Groundhog Day, Déjà Vu, and the Science of Feeling Stuck

Why does Groundhog Day feel so unsettlingly familiar?
Is déjà vu a glitch in the brain… or something more?
And why do so many of us feel like life itself is stuck on repeat?

In this episode of The Jocular Pugilists, Phil and Tomas dive deep into the origins of Groundhog Day, the science and psychology of déjà vu, and the enduring cultural impact of the Groundhog Day movie — from ancient pagan rituals to modern neuroscience.

Along the way, they explore time loops, memory misfires, precognition myths, Bill Murray trivia, and what it really means to live the same day over and over again — metaphorically or otherwise.

Because sometimes it’s not winter that won’t end… it’s the patterns we keep repeating.

🧠 In This Episode

• Where Groundhog Day traditions actually come from
• Pagan festivals, harvest rituals, and early weather prediction
• Why Punxsutawney Phil became the groundhog
• The real science behind déjà vu (and what it is not)
• Different types of déjà vu you’ve probably never heard of
• When déjà vu is harmless — and when it’s not
• Why déjà vu happens more when you’re young
• The brain’s “fail-safe” against false memories
• Groundhog Day the movie as sci-fi (not just comedy)
• Time loops, memory, free will, and personal change

Let us know what you think.

Email Phil or Tomas at: 

thejocularpugilists@gmail.com

And check out our website at: thejocularpugilists.com

Transcript

groundhog-day-play-it-again-phil

Speaker: [00:00:00] Why stand still when you can run headfirst into a wall? You're listening to the Joop Ugis.

Speaker 2: Then put.

Speaker 3: Okay, campers rise and shine. And don't forget your booties because it's cold out there. 

Speaker 4: It's cold out there every day. What is this? Miami Beach? I 

Speaker 3: don't think so. I hardly, and you know, you can expect hazardous travel later today with that. You know, that, uh, that blizzard thing? 

Speaker 4: Oh, that blizzard thing? That blizzard thing.

Oh, well here's the report. The National Weather Service is calling for a. Big blizzard thing. 

Speaker 3: Yes they are. But you know, there's another reason [00:01:00] why today is especially exciting. 

Speaker 4: Especially cold. 

Speaker 3: Especially cold. Okay. But the big question on everybody's lips. 

Speaker 4: Yeah, they're chapped lips. 

Speaker 3: On their chapped lips.

Right? Chapped 

Speaker 4: lips. 

Speaker 3: Do you think Phil's gonna come out and see a shadow 

Speaker 4: punks to Phil? 

Speaker 3: That's right. Wood Chuck Chuckers. Groundhog day. Get up and check that hog out there.

Speaker 6: Does anyone have the feeling they've listened to this podcast before? Does anyone have the feeling they've listened to this podcast before? 

Speaker: Wait, what's going on Tomas? 

Speaker 6: So it's not just me, you are also getting this feeling of deja vu. On February 2nd in Punit, Pennsylvania, the seer of zr, the prognosticator of prognosticators punit pill, performs the miracle of precognition as he, just by looking at his shadow or lack thereof, predicts if we'll have six more weeks of winter or an early spring.

That's right. Woodchuck. Chuckers. We're talking about [00:02:00] Groundhog Day. 

Speaker: Groundhog Day makes me nervous because there are so many days in my life I really want to forget. I would not want to relive. 

Speaker 6: And that all depends on the day. You would have to relive in the movie. If you remember the day he wanted to relive, it was pretty sorted.

It had to do with two different women. 

Speaker: Uh. 

Speaker 6: Anyway, I'll have to ask you, Phil, how will you be celebrating Groundhog Day this year? 

Speaker: Um, I'm one of those normal people who don't celebrate Groundhog Day. So 

Speaker 6: funny enough, we just found out that a friend of ours is actually a fan of the Groundhog Day celebration.

Not the movie. Doesn't like the movie, but actually the celebration. 

Speaker: That's right. So the bigger question is how do you celebrate ground dog dates us. 

Speaker 6: Strangely, Groundhog Day is celebrated in my family, and once again, it has everything to do with my wife and very little to do with me. And I guess if you know Tracy, maybe it's not strangely at all, it, it really makes sense with Tracy.

So we celebrate it every year. So pretty much every year on Groundhog Day Without [00:03:00] Fail, we watch the movie Groundhog Day. We pretty much started that when Gabriel was born. 

Speaker: He, 

Speaker 6: the one was like to say, we've seen this enough and walk outta the room. 

Speaker: He's not all hip to the new holiday ground dog day. 

Speaker 6: No, I mean, he loves the movie.

He absolutely loved it, but. You know, after seeing it eight times, it's, it's, doesn't have the same luster as it used to have. But one of the things that Tracy does as part of the celebration every year, which is super crafty of her, is she takes, um, pretty much cardboard and makes a cardboard representation of the radio that Bill Murray smashes turn ground Groundhog Day.

So the morning of February 2nd, Gabriel wakes up to the radio show and smashes that paper radio every year on February 2nd. 

Speaker: That's amazing. 

Speaker 6: And the other thing we do is we have breakfast for dinner. I, I literally just watched the movie again, which I certainly didn't need to. And um, I was trying to think why does my wife wanna do breakfast for dinner?

[00:04:00] I can't see the connection, but we do that every Groundhog day. 

Speaker: I think that has to do with the movie because he ends up, when you realizes there's no repercussions to anything he does, he just starts eating. Every breakfast food he has like Belgian waffles, pancakes, bacon, you know? 

Speaker 6: Right. That diner scene.

Yeah, 

Speaker: exactly. 

Speaker 6: But it's not dinner. So that's the part that I never understood. But nonetheless, it's good because I'm still on that. Um. Fasting thing. Uh, and I don't really have breakfast, so breakfast for dinner is gonna be for me. It'll be amazing. Wow. Breakfast. So that's how we celebrate Groundhog Day.

Phil, I have a question. What the hell is a groundhog? 

Speaker: Well, I'm glad you asked. The groundhog, also known as the wood check, is a rodent of the family. Now, I'm not gonna pronounce this right. I don't know. That's the Italian pronunciation. I'm not sure what that 

Speaker 6: is. I love the Ossobuco with a side of ADE 

Speaker: belonging to the group of large ground squirrels [00:05:00] known as Marmots.

The ground dog is a lowland creature of North America. It is found through much of the eastern United States across Canada and into Alaska. 

Speaker 6: Okay, so you're saying it's indigenous to North America and it's not really found in Europe, I'm assuming? 

Speaker: That's correct. 

Speaker 6: That ties in beautifully to our history. 

Speaker: By the way, I told Stacey we were doing an episode on Ground Dogs Day and she goes, of course you knuckleheads are doing a show on Ground Dogs Day.

Speaker 6: I love that. She gets us. Yeah, I love it. 

Speaker: Yeah, she gets it. 

Speaker 6: So you may ask yourself if you have a lot of time on your hand, you may ask yourself, how did this crazy celebration start?

Punks a Tony Phil can actually trace his history back to agrarian European cultures. And yes, strangely enough, the harvest again. So if you've listened to the podcast before, you'll know that we've [00:06:00] talked about the harvest before. You may think that me, particularly not Phil, but I am harvest obsessed, and maybe I am, but the harvest is really important in early cultures.

Good harvest meant. Food for the winter. Bad harvest meant a rough winter, 

Speaker: but a fantastic diet plan. 

Speaker 6: So what's the connection? Let me explain The time between the winter sice and the spring. Equinox held magical properties through the ages, and it makes sense that it would, because before factory farming, we were at the behest of nature for our food supply.

The amount of food we harvested was completely dependent on the climate. And Mother Nature. So a terrible harvest meant smaller crops. It meant a rougher winter, and by the time spring came around, they were just eating crumbs, so they were barely surviving. 

Speaker: Sounds like my childhood. 

Speaker 6: Really? Rough childhood.

Speaker: Wow. Most of it was self-imposed. 

Speaker 6: For some reason. I'm thinking of slaves building the pyramids right now. 

Speaker: I did help build the stonewall, but that [00:07:00] part was fun. 

Speaker 6: So basically they'd work like hell for part of the year harvesting crops and preparing for the winter. Once the winter came, they'd hunker down and they would eat what they prepared.

Um, so even if there was a good harvest by the ending of the winter, there probably wasn't a lot left to eat. And remember we're talking about northern climates, Northern Europe, it was always stressful. The winter was always stressful. Even if there was food to eat, it was dark, less light and stressful.

Definitely stressful. So it would make sense that when they've got lots of time to think. Especially if there was malnutrition involved, that they would start thinking of some pretty magical things and being able to foresee what the next crop would be for an agrarian culture would be really helpful.

Speaker: Was it perhaps green and leafy? 

Speaker 6: And it's not actually all that uncommon for festivals to try to predict the future. If you think about it, that's been going on forever. There was a, an Italian [00:08:00] festival, a Roman festival called Luca that had a prediction of the future wan, which is the Chinese New Year, or as they call it now, the Lunar New Year.

It's the year of the rabbit right now that has predictions of the future. There's the Hindu Festival of Makati in Nepal. They celebrate holy. In Iran, they celebrate no rus. All of these celebrations in some way try to predict the future, or at least ask you to act in a certain way to have a good future.

So that means that it's pretty common to wanna know what's gonna happen tomorrow. One of the celebration with the closest ties to Punka fill was the Celtic celebration of in bulk. It celebrated the beginning of spring and the return of light, the coming spring, the light of spring, and it was considered to be a time of new beginnings and renewals, and it happened on either February 1st or second, so you can see the connection there.

The celebration also honored the pagan [00:09:00] ganas of BRE who was associated with poetry, healing, protection, blacksmithing and domestication of animals questioned. 

Speaker: Yeah, I don't understand why the blacksmithing has anything to do do with the harvest. 

Speaker 6: I dunno. I don't know. Um, but many people see here as a connection to the mother goddess and a deep connection to the earth.

Uh, which a lot of pagan religions or pa different pagan practices, I think there's a deep connection to the earth. Once again, harvest earth food, living life. Bre also has connections to Christianity. Bridge can be considered related to Saint Bridged. If you think about it back, and we've talked about this before.

Early Christians were trying to convert as many pagans as humanly possible. So again, adopting their gods, adopting their practices was an easy way to do this. And finally, like Groundhog Day in bulk was a time when people would look for signs of the spring, trying to predict [00:10:00] the weather for the upcoming months.

BOL can also be seen as influencing Condole Moss, the Christian celebration of Condole MAs. Do you know about that, Phil? 

Speaker: That would be no, 

Speaker 6: and I didn't either. Before looking up this history. It's also known as the feast of the presentation of Jesus at the temple. So it is celebrating Jesus Christ presentation at the temple and it uses candles to represent the light of Christ, and it's held that if the weather is sunny on candle lamas.

And early spring was to be expected. And so yet again, yet another celebration where we have a prediction of the weather in spring, a prediction of spring. And perhaps the most direct connection is that in the Middle Ages it became common for Europeans to rely on the shadow of animals to predict the arrival of spring.

And this was very common in Germany. And did you know that lots of Germans settled in [00:11:00] Pennsylvania eventually making their way to Punit? And of course, as Phil had mentioned before, the groundhog is indigenous to North America, not Europe. So of course they use other animals. But eventually it became the groundhog in Punks, Satani, Pennsylvania.

Speaker: When did they first start celebrating Groundhog's Day? 

Speaker 6: They began celebrating Groundhog Day in Puns, Pennsylvania in the 1880s when several businessmen and members of the Punk Groundhog Club, they're actually hunters. So you would say. No friend to the groundhog created the first celebration by watching a groundhog observe Its shadow, and according to our friends, Patty and Dave, this groundhog is the exact same groundhog from the 1880s.

Speaker: What, how long ago was that? 

Speaker 6: I dunno, I guess it's about 140 years old, so apparently it's the same groundhog according to them. So it's a, it's an immortal groundhog, if you will. 

Speaker: What is the, the lifespan of a groundhog? Do we know? 

Speaker 6: I don't know. You have all that information in front of you. I [00:12:00] don't think it's 150 years though.

It 

Speaker: probably not. No. 

Speaker 6: Now there's a lot of groundhog celebrations all around the world at this point, but of course the biggest, the most auspicious one has to be in punt, Pennsylvania, where every February 2nd. A group of men wearing tuxedos and top hats known as the Inner Circle relocate punit, fill to Gobbler's knob.

The celebration culminates when Punit is taken from his hiding place by one of his handlers, the inner circle, and is asked the question, do you see your shadow? 

Speaker: Can I ask you, do you have any idea why he was named Pxi Phil? Why my name I know is used in such horrible ways. 

Speaker 6: What do you mean horrible?

That's wonderful. 

Speaker: I feel like I was named after a ground dog. Would you feel good about that? 

Speaker 6: Absolutely. Why the hell not? It sounds like you got some latent issues with groundhogs that you need to. 

Speaker: I did work at a golf course when I was a kid. Me and Bill Murray. We don't like the ground dogs. 

Speaker 6: Well, if you're [00:13:00] wondering, the Groundhog success rate in predicting the spring is around 40%.

Speaker: Wow. 

Speaker 6: Yeah, it's 40%. It's not, it's probably the same as the Farmer's Almanac, but if you ask his handlers, they're gonna say 90%, they'd be incorrect. It's about 40%. It doesn't dissuade people from traveling to Punit, Tony, Pennsylvania, to celebrate Groundhog Day. And I don't know the, the town itself is about 5,000 people.

I don't know. How much business they do, but I'd assume it's enough to be very helpful to the financial bottom line of Punit, Tony, Pennsylvania. You would 

Speaker: be correct. 

Speaker 6: And in fact, when I asked uh, Patty and Dave about it, they said that you apparently have to get to Gobbler's Knob. Really early, like two or three in the morning to wait for the celebration.

I'm assuming they're waiting for hours and you can pay extra money. They had said they paid a little extra money to be in this tent that's supposed to be heated, but it's just little space heaters, and they said they were absolutely freezing. 

Speaker: Wow. Who is this person that's willing to do that? That you know?

Speaker 6: Yeah, it's uh, Patty is the woman that [00:14:00] apparently who's really interested in Dave as her husband. 

Speaker: Is she a farmer? 

Speaker 6: Maybe she works for the Farmer's Alman Act. She's in publishing. I thought it was Scholastic, but maybe Scholastic publishes the Farmer's Alman Act. Maybe that's how she got into it. I don't know.

Okay. And again, I asked her if she liked the movie and she said, no, we, not really. So

now let's talk Phil about deja vu. 'cause I think a lot of people associate Groundhog Day the movie with the feeling of deja vu. But I personally don't think that's right. Groundhog Day for me, it's a sci-fi movie, even though there's no aliens and lasers. Um, Groundhog Day is sci-fi. It's a sign fiction movie where you're repeating a day.

We don't know why. Is it God? Is it, is it some aliens, species that's making the time loop? Who knows? But it's a time loop. It's not deja vu. Let's talk about what Deja vu is.[00:15:00] 

Speaker: At Definitely. I love this topic. 

Speaker 6: Deja vu in French literally means already seen. It's a feeling that something you're experiencing, you've already experienced, but it's fleeting. So experiencing the entire day again, is not fleeting, and it's not Deja vu is something completely different. That's why I feel like Groundhog Day is really a sci-fi movie, 

Speaker: is they, they could have easily made.

Ground Dog Day, the movie, into a sci-fi movie, 

Speaker 6: and apparently 60 to 80% of human beings experience deja vu at least once in their life. Also, it's apparently more common in younger people, and as you get older it happens less, which actually I think that's true. 

Speaker: I wonder why that is. I mean, all my memories when you asked me to, to come up with memories of it, it's all from when I was younger.

Speaker 6: I don't know, maybe it has something to do with, you're still developing when you're younger, meaning your mind is still actually physically growing when you're younger and as you grow older it's more set. I dunno. [00:16:00] 

Speaker: So this is from the Cleveland Clinic and it's a Dr. Corey who was talking about it, and he says, deja vu is actually caused by a dysfunctional connection between parts of your brain that play a role in memory recollection.

It could be a symptom of brain trauma. It's something that if you are having it a lot, it's you should be aware that you need, you may need to go to see the doctor. 

Speaker 6: Yeah, so it could be a bad thing. I am still wondering though, why children more than adults? 

Speaker: I'd love to know that. 

Speaker 6: An interesting question that I did not research, I don't know why, but apparently it happens more in children than adults.

I have a great definition of deja vu, a professor of psychology. James Lapin said the deja vu is a strong sense of global familiarity that occurs in seemingly novel situations. I like that definition. 

Speaker: Yes. So do I. 

Speaker 6: So again, you've seen, you've heard you've done something before, but you can't quite place when that's the feeling of deja vu.

[00:17:00] And again, as I said earlier, it's fleeting. So the phenomenon was first named by a French parapsychology, Emil Boak in 1876. Yes. A parapsychologists. 

Speaker: What does that mean? Parapsychologists 

Speaker 6: that someone who studies the paranormal, clairvoyance, precognition, speaking to ghosts, things like that. Now you may ask why a parapsychologists named it.

It's because at the time, the feeling of deja vu was considered to be so strange that it was actually considered to be supernatural. And as such, it wasn't considered worthy of scientific consideration. It was often explained away as a side effect of reincarnation. I feel like I've been here before. Well, you have in a past life.

Speaker: I think. I still believe that in my early twenties. 

Speaker 6: There you go. So you're, you're an old soul Phil, 

Speaker: maybe. Yeah, 

Speaker 6: in many ways. 

Speaker: Just a really dumb one. 

Speaker 6: You may or might not know. There's actually different forms of deja vu. There's something called [00:18:00] deja du. That's the feeling. You've already heard something that is in fact new to you.

DE is the feeling. You've had a thought before. Deja, gte. That's the feeling. You've eaten something before that you haven't.

Speaker: Is there anything that we haven't eaten between the two of us at this point? 

Speaker 6: I dunno, I hope, I hope there are things that I haven't eaten. There's a dejavu that is the sense that you desire something or someone before that you haven't. So let's say you find someone very attractive and you're very attractive to that person, and you have the feeling that you felt that attraction for that exact person before.

But you haven't because you've never met them before. Deja ku, uh, which actually means already lived is the feeling that you've lived an entire day [00:19:00] before. So that would be the closest to Groundhog Day is deja, ku and vu is what I always have, which is I've never seen that. I don't know where I am. This is completely new to me.

That's my life. 

Speaker: Why is that? Even in the deja family of things, that doesn't make any sense. 

Speaker 6: I just, I just wanted to put it in there.

So we should know that deja vu is something completely different than precognition. Precognition is being able to tell the future. It's like a fortune teller being able to tell you what your future is, predicting the future. Who is that famous 15 hundreds predictor of the future? You wrote the Qurans, where predicted the future.

Speaker: Oh, Nostradamus. 

Speaker 6: Right Nostradamus. I dunno why I forgot that. Yes, Nostradamus right. He would be someone that claimed to have the gift of precognition. In the 1950s, scientists actually directly connected electrodes to the brain to figure out where the feeling of deja vu comes from. Where it stems from in [00:20:00] the brain.

They found that by stimulating the frontal cortex, they could give the patient the feeling of deja vu. So we know now that there are two types of deja vu. What most people consider deja vu is this random feeling that you've done or heard something before. And as I said before, I believe it's mostly fleeting.

The second is associated with a more serious neurological ignition. Usually, uh, epilepsy is one of the things that could cause it. It's actually called pathological deja vu. And unlike deja vu, it's sustained. It's not momentary. It's a longer feeling of deja vu. And is that what you were talking about before Phil?

Was it always a longer feeling of deja vu or could it be a shorter feeling of deja vu, but just a lot of them. 

Speaker: Right. Nothing that he said negated it being short. You know what I mean? They could, they can be short or long. 

Speaker 6: Okay. So either, 

Speaker: yeah, I think so. 

Speaker 6: But much more frequently, I would assume. 

Speaker: Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 6: There actually was a British man named Pat Long, who suffered one of the worst [00:21:00] cases of pathological deja vu on record, unfortunately had a large brain tumor, and that probably led to the feeling of deja vu that he had. His deja vu was so extreme that it was actually deja ku. The feeling of living an entire day.

It was so extreme though, that he couldn't distinguish between past experiences and present experiences. 

Speaker: Wow. That would be a weird way to live. 

Speaker 6: Yeah. So everything he did felt like he was doing it again and again and again and again. Nothing felt new to him at all. Hopefully no one's getting scared here when they have deja vu.

Don't worry, you're fine. Remember, we're just two musicians that like to talk. 

Speaker: That's right. You heard it here first though, just in case. Okay, man. What else you got 

Speaker 6: in 2006? A study at the Seed Memory Group use hypnosis to induce deja vu. They found that when the human brain is confronted with a new scene or place, it carries out a checklist to see if the elements of this new place or scene have been observed [00:22:00] before.

If they have a different part of the brain, identifies the scene as familiar, making connections with past memories. They theorize that deja vu occurs when the second part of this process occurred. Without the first part, they were actually able to induce dejavu by artificially triggering the second part of the brain through hypnosis.

They told the person that when they heard a certain word, it would feel familiar, but they wouldn't know why. So basically if that happens to a person, one part is triggered without the other. You might think you're having deja vu, but you actually had just seen or heard or experienced something milliseconds before, and you're not experiencing deja vu.

It's just something in your mind that was triggered in the wrong order. And I'm beginning to wonder if that, 'cause I don't have the scientist's name written down. If it was the scientist you had talked about earlier, 

Speaker: it must be the same thing because he was talking about the two temporal lobes on the right and left side.

[00:23:00] And he said that in each temporal lobe that you have the hippocampus, which contributes to. Functions like recall words and re remembering places you've been and recognizing people and understanding language. And so when those are off kilter, I think it's what you're saying. 

Speaker 6: And I think what we were talking about before and what you had said before was something called dual processing.

The theory that experiences are handled in both hemispheres of the brain. Yeah. Any delay in passing the experience from one hemisphere to the other can trigger deja vu. So even though you would assume that the memory came from a long time ago, it only came from milliseconds ago. And in 2014, a study at the University of St.

Andrews in Scotland, Phil's old stomping ground, found that deja vu is actually an important fail safe that prevents false memories from forming. They were able to use association techniques to convince people they had seen words [00:24:00] that they hadn't effectively forming false memories. And there is the theory of divided attention when you're subliminally taking in your surroundings, but your focus is on one person or thing.

So you're unconsciously taking in your surroundings faster than your mind can process the information that can trigger the feeling of deja vu. And it is possible that deja vu is just forgotten. Memories being triggered through years of living. Memories are lost to the recesses of your mind. When a similar environment or thing happens, a little piece of that memory could be triggered, and that could trigger the feeling of deja.

So for instance, a restaurant, a bar, a concert, things that are experienced over and over again in many different ways could possibly all jumble together and create that feeling of deja vu.[00:25:00] 

Speaker: I was just thinking there are many, many bars that I've had deja vu in because 

Speaker 6: in every bar, 

Speaker: pretty much the same thing happens in every bar. Like there's not a lot of diversity there, and I'm, I'm quite sure I've experienced those evenings over and over again. So. You asked me have, do you remember any of your deja vu?

And, and when we were talking, I didn't until I went for a walk. 

Speaker 6: You're like, I feel like I have taken this walk back. 

Speaker: I was thinking about this, you know, we were getting ready to record and I remembered this was back when, probably in my twenties, Lisa was in college. And I had, I was visiting her in DC and I was getting ready to head to the airport, and normally I'm not a nervous flyer, but I hate to be late.

I hate that feeling of I might miss my flight. I just don't like that. So I always try and, and rush to the airport. But for this time, for whatever reason, the cab was super late and I was just [00:26:00] chill about it. I didn't care. And I get in the cab and, and the cab is hitting traffic and, and I kept thinking, you know, uh, whatever.

It's no big deal. We get to the airport and this is before nine 11, so. You, you could show up to the airport 20 minutes before your flight and actually make the flight. 

Speaker 6: Right. And get on 

Speaker: the flight. You could run. Yeah. They'll let you on the flight. So we get, we pull up to the airport and, and literally the flight is taking off in 20 minutes.

And I grab my bags and I'm just walking. Instead of running through the airport, I'm just walking and I, and I'm thinking to myself, why am I not rushing to this flight? I get to the, to the gate and I have this feeling of. Don't get on the flight. Clearly this flight is not for you. If you were not really trying to get on, you shouldn't be on this flight.

But then I talk myself out. I'm like, you're just being an idiot. Shut up. Get on the flight. You gotta go. You know, just do it. So we get on the flight about. I don't know, a half hour, 40 minutes into the flight, we start hitting really, [00:27:00] really strong turbulence. 

Speaker 6: Oh boy. 

Speaker: To the point where I'm looking around and people are getting really nervous and starting to, to look super anxious.

Then we do these massive drops in altitude. 

Speaker 6: Oh my God. 

Speaker: Like we'll drop for a prolonged time, whatever it was. I mean, it was probably only seconds, but it felt like a long time. And then we'd even out and then we'd drop again. And even, and through the whole thing, I'm very, very calm because I'm thinking to myself, oh my God, I knew not to get on this flight and therefore my.

Take on it was there is life after death or there's something else out there that's telling, was telling me was warning me not to get on this flight and I did it anyway. And if we all go down, that's fine, but, but I think we're gonna be fine. 'cause clearly I was not meant to be here. 

Speaker 6: Okay. Your presence just saved everyone on that plate.

Speaker: I think I saved everybody on that flight because that was not my time. 

Speaker 6: From this point forward, you're gonna go on every flight with me. 

Speaker: Yeah, but it was crazy. I [00:28:00] don't know if that's exactly deja vu. 

Speaker 6: Yeah, that feels different. That's more like a feeling of foreboding. 

Speaker: Is it different? Okay. 

Speaker 6: For me, I, my, but what do I know?

For me, it's just the classic deja vu. It's really fleeting. It's really quick, and it's just the, a word, a sentence, or something that someone has said or I just said feels incredibly familiar to me, but mostly in my life. It's vu. Everything is completely new. And I have no idea what's going on. Anyway, let's talk about the movie now.

Phil, you have some facts about the movie.

Speaker: Okay. First of all, it's the first time I've ever seen a character named Phil. That's actually cool. 

Speaker 6: Is that true? Is that true? Phil's not cool. 

Speaker: It is true. Bill Murray is Phil, and normally Phil is like a lawyer or an accountant, and he's always the guy that, you know, the girl is dating until she meets the guy that's actually, she's actually gonna end up with, it's terrible.

Wow. It's ter. Yeah, [00:29:00] it's never good. Oh, okay. But in this case he was very cool. So I was, uh, you know, super happy about that. 

Speaker 6: Although he was cool, but in the beginning, 

Speaker: kind of a dick. Yeah, he was 

Speaker 6: an ass. He's an incredible narcissist. Yep. But, 

Speaker: so here are some facts about the, the movie that I think are pretty fun.

Bill Murray. Was bitten by the groundhog twice during the shooting. 

Speaker 6: That sucks. 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Was he the first choice as uh, as the character? 

Speaker: He was not. Okay. As a matter of fact, I'm glad you brought that up. Harold Rams actually wanted, uh, originally Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks is too nice of a guy. He couldn't pull this off.

You know, you also considered Chevy Chase, Steve Martin. Robin Williams, Michael Keaton, and John Travolta of all people for to play Phil Connors. Wow. 

Speaker 6: So, I'm so glad that it was, it was Bill Murray. 

Speaker: Yeah. He needed somebody with that [00:30:00] edge. 

Speaker 6: He's perfect for it. 

Speaker: They really rubbed each other the wrong way on the set.

He wouldn't really take direction. He, you know, if Harold Ramis was trying to talk to him about a scene, he would say, just tell me, is it good Phil or bad Phil? And then I'll do it. And also going through, sadly going through a divorce. So he would be up all night and he would call Howard Ramis at all hours wanting to talk about the script and wanting to talk about the movie.

I guess he got tired of it and would send his assistant to go talk to Bill Murray and that like pissed, that pissed him off and that that's what led to them actually not talking for a really long time. It kind of broke up their friendship. 

Speaker 6: Oh, that's too bad. 

Speaker: Which is sad. Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Was Ghostbusters before this?

Speaker: It was before this, yes. 

Speaker 6: And Harold Ramis was in Ghostbusters. 

Speaker: They, but they had also done stripes before. Oh, even before. Oh yeah. Strip. I forgot about that. Yeah. So they had a, they had a long friendship. 

Speaker 6: Yeah. 

Speaker: And I think Harold Ramis, I think they were in some comedy troops together too. Huh. And Har. Harold Ram has never made it to [00:31:00] SNL.

Speaker 6: That makes sense. So maybe that the Chicago connection, a lot of those guys came from 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Uh, was it Second City? Is that Chicago? 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Which we have a friend, Phil and I have a mutual friend that spent some time at Second City. 

Speaker: I haven't thought about him in quite a while too. So, nice, nice pull on that one.

Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, he, we wouldn't be friends if not for him. So we, we, that's right. Owe a lot to him. 

Speaker: The film was not filmed in Pxi 

Speaker 6: that I know. 

Speaker: Do you know where? 

Speaker 6: So I don't know why I know that. I guess just years of watching it. It's in Woodstock and I used to think it was a Woodstock, New York, but it's Woodstock, Illinois.

Speaker: That's right. And it's 50 miles from Bill Murray's hometown. 

Speaker 6: Well, there you go. That's 

Speaker: probably 

Speaker 6: why. 

Speaker: That's probably why he said yes. Uh, all the clocks in the diner. Did, did you notice this are stopped? 

Speaker 6: No. 

Speaker: In those diner seats? Oh, no. And that's, that's supposed to be mirroring Bill Murray's problem, where time just stops for him.

Speaker 6: I never noticed that after all those years of watching it. I actually missed something. I can't wait to watch it again for the ninth time. 

Speaker: Here's a fun one. This isn't necessarily about [00:32:00] the movie, but Bill Murray and Harold Ramis have both been honorary Grand Marshals for the Groundhog Day celebration in Ponic.

Speaker 6: Totally makes sense. 

Speaker: Of course. 

Speaker 6: Of course. 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Of course. His brother also was in Brown Day. 

Speaker: That's right. His older brother. Yeah. What's his name? I remember looking it up. Um, 

Speaker 6: Brian Doyle. Murray. 

Speaker: That's it. Yep. 

Speaker 6: He's in a lot of Bill Murray movies. He's in one of the first ones that I saw his brother in was a movie, a serious movie, believe it or not, that Bill Murray did, called The Razor's Edge, and it's one of my.

Favorite movies, but unfortunately it was Pan so people didn't like it. And honestly, I haven't seen it for like 20 years, but way back when I remember thinking, well that's a wonderful movie 

Speaker: and let's not forget when his brother played The Wealthy. 

Speaker 6: I know what you're gonna say. 

Speaker: Owner in Wayne's World. 

Speaker 6: Oh no.

Oh no. I didn't know that. 

Speaker: That wasn't what you were thinking. 

Speaker 6: He's the what owner? 

Speaker: He's the wealthy owner of the, I think the TV station in Waynes World. 

Speaker 6: Oh my God. Totally didn't pick that up. That's awesome. No, no, no. I was [00:33:00] gonna say that he was in Caddy Shack, the head caddy. The guy. 

Speaker: Yes. Yes. Awesome. I forgot about that.

So that's great. 

Speaker 6: And when we watched it last night, I noticed needle nose, Ned Ryerson. He's a character in Den with Mad. 

Speaker 4: Ryerson Needle nose, Ned Ned the head. Come on Buddy. Case Western High. 

Speaker: He's a character in everything. That guy is a character actor like that has been in, you know, Silicon Valley and Ca Fornication.

Speaker 6: Okay. So he's pretty darn active? 

Speaker: He's very active, yeah. 

Speaker 6: And also Andy McDowell. We saw recently in Curb Your Enthusiasm. She plays herself, but a not so nice version of herself. 

Speaker: Here's another fun one. Do you remember when Bill Murray is reading to Andy McDowell when she's sleeping? She came over for the night and she's falling asleep and he's reading to her.

Speaker 6: I remember, yeah, he was reading French poetry 

Speaker 7: tour her, believe it or not, I studied 19th century French poetry. 

Speaker 8: What a waste of time. I mean, for someone else, that would be an incredible waste of [00:34:00] time. 

Speaker: Yeah. It might have been that. I don't, I don't remember what he was reading that actually was Bill Murray's idea because his wife, it was on their wedding night, actually drank too much champagne and fell asleep on him.

So Bill Murray sat there and read her until she fell asleep. Uh, 

Speaker 6: his ex-wife you mean? 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Do you know the name of the diner? 

Speaker: Um, yes, but go ahead and say it. 

Speaker 6: It's called the Tiptop Diner. It was called the Tiptop Beef Stro and the Tiptop Cafe, but right now, unfortunately, it's a Mexican restaurant, which seems like an incredible waste of an opportunity to me.

Speaker: This next one, I love this kind of inside baseball stuff because I'm, I'm fascinated by with how scripts evolve. Into the movie. Rarely. They're exactly the same in the original script. How Harold Ramis says that the idea was for Phil to live February 2nd for about 10,000 years. 

Speaker 6: Wow. 

Speaker: Yeah. But he said later, it really was 10 years is, is how long he had lived that day.

Over and over. 

Speaker 6: [00:35:00] That's a long time. You have to think, how long would it take for you to know as much as he knew. 

Speaker: That's right, 

Speaker 6: because he knew everything. 

Speaker: He was a doctor, he was a pianist. He had all these different skills. 

Speaker 6: Exactly. Remember in the diner scene when he was trying to convince Rita that he's in this time loop and he, she just thinks he's crazy, but then he starts predicting every single thing.

That happens in the diner. Everything that happens in the diner, she finally starts believing him and, and he says, maybe God isn't this all powerful, all knowing, being perhaps he's just been around so long. He knows everything that's ever happened and is ever gonna happen. 

Speaker 9: This is Doris, her brother-in-law.

Carl owns this diner. She's worked here since she was 17. More than anything else in her life, she wants to see Paris before she dies. 

Speaker 10: Oh boy. What I. What are you doing? 

Speaker 9: This is Debbie Klier and her fiance Fred. 

Speaker 10: Do I know you? 

Speaker 9: They're supposed to be getting married this afternoon, but Debbie is having second thoughts.

Speaker 2: What 

Speaker 10: Lovely ring. 

Speaker 9: This is Bill. He's been a waiter for three years since he left Penn State and had to get [00:36:00] work. He likes the town. He paints toy soldiers and he's gay. I am. 

Speaker 5: Is this some kind of trick? Well, 

Speaker 9: maybe the real God uses tricks. You know, maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long. He knows everything.

Speaker 5: Oh, okay. Well, who's that? 

Speaker 9: Nancy. She works in the dress shop and makes noises like a chipmunk. When she gets real excited. 

Speaker 5: Hey, 

Speaker 9: it's 

Speaker 6: true. You know, it's sort of like, um, in Marvel there's gonna be a new villain. I dunno why I know this. 'cause I really don't like Marvel movies anymore. So, sick of Marvel named Kang 

Speaker: named 

Speaker 6: what?

Kang, like 

Speaker: Tang, like the drink, 

Speaker 6: Kang Kang, KANG. And uh, apparently that's his thing is that he's lived forever and he's lived the same moment over and over and over again. So it's a time loop for him. So he doesn't have a superpower. He just, his superpower is that he knows everything that's gonna happen before it happens.

So he can always kind of get out of the way or push something in the right direction for it not to work. So that's essentially it. They see Marvel is ripping off groundhog. [00:37:00] They should, they should Sue. 

Speaker: Kind of glad you brought that up because throughout the movie and you, you have to think this way, I, I think when you're watching it, what would you do if you were living that day over and over again?

And 

Speaker 6: that's the question, what would you do? That's an awesome question. 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Because you could do anything it, it would be awful and wonderful at the same time. 

Speaker: And he actually went through the stages of grief, right? 

Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. 

Speaker: You know, when he first realized that there were no repercussions to anything he did, 

Speaker 6: that's the first thing he does.

He does everything. 

Speaker: Yep. I was not prepared for that When I was watching it. I'm like, oh my God, I would've never gotten it. You 

Speaker 6: had never seen it before when you just watched it? 

Speaker: No. 

Speaker 6: Really 

Speaker: not, not real. I'd seen like little bits and pieces of it, but I never, oh my God. Watch the great 

Speaker 6: movie. So what'd you 

Speaker: think 

Speaker 6: then?

Yeah, 

Speaker: I, I loved it. I, I really loved it. And what's wild is I think I caught it at different parts, at different times with people, and I always turned it off because it just seemed stupid and annoying. Yeah. You know, I don't wanna watch the same thing over, but I didn't [00:38:00] know, you know, I didn't know. 

Speaker 6: That's the gripe I get from people.

That's the, I mean, that's what I hear. People that don't like it, it's the same. It's how can I watch the same thing over and over 

Speaker: it, it's not the same thing over and over. That's 

Speaker 6: what's cool. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's the, that's, that's the, that's the trick, right? Um, yep. Little side note, I don't know if anyone can think of it.

When he went to those piano lessons, what is he playing? Does anyone know what he's playing? So you have to know classical music, but you've heard it before. Certainly if you, if you're alive and you have ears. You know it, but you don't, people probably don't know what it is unless they're into classical music.

Do you? 

Speaker: I do. Only because it's part of this, but go ahead. 

Speaker 6: It's Rachmaninoff and it's a Rhapsody on the theme of Paganini.

So. It's one of his caprices. And if you, he, if you listen to it, you can hear the caprice. I should probably give an [00:39:00] example, maybe we'll put an example in here. It depends on how motivated I am. But, um, and then of course he goes into a jazz, uh, version of it when it's at the ending, you know, jazzy kind of thing, which has been done.

Actually prior to the movie that was done. 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 6: Uh, and uh, then sort of just a blues in the end. 

Speaker: So did you know that the Sonny and Cher song that you were talking about, that he wakes up to that was actually written into the script? I 

Speaker 6: got you, babe. 

Speaker: Which is unusual because normally script writers. Pick songs because you never know, whe whether you can clear them based on the, you know, the cost or, so that can sometimes be a, a tricky thing to do.

Speaker 6: Ah, 

Speaker: you might say in the script a song like such and such. Mm-hmm. In this particular one, he actually named the song so they knew right from the be. 

Speaker 6: Uh, 

Speaker: yeah. 

Speaker 6: That's cool. 

Speaker: Yeah, 

Speaker 6: there were some good music in it actually. Right. So they had the Rachmaninoff, and then when he's in the diner and he first hears [00:40:00] the, the piano, it's Mozart.

Um, of course there's the theme. I'm your weatherman. It's not my favorite, but, but that's in there. And there's the, and there's the Pennsylvania Poka. Strike up the music. I'm a 

Speaker: big fan. 

Speaker 6: Ray Charles, you don't know me, which is a great tune. 

Speaker 11: You give your hand to me and then you say hello and I can hardly speak.

Speaker 6: And of course, Nat King Cole, almost like being in love. Yeah, I think they did a great job picking the music for the. And you know, though, the movie was a lot about just him coming to terms with himself, it's also a love story. In the beginning, really, he just wants to sleep with Rita. But after a while you see him as he's figuring out how to live a fulfilling life.

In the beginning, he's really not living a fulfilling life. And through the process of living this day over and over, you see him changing. He also changes his idea of what a [00:41:00] relationship is and falls in love with Rita. And it's, it's beautiful. It's pure in that way. Something that I think movies now really are missing.

You just don't see it, especially an adult movie that has that kind of purity. But yet it's funny, it's quick witted, um, and it's well written, well acted, had it all. It's a really good movie. 

Speaker 12: I think. You know what? What Danny and I both wanted to say with the movie was, you know, you can live better, you can have a better life.

You people can change, you know, and when you do change, you get those rewards that you think you want from 

Speaker: life. He did a great job and lest you think Bill Murray is just a horrible human being, he is not. Right Because, yeah. The scene that you were talking about where he is with Ned, this is the last fact.

He noticed that there were hundreds of people. Watching. By the time they were like in the middle of doing the scene, there were just all these spectators. So he went to a nearby bakery and ordered 500 danishes, paid for them himself, and [00:42:00] just went out and gave them to you, to the people who were watching the scene.

That's also Bill Murray. 

Speaker 6: Yeah. No, I'm sure everyone has more than one side. 

Speaker: Of course. Yeah. 

Speaker 6: I'd love to meet him. I had a roommate that met him. Did I ever tell you that story? 

Speaker: Oh no, go ahead. 

Speaker 6: Tell me quick. Yeah, I'm, again, I'm gonna paraphrase it because I don't Sure. I'm getting it from, you know, many, many moons ago.

But the story that I had heard, he was held up in an airport and was 'cause of snow and all the flights were canceled. It was getting late, and he was just hanging out at the airport forever and he noticed that Bill Murray was sitting right in the main room waiting for a plane too. 

Speaker: Wow. 

Speaker 6: So he walked up and he introduced himself and said, he is a big fan.

And people started gathering around, and the story I got is that Bill Murray pretty much performed for all the people that were gathering around, hanging out in the airport, nothing to do. They got free comedy from Bill Murray for quite some time when he finally, oh my God, left, people started asking for autographs.

Of course, when he finally left, Danny didn't wanna. Asked for polygraph right away, [00:43:00] but eventually he did, uh, just before, uh, he was gonna get his plane. And, uh, he said, well, well, what's your name? And my friend said, Danny, and the last name is an Irish name. I won't say his last name. And Bill Murray said, is that an Irish name?

And Danny said, yes. And he goes, okay. And he signs the autograph and he walks out to his plane. Well, wow, thank you so much. He doesn't look through the autograph until Bill Murray walks away and gets on his plane. Then he opens up and he says, dear Danny, drive carefully. Bill Murray.

So there you go. Well, anyway, we've gone wrong Phil. So 

Speaker: yeah, 

Speaker 6: bring, bring us to the end. 

Speaker: So we are the Joop Ugis. Thanks for spending another episode with us. Uh, if you'd like to find out more about us, you can go to the website, the joo ugis.com. If you'd like to support the show, you can go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Leave a five star rating and [00:44:00] review and subscribe if you haven't done so, so you get the episodes directly to your phone. Tomas, I, I love to hate you. This has been a lot of fun. 

Speaker 6: I hate to love you. I feel like I'm having invasion of boo. Have we done this before? 

Speaker: I 

Speaker 6: feel like 

Speaker: we've done this before. Almost every episode.

If not, if not everyone, 

Speaker 6: see you next week. 

Speaker: I'll see you next time. 

Speaker 2: What a day this has been. What a ram I'm in. Why? It's almost like being in love. There's a smile on my face for the whole human race. Why? It's almost like being in love. All the music of life seems to be like a bell that is ringing for me and.

From the way that I feel when that bell starts to peel, I would swear [00:45:00] I.