. To feed that narcissism, I think would be morally unconscionable.

[Brian Raftery]

But that didn't mean Fincher would shy away from depicting the killer at work. Zodiac opens on the night of July 4, 1969, in the suburbs of Vallejo, California. Kids are playing with sparklers and dads are cleaning up after holiday get togethers. It's the kind of all American scene that some people were no doubt thinking fondly of in the 2000s. Later in that scene, a young couple parks their car on a deserted street. Suddenly, a figure approaches and a few shots ring out, leaving the young woman dead. In just a few seconds, that idyllic 1960s American suburb depicted in the film's opening has been destroyed and demystified. Fincher's movie has a few other scenes of the killer in action, all of them harrowing. But the Zodiac doesn't even show up in what might be the film's most unsettling sequence. It takes place toward the end and features Gyllenhaal and Ruffalo sitting at a diner. By this point in the film, their characters, cartoonist Robert Graysmith and Detective Dave Toschi, have spent nearly a decade trying to solve the case. Graysmith is convinced that he's finally identified the killer and has laid out all of his clues. But Toschi is still skeptical.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

The Prince Van Redding. I'm not asking you as a cop, but I am a cop. I can't prove this. Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true.

[Brian Raftery]

It was pretty easy to relate to that last line back in 2007 in multiple ways. For one thing, it brought to mind all the brazen bullshit of the Bush administration, like when Vice President Dick Cheney claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Or when Bush gave a speech on an aircraft carrier in May 2003 declaring the war in Iraq over. He made a dramatic entrance that day, arriving in a Navy jet before addressing the crowd.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

[Brian Raftery]

While giving his speech, Bush stood in front of a banner that read, mission accomplished.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

[Brian Raftery]

In reality, thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis were yet to be killed in a war that would keep going for years. There's another reason why that one line from Zodiac, just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true hit so hard. Back in the Bush years, the Internet had made it easier than ever for people to lose themselves in rabbit holes of information and to bring others along for the never ending ride. One of the most popular videos from YouTube's early days was an hour long documentary called Loose Change. It used archival news footage, on screen graphics and some straightforward narration to attempt to make a controversial point, namely that the US government had been responsible for the September 11 attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. america has been hijacked not by Al Qaeda, not by.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Osama bin Laden, but by a group of tyrants ready and willing to do.

[Brian Raftery]

Whatever it takes to keep their stranglehold on this country. Loose Change was made by three friends from upstate New York, none of them professional journalists. The film's budget was in the four figure range and it was put together on a laptop. Yet Loose Change became one of the most watched movies of 2005. The Blair Witch Project of conspiracy docs. According to one report, it was viewed online more than 10 million times within a little more than a year of its release. At that point, a huge number. A Vanity Fair article said Loose Change might even be, quote, the first Internet blockbuster. At the time, the idea of streaming an entire movie on your computer seemed ridiculous. Yet these guys had somehow gotten millions of people to check out a movie released without a studio or without a big promotional campaign. Watching Loose Change now, it feels pretty rinky dink in terms of production values and especially in terms of research. Many of the movie's claims have been refuted, but you can see why people got so drawn to it. The movie treats each viewer like a friend being let in on a big secret. Loose Change is confident, but kind of casual, and it's never too polished. The following footage is taken from the.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Documentary why the Towers Fell.

[Brian Raftery]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Bring it back.

[Brian Raftery]

Loose change came out after the 12 punch of 911 and the Iraq war had caused people to lose trust in the government and to seek out their own narratives about what was going on in the world. Even Bush had expressed concern that 911 would inspire a wave of conspiratorial thinking. Here he is in November 2001 speaking to the United Nations.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September 11th. Malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty.

[Brian Raftery]

Such warnings didn't take hold throughout the Bush years. Conspiracies would circulate far and wide via the Internet. And by 2006, the so called 911 truther movement was in full swing. That year, a weekend long conference was held in Chicago in which more than 500 attendees from around the world shared their theories about how 911 had really happened. Those arguments could spill over into the real world, like on this 2007 episode of the radio show Opie and Anthony featuring on the street debates with conspiracy theorists.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

I don't know what the answer is.

[Brian Raftery]

But it doesn't make sense.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Well, don't you know what the answer isn't?

[Brian Raftery]

I'm sorry to subject you to Opie and Anthony, but this video is a good glimpse of what online debate would look like in the years ahead. The Internet would make it possible to debate total strangers with full confidence, but little actual information. All that mattered was that you just kept asking questions, the louder the better. And these sort of debates didn't stop at 9 11. There were online conspiracy theories about Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 election, and the Indian Ocean tsunami. They were evidence that Fincher's instincts were right about Zodiac. This wasn't a movie about a killer. It was about a man torn apart by uncertainty, overwhelmed by information, and looking for order in a world that didn't feel orderly.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Nothing makes sense anymore. Did it ever?

[Brian Raftery]

I want to be really clear about something, which is that I'm not saying Robert Graysmith's research or Detective Dave Toski's investigations were anything like the conspiracies that sprung up online during the Bush years. And I'm not sure anyone involved with the Zodiac movie saw it as an allegory for what was happening in the 2000s. What, you think David Fincher was farting around on YouTube back in the day? I mean, this is the guy who hung out with Madonna and Brad Pitt. He's always had better things to do than us. But all movies are products of their time. And Zodiac, whether intentionally or not, feels like a story that could only be told during the Bush years, and not just because of the rabbit holes it goes down. It's also a film about living with the daily threat of terrorism, about what happens when law enforcement agencies don't communicate, and about our insatiable appetite for information. There was a lot for audiences to connect to. Not that moviegoers showed up for Zodiac, at least not at first. In fact, in its opening weekend, Zodiac got clobbered by Wild Hogs. If you don't remember Wild Hogs, that was the midlife crisis motorcycle movie star starring John Travolta and Tim Allen.

[Brad Fisher]

I remember the Variety headline was Hogs Zap Zodiac.

[Brian Raftery]

I believe that's Brad Fisher again. He was definitely disappointed that Zodiac wasn't a big hit in theaters. But he also understood why audiences may have been a little skittish about seeing it.

[Brad Fisher]

Listen, it's part of it may be those people who said, hey, how can you make a serial killer movie where the guy doesn't get caught at the end?

[Brian Raftery]

Still, audiences eventually did catch up with Zodiac. Much like Anchorman, it was one of those 2000s movies that back in the cable era, you kind of had to stop and watch whenever it popped up on tv. And Zodiac and Anchorman actually make for a pretty fascinating Bush Years double feature. Granted, the movies are totally different. I mean, one's about an eccentric loner who's responsible for multiple murders.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

Brick killed a guy. Did you throw a trident? Yeah. There were horses and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident.

[Brian Raftery]

And the other movie is about a bunch of news addicts busting each other's chops.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

What do you do for fun? I love to read. I enjoy books.

[Brian Raftery]

Those are the same things, but in a lot of ways, Anchorman and Zodiac are saying the same thing. Namely, that the kinder, gentler America that many were nostalgic for during the George W. Bush years and that some people are still nostalgic for now, never really existed. The movies are reminders that the people in charge are just as clueless as the rest of us. That you can absorb endless information without ever finding the truth. And that America is a place where things always escalate quickly. This podcast is reported, written and hosted by me, Brian Raftery. The executive producers of this podcast are Juliet Lippman and Sean Fenestey. Story editing by Amanda Dobbins. The show was produced by me, Devin Beraldi and Vikram Patel Fact checking by Casey Gallagher Copy editing by Craig Gaines Talent booking by Cat Spilling Sound design by Devin Beraldi Mixing and mastering by Scott Somerville. The music you hear in this series is from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Art direction and illustration by David Shoemaker. Thanks for listening.

[Will Ferrell (as Ron Burgundy and other voices)]

You say you'll never join the Navy, that living on a submarine would be too hard. You'd never power a whole ship with nuclear energy, never bring a patient back to life or play the national anthem for a sold out crowd. Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is. Start your [e-mail] America's Navy forged by the sea.