Trivia for
Groundhog Day (1993) More at IMDbPro »

• In one scene, Connors throws himself from the bell tower of a high building. This building is actually an opera house in Woodstock, Illinois. Local legend has it that a ghost of a young girl haunts the building since a girl once fell off of the balcony section inside the opera house and died.
  
  
• Not filmed in Punxsutawney, but actually in Woodstock, Illinois (just 45 miles from "Bill Murray's hometown of Wilmette). There is a small plaque that reads "Bill Murray stepped here" on the curb where Murray continually steps into a puddle.
  
  
• The interiors of Bill Murray's room at the bed and breakfast were filmed in an empty warehouse in Cary, Illinois.
  
  
• The scene where Phil picks up the alarm clock and slams it onto the floor didn't go as planned. Bill Murray slammed down the clock but it barely broke, so the crew bashed it with a hammer to give it the really smashed look. The clock actually continued playing the song like in the movie.
  
  
• Debbie and Fred's last names are given briefly as "Kleiser".
  
  
• The lines Andie MacDowell quotes in the café - "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung" - are from Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel", Canto vi, Stanza 1, which begins with the famous line, "Breathes there a man with soul so dead...”
  
  
• Early drafts of the script explained the cause of Phil Connors' weird experience: a disaffected ex-lover called Stephanie cast a spell on him to teach him a lesson.
  
  
• The French poem Phil recites in the German restaurant was written by Danny Rubin, based on the lyrics of Jacques Brel's "Bachelor's Dance". Translated into English the poem reads: The girl I will love / is like a fine wine / that gets a little better / every morning.
  
  
• In the penultimate encounter between Connors and annoying insurance salesman Ned Ryerson, Bill Murray was ad-libbing when he tells Ned, "I don't know what you're doing later..." and causes Ned to run away.
  
  
• Tori Amos was considered for the role of Rita.
  
  
• Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
  
  
• Bill Murray was bitten by the groundhog twice during shooting.
  
  
• Bill Murray and Harold Ramis have both been honorary grand marshals for the Groundhog Day celebrations in Punxsatawney, PA.
  
  
• Phil at the piano teacher's house, when he is fumblingly playing Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paginini", is actually Bill Murray playing. He does not read music, but he learned that much of the song by ear. Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paginini", specifically its 18th Variation, was also used in another time fantasy movie, Somewhere in Time (1980).
  
  
• At one point in chase scene involving the red Cadillac Eldorado, Bill Murray and friends were to race along the sidewalk in front of the movie theater, barely missing the ticket booth, which was still occupied. The scene was filmed, but left on the cutting room floor.
  
  
• Director Harold Ramis originally wanted Tom Hanks for the lead role, but decided against it, saying that Hanks was "too nice".
  
  
• Bill Murray quotes lines from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Work Without Hope": "All Nature seems at work; slugs leave their lair, The bees are stirring; birds are on the wing, And winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring; And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."
  
  
• On the DVD, Harold Ramis states that the original idea was for him to live February 2nd for about 10,000 years. Later he says that Phil probably lived the same day for about 10 years.
  
  
• In the original version of the script by Danny Rubin, Phil Connors was already trapped inside Groundhog Day at the start of the story. We joined him on a typical day, with the audience wondering how he knew everything that was going to happen. Harold Ramis promised not to change this aspect of the script, but ultimately decided to do so.
  
  
• According to director Harold Ramis, most of the times when he tried to explain a scene to Bill Murray, Murray would interrupt and ask, "Just tell me - good Phil or bad Phil?"
  
  
• When Phil and Rita are throwing cards into the hat, Phil advises Rita to "be the hat". This is an ad-libbed reference by Bill Murray to Caddyshack (1980) (also directed by Harold Ramis and starring Murray), in which Chevy Chase's character advises the main character to "be the ball" while tutoring him on golf.
  
  
• When Phil is explaining to Rita his experiences he first says "I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen" and so on. Those were all methods used by the assassins of Russian mystic Grigory Rasputin, but (with the exception of electrocution) were not seen done to Phil.
  
  
• Originally, Phil was supposed to murder the groundhog in his lair. This was changed, however, since it seemed too much like Caddyshack (1980).
  
  
• The scene where Bill Murray gets out of the news van and talks to the state trooper was filmed on the Amstutz Expressway under the Grand Avenue overpass just outside of downtown Waukegan, IL. You can see the Waukegan business district in some of the shots. The Amstutz Expressway was also used for the filming of the big chase scene in the The Blues Brothers (1980).
  
  
• In the "Jeopardy!" (1984) sequence, the second player we see is Jim Scott, a five-time "Jeopardy!" Champion who won his fifth game on the October 1, 1990 broadcast. He went on to win the Tournament of Champions contest that season.
  
  
• The song that plays over parts of the opening and closing credits is "Weatherman", co-written by 'George Fenton (I)' and director Harold Ramis.
  
  
• Harold Ramis has stated that the inspiration for this movie was NOT the 1905 novel "The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" by P.D. Ouspensky, but many others think that it was. Ramis made this denial within his contributions to a jacket blurb for one edition of the Ouspensky book. In the book, Osokin is given the opportunity to live his life over again by a magician... and Osokin takes him up on the offer, only to make the same mistakes all over again. Eventually he reaches the point in time where he met the magician, who explains to Osokin that he cannot change the recurring wheel that is "this trap called life"... and that Osokin must learn to sacrifice in order to escape it, to find his salvation.
  
  
• The idea comes from 'The Gay Science', a famous book by Friedrich Nietzsche. In his book, Nietzsche gives a description of a man who is living the same day over and over again.
  
  
• Among Phil's books in the coffee shop are "Treasury of the Theatre: From Agamemnon to A Month in the Country" by John Gassner (Simon & Schuster, 1964), and "Johann Strauss: Father and Son, a Century of Light Music" by H.E. Jacob (Greystone Press, 1939). The classical piano piece that draws his attention in the same scene is Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545.
  
  
• Writer Danny Rubin said that one of the inspirational moments in the creation of the story came after reading "Interview with the Vampire," which got him thinking about what it would be like to live forever.
  
  
• Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis both said that they avoided exploring the truly dark side of Phil's time lapsing in which he could do truly horrible things without consequence (i.e. murder, torture, etc.).
  
  
• Supposedly Paul Lynde was the inspiration for one of the film's more famous lines. After a high-speed chase through the San Fernando Valley one night when he was driving recklessly while intoxicated, Lynde crashed his car into a mailbox. The police came to the car, guns drawn, and he lowered his window and said, "I'll have a cheeseburger, hold the onions, and a large Sprite." Another account has the scene inspired by an incident involving comedian Shecky Greene in Las Vegas. One night, while intoxicated, he drove his car into the big fountain in front of Caesar's Palace. As bystanders pulled him out, with water from the fountain raining down onto his car, he shouted, "Clean the floor mats and no hot wax!"
  
  
• According to an interview with Harold Ramis, he and Bill Murray argued over the tone of the film. Murray wanted the film to be more philosophical while Ramis wanted it to be more comedic. The two argued throughout the production and have not spoken to each other since.
  
  
• Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.
  
  
• Harold Ramis considered Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and John Travolta for the role of Phil Connors, but he considered them as "far too nice" compared to Bill Murray.
  
  
• The scenes showcasing Bill Murray filming his weather predictions at the news station, along with the introduction of Andie MacDowell's character were not conceived until the editing process. They had to go back and shoot them to be edited in later.
  
  
• The interior scenes of the Cherry Street bed and breakfast were not filmed inside the actual house. The only times the crew entered the house at all were to turn on lamps for the proper lighting effects needed for the exterior shots.
  
  
• Unlike the scenes for the bed and breakfast, the scenes at the piano teacher's home were indeed filmed inside the actual house, right in the front room as it appears in the film.
  
  
• The house that was used for the piano teacher's home is less than a block away from the house used for the bed and breakfast. Though not visible in the film, it is actually located on the street that Phil sees directly proceeding from his room window just a few houses down on the left-hand side.
  
  
• Chosen to be preserved by the National Film Registry in 2007.
  
  
• The "clocks" restaurant in Woodstock, IL is now a Starbucks.
  
  

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