Watch the new ‘Anchorman’ race you can see this season at Padres games at Petco Park
The San Diego Padres are making sure all those “Anchorman” references tied to the city won’t be going away any time soon.
It has been almost 15 years since the debut of “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” but the film is making a resurgence in the city with a new race between innings of baseball games at Petco Park. Runners wearing large costumes of four of the film’s famous characters — Ron Burgundy, Champ Kind, Brian Fantana and Brick Tamland — take off on the warning track in the outfield for the finish line.
Ron Burgundy, Champ Kind, Brian Fantana and Brick Tamland from “Anchorman” now races at some Padres games.
The racing anchormen will make appearances at home Padres games on the weekends and other big occasions, according to the organization, which collaborated with Paramount Pictures and the actors Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell.
The characters were created by the same company behind the famous racing presidents at Washington Nationals games, Ryan Carfagno Productions. We talked to Carfagno, who has been making these sorts of big-head costumes, which he calls puppets, for 16 years.
He’s extremely proud of the “Anchorman” set and says he has had a blast watching them make their debut in San Diego.
“We worked so hard on them to make them so movie-ready because of the caliber of the actors in them that they really are the best set we’ve done,” Carfagno said. “We love doing them. We put our heart and soul into them.”
The characters were built in New York City and shipped by truck across the country, he said. The actors were involved with approving the look of them every step of the way, according to Carfagno.
We also heard one other major tip from the creator — he said the actors themselves originally wanted to run the very first race in the costumes, but the idea was ultimately scrapped.
The costumes are a little over 10 feet tall and weigh over 40 pounds, so they take an athletic runner to wear them. The races between the presidents at the Washington Nationals games have become legendary in Washington, D.C., with tryouts for the runners, fans tracking their race results and the presidents making appearances at event all over the district.
Will we see the same hype around the “Anchorman” races? We’ll see.
So far, we’ll note that Burgundy, of course, won the inaugural race on Friday, and in another race, Brick Tamland forgot he was in the race and got distracted by a lamp.
