A Glass Case of Emotion

It's a slow road catching up on my cultural touchstones.

9:55 Comedy is doing their part to help me with their tongue-in-cheek staged readings of movies that everyone but me can quote.

Last time it was "Clerks" and tonight it was "Anchorman," set in that long ago time before cable when people believed everything they saw on TV.

Actually, I wasn't watching any more TV back then than I do now, so I never believed anything anyway.

Knowing the drill, I rounded up some "Anchorman" lovers (they're surprisingly easy to find) and made it to Bottoms Up in time to get the front table facing the "stage" area.

As people trickled in, we did some major damage on a spinach salad and a Karen Combo (ordered as much for its ricotta, sausage, spinach and onions as its name), adjusting it from a red to a white pizza.

While we ate '70s music played and I was told by those far more knowledgeable that a lot of it was from the movie.

After a brief delay to allow those stuck on a snarled I-95 to arrive, the splendor that is "Anchorman" began with the multi-talented Evan Nasteff as Ron Burgundy.

Evan's got a knack for playing smarmy and the role gave him carte blanche to do so, which was hilarious.

WCVE's theater critic John Porter had narrator duties, frequently cracking up at the shenanigans onstage (and cheering on the actor who played a public TV reporter).

From the get-go the entire cast was laugh-out-loud funny, as much to the people who'd seen it dozens of times as to an "Anchorman" virgin like me.

The guy playing Ron's dog Baxter gets a special nod just for his standout performance as a bi-lingual dog, not to mention his cute fur hat.

Not missing an opportunity to bring the script home, several lines about reporter Brian's Sex Panther cologne (it's illegal in nine countries, you know) had been Richmond-ified.

It smells like Shockoe Bottom after 2 a.m.

It smells like the Mars bar bathroom!

During what was apparently a seminal scene where Ron tries to impress Veronica by playing jazz flute, Evan grabbed a three-hole punch and played it throughout the room.

Hey, Aqualung!

Ridiculous as it looked for him to be blowing into a hole punch, it was the never-ending trail of little white paper holes coming out of it that kept the crowd in stitches.

There was also a crazy funny group singalong to "Afternoon Delight," complete with harmonizing, a thumb war between the two lovers and a reference to a Fotomat, which couldn't have meant much to most of the audience but was the site of my first job.

No, seriously, I was a Fotomate. But I digress.

During the big fight scene between Channel 4 news and Channel 9, the actors left the stage and instead we got a video screen showing an epic battle between warriors, complete with cheetahs, cliffs and shields.

Even the environs played into the story when required, like when a train went clanging by making screeching noises just after Ron Burgundy told the TV audience off and an angry mob gathered at the station to heckle him.

So once again, I have upped my cultural literacy thanks to a bunch of actors and comedians who barely had to look at their scripts because they knew every line so well.

Milk was a bad choice.

Got it. "Anchorman" was kind of a big deal.