-
1. Who plays Phil Connors?
Bill Murray
Murray and Ramis fell out during the shoot, Murray wanting the film more philosophical and Ramis wanting it funnier, and they barely spoke for two decades afterward. Murray was also bitten twice by the groundhog.
-
2. Who directed Groundhog Day?
Harold Ramis
Ramis had written Ghostbusters and Stripes with Murray in the cast, and this was the last film they made together. Danny Rubin's original script started in the middle of the loop, with no setup at all, and Ramis appears as the neurologist Phil consults.
-
3. What is Phil's television job?
Weather reporter
Phil is the weatherman for a Pittsburgh television station and has covered the groundhog before, which is why he treats the trip as beneath him. He predicts the blizzard will miss them, and it strands him in town.
-
4. What town is he visiting?
Punxsutawney
The real Punxsutawney is in western Pennsylvania and does hold the ceremony at Gobbler's Knob every February 2. The film was shot in Woodstock, Illinois, whose town square has a plaque marking the puddle Phil keeps stepping in.
-
5. What date keeps repeating?
February 2
The tradition came over with Pennsylvania's German settlers, who had watched for a badger or hedgehog on Candlemas back home. Punxsutawney Phil has been giving the forecast since the 1880s, which makes the groundhog and the weatherman namesakes.
-
6. What time does the alarm wake Phil?
6 a.m.
The clock radio flips from 5:59 to 6:00 and the same DJs start the same patter about the cold, every single morning. Phil eventually smashes the clock, which changes nothing, as the next 6:00 arrives with it intact.
-
7. What song plays on the radio each morning?
I Got You Babe
Sonny and Cher's 1965 duet plays as the clock turns over, and the two DJs follow with the same bit about the cold out there. The Pennsylvania Polka is the other tune Phil cannot escape, at the Gobbler's Knob ceremony every morning.
-
8. Who plays producer Rita Hanson?
Andie MacDowell
MacDowell had come off Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Green Card, and Rita's list of what she wants in a man is the one Phil tries to memorize and fake. His first attempts to win her by rote end with a slap, in every version.
-
9. What is the name of the insurance salesman who recognizes Phil?
Ned Ryerson
Ned went to high school with Phil, did the whistling belly-button trick at the talent show and dated his sister, as he reminds him every morning. Phil finally buys every policy Ned has; Bob Wiley is Murray's character in What About Bob?
-
10. Who plays the persistent insurance salesman Ned Ryerson?
Stephen Tobolowsky
Tobolowsky is a character actor with hundreds of credits, from Mississippi Burning to Memento, and Ned is the one most people know him for. Brian Doyle-Murray, Bill's brother, is in the film too, as Buster, the man who runs the ceremony.
-
11. What instrument does Phil learn to play?
Piano
Phil takes lessons from a teacher in town, one first lesson a day for who knows how many years, and ends up playing jazz with the band at the Groundhog Day party. Rita's list had included a man who plays an instrument.
-
12. What winter art does Phil become skilled at?
Ice sculpting
He carves Rita's face into a block of ice on the last evening, starting with a chainsaw, and she tells him it is beautiful. By then he has also learned French poetry and how to flip cards into a hat.
-
13. What kind of place is Phil staying in?
A bed-and-breakfast
The Cherry Street Inn, where Mrs. Lancaster asks every morning whether he slept well and offers him coffee. The real house is in Woodstock, Illinois, a few blocks from the square where the rest of the town scenes were shot.
-
14. What is his cameraman's name?
Larry
Chris Elliott, a Late Night with David Letterman regular, plays Larry, who shoots Phil's forecasts and sits through every one of his tantrums. He also has to drive the van back toward Pittsburgh into the blizzard Phil said would miss them.
-
15. Does the film give an exact number of years Phil spends in the loop?
No
Ramis once guessed ten years, then revised it upward to something like thirty or forty; Phil himself says he has been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted and burned. The script never counts the days.
