How Groundhog Day Works

Published Feb 2, 2021, 10:00 AM

You know Groundhog Day – the holiday on February 2 when you wake up and have to go through the same day over and over again. It turns out the holiday has deep roots in a pagan past, and has survived in a surprisingly similar form.

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Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryan over there, and Jerry's right over there. Uh, Internet speaking wise, and this is Stuff you should Know, a special holiday edition that comes out on the holiday. Chuck, Now, is this can we call this a holiday? Yeah? Groundhog Day is definitely a holiday. Are you not a pagan? Well no, I just thought holidays meant like work. You don't work in businesses, clothes. I there's gotta be somebody that's closed on groundhog Day. Well, I bet certain people in a certain town. Well, actually they're probably everything's open because they're they're just doing this to make money, right. They would be total fools if they're like, yeah, I always close on groundhog Day. I didn't think that through. So um, yeah, we'll get to that town in a little bit. But first, Chuck, let's talk about groundhogs themselves. Because if you don't know what groundhog Day is, don't worry. This isn't one of those ones where we need to define it for you. Just kick back and relax and like, let us guide you down the river of knowledge. Okay right. Uh. Groundhogs a k a. Wood Chuck's podcast. Whistle pigs another name they are, uh you know what they are? There, beautiful? Um. They weigh twelve or fifteen pounds. They live. Put a pin in this stat They live six to eight years. That will come back later. They eat veggies and fruits. They're called whistle pigs sometimes because they whistle if they're scared or if they're looking for a mate. It's more of a chirping sound to me. Yeah, but chirping pigs is not as fun as whistle pig. That explains that high end bourbon. Though I had no idea why it was called whistle pig, but it's named after ground. Whistle pig. Is that high end? Yeah, it's pretty good. Okay, it's the kind they keep behind the counter. Well, it's on my shelf. I don't drink a lot of bourbon. But oh, we'll go turn it up right now while we're recording. Tell us what you think. All right, I'm back and I'm hammered everyone. Uh. They can climb trees, they can swim, and they hibernate in late fall. And this is kind of one of the important parts of wood chucks and groundhogs and how they figure in the groundhog day. They hibernate in the fall and their body temperatures drop, that heartbeat slows down from eight to about five beats a minute, they lose a lot of body fat, and then the males in February come out and say, who wants to do it? Right? What's crazy, though, is when they come out, they don't actually do it. They more like make plans for later. It's they're nervous. It's really weird. And the reason why they do this they literally break hibernation, which can kill them if they do it wrong and the timing is wrong or they don't have enough body fat stow it up. They do it because groundhogs are so ornerary toward one another. They're really territorial about their food supply and their burrow that they've probably made a lot of enemies and heard a lot of feelings over the past year. So they come out in February to basically be like, hey, how about you and I just bury the hatchet and I'm gonna go back to sleep for a few more weeks. But when I come out, we'll totally do it, and I'm going to bury something out and oh my god, and uh they do. There's some sort of agreement, uh, and they see each other a few weeks later. The groundhog goes back to his burrow and then he comes out for good. He finishes hybridating in March, and then the the groundhog fornication can begin forth with post taste. And that nuts. That's how ordnery they are. They have to come out and make plans for later. Yeah, they need a which is that chill time in between two to really gather themselves and make sure they're up for it. So that's super cute. That's a nice little primer on who these little beasts are. But this is about Groundhog Day, the holiday where America shuts down, government doesn't do business, the banks are closed. Can't buy a piece of gum to save your life. Oh man, if only so, get that gum on February one, everybody, right. But sometime between that point um between when America became a place and seven, someone looked at the groundhog and this little hibernation thing that they did, and they said, you know what, we also have this weird tradition that we're going to explain a second, where we like to try and predict when to plant crops and what the weather is going to do here towards the end of winter in the spring. And let's mash that up into a weird, weird day to honor this little thing. And that's Groundhog Day. That's where it came from. It's a couple of weird traditions, like you said, mashed together. And the other weird tradition UM in addition to the groundhog coming out UH in February, is UM. This this tradition of February two being observed as UM kind of this indicator of how much winter is going to be left. And it's based on an astronomical event called the cross quarter day, which was observed by the ancient Celts the Pagans I mentioned earlier. UM and cross quarter days are pretty interesting and that it's a it's a day of the year, and there's four of them that fall between a solstice and an equinox. And UM, do you have a solstice is where the sun is either at the most northerly or southernly part of the sky, UM, depending on what hemisphere you're in. So it's either summer or winter solstice. And then the equinox is where the equator of the Earth in the equator of the Sun are on an equal plane. Just for a minute, just for a moment, I should say, um, and you have your vernal or spring and autumnal fall equinox. Um. So those are four quarter dates, and then in between those are four cross quarter dates that carve up the I guess the year even further. And to the ancient Celts, it seems like to them the cross quarter dates weren't the midway point of anything. They were the beginning point, whereas to us the quarter dates, the solstices, and the equinox are the beginning of the seasons. The Celts didn't see it that way, and so they really celebrated the cross quarter dates. Yeah, it's kind of like I guess an American might see them as sort of a seasonal hump day where you're kind of smack dab in the middle of things, and we don't observe them like they do. But I feel like, just an instinctively, in sort of early to mid February every year, late January, my psyche sort of starts to think about, all right, we're easing towards spring. I feel like we're about halfway there, and this is in Atlanta. Even that's the ancient pagan blood coursing through your veins. It might be I think we're we're pagans, but yeah, but to the Pagans it was. It wasn't like the halfway points the beginning. So in on February twod this cross quarter day. It was actually a day called um. Well, it was called a number of things, but to the Celts it was it was the beginning of spring. Um. At first they called it in bold, which means in the belly like the world, the earth is pregnant and about to give birth from into spring. Um. Like, yeah, it was when the lambing season began, which I don't think I like that. No, no, you do. If you if you look up lambing pictures, it's like that's when all the baby lambs are born and hopping around. I thought, that's what I thought too, And and no, that probably a little bit later, but um, this is when everything's still cute and sweet. Okay. They also called it umu brigantia um after the after Bridgid, the female deity of light. And the whole point was that, you know, the sun had really kind of been hiding for most of the winter, ever since the winter solstice, and now it was starting to kind of creep out. And to those of us who are like, this is the halfway points kind of like, come on, son, keep going. And when the Christians got their hands on the Celts, the pagans Um, they said, well, how about this. Let's call this like the Festival of Lights, and we'll commemorate this. This is like, um the part of winter where it's starting to get sunny er and sunnier, by having you guys bring your candles around the church and we're gonna bless them and then they'll just keep burning for the rest of the winter. How about that? That's right, They turned them into magic candles. It became known not only as Festival of Lights, but handle moss. And you'll hear that word a few times later on. And it's sort of still grounded in seasons though. And the whole thing here is like as far as the ancient Celts go, and then you know people since then farmers, namely, is when can we when is the weather going to turn here? When is that ground gonna thaw? When can we expect good weather and not be fooled into planting, only to have it frost again and kill those early buds. That's something that you now that you're you've taken up gardening and stuff at your house, you will be frustrated by this. Now to my friend, when that happens, Oh yeah, the frost, the early frost or late frost, I should say late frosted. I can't sleep well. Emily always like when things start blooming to early. She's like, no, stop, stop, I think it's gonna frost again. It always does. I had to Uh, I had to stop myself. Now, I failed to stop myself. I fertilized too late in the season, and um, and I had a big problem with that. Man, my anecdotes have just really gone downhill in the last twelve years. I predicted your your gardening way back in the day. I don't know if you remember that in what episode how Gardening. Someone's gonna have to find it. But you kind of you kind of tease me, and I said, you're gonna get into it one day, trust me. And you're like, I see that doesn't sound like me. Yeah thing, huh yeah, I'm actually surprised at that. But I'll take your word for it. I do want to know. So anybody out there, if you know what Chuck's talking about, let us know what episode it is. And at times thing will be great toe so he can erase it. Right. So, like I said, they were trying to figure out when to plant, and uh, it was not a good omen if it was bright and sunny, because that was a sign of snow and a late frost to continue on and that would not be a good time to plan. And this is all a little confusing, yeah, if if I'm being honest, Yeah, So, like the the whole thing was if at Candle moss Um February two, if if it was if that day was nice out, if the sun was shining, if there were no clouds in the sky, that actually meant that there was going to be a much longer period of winter left. And the reason why that kind of makes sense from a farmer's standpoint is one, maybe you're saying, well, this pretends a growing season where it's just going to be nice out and there's not gonna be any rain. You don't want that. But also number two, it's like you said, and like that kind of weather might fool the plants into starting to grow again and then bam they get hit with a late frost. So even though it seems counterintuitive, if it's nice out on February two at candle Moss to the ancient Celts, that meant that there was more winter coming. If it was the opposite, it was overcast, maybe even storming. If it was just gross out, it meant that winter was almost over, that the it was more than halfway over, and you were probably going to see spring pretty pretty soon. So that is the initial um, the initial way that February two kind of plays into this whole thing. So you know what my problem with this is is uh, and you you put this one together and you kind of came up with some other signs found in nature and different cultures where they sort of looked to um the natural rule to kind of tell the future, like the widths of the bands of a wooly caterpillar, the size and number of webs a spider might spin in the fall, um, how the squirrels are gathering gathering their nuts like would you frantic or calm? Or when the geese depart from the north, how thick corn husks are at harvest, like I love all that that stuff because to me that is like pre science science. Um, yeah, I think all of that stuff is kind of rooted and some maybe it might be a reach for some, but some sort of scientific basis, and it was just from people observing, which was sort of the first science was observation. But to me, this one is the least scientific of them all the because it's just one day. Yeah, it is, like it is. It's just one day, Like if it's February. Second, if it's candle moss and this is the condition, then that's your indicator. So yeah, I guess it is the least unscientific pre science measure of of what's the most Yeah, it really is. It really is. It's on par with drowning a person as a witch because you're your prediction for the the winter didn't come true. The wooly caterpillars bands didn't pretend the future after all, because there's probably something I don't know about the caterpillar, but I bet you there's some little nugget of science in there as to how their bands grow depending on whether Yeah, I like the celt stuff. Oh man, that there reminds me. So I read this article in The New Yorker not too long ago, um, and it's about we got to do an episode on it. There's this lake, a little lake way up in the Himalayas, in the middle of nowhere, in this really dangerous pass, and there's always been a bunch of skeletons jumbled together at the bottom of this lake, and you can clearly see them. So anthropologists went in and grabbed these these skeletons or some of them to take samples. And it turns out some of them seem to be from southern Italy, um, maybe even from Greece, from the Mediterranean. They have no business whatsoever. Where is it up in the Himalayas, like in Nepal right on just along uh I think a Hindu or a Buddhist pilgrimage path um, and like it's just really bizarre that they're there. But the author took some time to just kind of go off on the side and talk about how there was the spread of this group from the steps of Russia uh many many thousands of years ago. They basically brought the Indo European language our way. But also we're super patriarch article, super rapey um, super murdery and they really had an impact you can tell a lasting impact today and how just humans operate. But apparently in Western Europe and including the British Isles, the Celts seemed to be much more peaceful, much more egalitarian. UM women held much more powerful roles than than they did under this other group. And it really kind of drove home like wow, like history could have gone a totally different direction, and like where would we be right now if that other group had to come out of the steps and dominated the rest of Europe and just basically change this like um fertility worshiping nature cult into you know, this hierarchical, patriarchical, um, murderous civilization that's basically Western civilization today. I think the people in the movie Midsummer would agree with you. That was a given movie that I kept thinking about that as well. During this of course, I watched that again and had a better feeling about it. I love it the first time, some crazy folk core man like it is really something else. I haven't only seen it once. I need to see it again. Well, maybe you won't like it the second time. I hope that's not true, but it's possible. All right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take a break, we're gonna regather ourselves, and we're gonna bring it back to February two right after this. Chuck, all right, So we set up what was going on back in the day, and groundhog Day is just something that survived from that ancient practice. Back then, especially in Germany, they had a tradition of waking up a badger not probably not a good idea, and seeing if it will crawl back into its borough to see if it was a sign of bad weather ahead, and then that eventually makes it over to the United States. Some people in Pennsylvania that settled Pennsylvania took that idea adapted it to groundhogs I guess, because there were more groundhogs and badgers, and started looking, uh at these groundhogs coming out and whether or not they would see their shadow, whether or not the people would see the shadow. It was the Germans who came over who said, well, wait, there's no badgers, so how are we going to tell about the whether there's winter left or not? And they said, well, groundhogs will do, I guess, And and the fact that like they were present and then brought the superstition with them that was based in this combination of badgers coming out of their borrow and going back and then candle Boss and the fact that there weren't any badgers and groundhogs will have to do. That's where groundhog Day came from, in that bizarre it is. But if you really want to talk about groundhog Day and what we'd know as groundhog Day, that's sort of goofy fun um money making scheme that they came up with. Is it can be traced back to one dude uh February seven, the very first groundhog Day celebration UM was created by climber Freeze F. R. E. A. S. The editor of the Punk Satani Spirit newspaper and Punk Sutani is about eighty miles from Pittsburgh, Um there in western Pennsylvania. It's a coal mining town and it's a very small town. I think it's indigenous name from the Native American People's was Town of the sand Flies. The LENNAPPI did they have sand flies? I guess, I don't know why else the Lennappy would have called it that. And I was like, sand flies don't sound great. Sand Flies are terrible. Not only does their bite hurt, but they spread all sorts of diseases too, and punks Punks Attorney basically means sand fly town, So I guess there was a real sand fly problem there at some point, But there's no sand western Pennsylvania. Did they have sand there? I think a lot of the United States was marshy before we started developing it, so there's probably a lot of marsh around Western Pennsylvania at the time. I thought they just might have really liked the settlement. And it's be like naming something like the bed bug or something. Isn't that why Iceland is called Iceland? And that the old story that they basically wanted to make people either that or else. They settlers of Greenland wanted to make Iceland look bad and Greenland look good, so they called Iceland Iceland something like that. I mean, that's one of the first little things you hear in elementary school from that guy. Did you know that Iceland is green and Greenland is? I said, I remember, I remember giving that kid a weggie. Oh wait, I was the kid who got the wedges. Okay, makes a lot more sense. So here we are in seven and climber Freeze has stumbled upon a great little money maker to bring thousands of people to his town to spend money. Actually, he he started a year before that, just ever so briefly. He just as the publisher of the punks Autawny Spirit. He published a line that said, today is groundhog Day, and up to the time of going to press, the beast has not seen as shadow. And the fact that he doesn't spend any time explaining what he's talking about suggests that it was already pretty well established, at least in the town of punks Autawny at the time, probably in western Pennsylvania what with their large German and large groundhog population. Um and that was it. That was the first mentioned in a newspaper in America of groundhog Day. And because groundhog Days was specifically American invention based on ancient Celtic in in German traditions, uh, this would be the first time in the world anyone ever mentioned it in the paper. So he plants that seed. He wants to get a buzz going. He's like, I'm gonna tease this out over a year. No one's gonna know what's coming. No one's gonna know. It hit him in seven and in that year that he was sort of the idea was brewing. He founded he got some folks together groundhog hunters and called it the Punk Suitani Groundhog Club that would become that in eighteen ninety nine. And they were groundhog hunters. Groundhogs were pest and they would go around kill groundhogs. Apparently they would eat them. It was a delicacy that they served to out of towners at first, I guess Jenny Biggs just to see if they died. And then the locals started eating groundhogs, which I can't imagine taste very good. But that's hilarious that the tradition of groundhog Day grew out of these people eating groundhogs like groundhog hunters. Terrible but also hilarious. And the fact that they served them two out of towners first, also, it just really gets me. But this this Punk's Tony Groundhog Club. Um, they held the first um groundhog Day in seven, as you were saying before, And I don't I could not find to save my life why they chose Gobbler's Knob. Um. But there may be a clue in why Gobbler's Knob is named that. There's two um possible reasons given. One is that I guess it was a hangout for turkeys, which okay, great um or it was the place that traditionally groundhog hunters or hunters of any woodland animal would kind of come out of the woods to this hilly area and eat what they had just caught, or cook and eat what they just caught, possibly having picnics in the area. So it would make sense that the ground Hog Club would go to Gobbler's Nob where they would normally eat groundhog if this was already associated with groundhogs in that way. But either way, that's where they helped your risk. Yeah, picturesque and um bloody, yeah, but I mean, you know, it makes sense to have a thing. There's what I'm saying, right right, so right, yeah, it is quite beautiful. But that's where the first Groundhog Day in seven was held, and it has been basically ever since. I mean, there was a stretch here there where they didn't do it, but as they were first starting to get their footings. But I think from the turn of the last century onward it's been at Gobbler's Knob every year. And I think of that first one h the groundhog saw his shadow and for parts of the area, and this is kind of how it goes. Of course, it was something that's unscientific parts of the area. Had it worked out parts of the area, it did not work out as far as winter ending sooner than later. Well, I think that's kind of par for the course for sure, of phills we'll see and so Um, although we can thank like climber Freeze for giving us groundhog Day, Like I said, like, it's clear this was already an established tradition, and I think the earliest mentioned they've been able to find somebody referencing groundhog Day goes back to one where a guy named James Morris wrote in his diary about he mentioned groundhog Day. Um, and I don't think he said whether the groundhog saw his shadow or not. He just mentions it and kind of describes it. So I'd have been around for many decades before climber Freeze came along with it, but climber Freeze is definitely the one to to popularize it. Yeah, I mean he started writing about it and writing about the you know, this amazing groundhog that could foretell the future whether and you know it's all a tongue in cheek and good fun. Um, we have to talk about punk Stani Phil, of course, the famous groundhog that is still the groundhog of record in punk Sutani full name Puntsatani Phil, seer of seers, stage of Stages, prognosticator of prognosticators, and weather profit extraordinary. Is Phil's full Name's right, and it's very cute. I guess he wasn't named Phil until I don't know the first half or the mid middle of the last century, because the the Punks Attanni Groundhog Hog Club on their website says that he is named after King Philip, and King Philip is not I don't think they're talking about. I think they're referencing Prince Philip, who is Queen Elizabeth's husband, and he wouldn't have really become a public figure until you know, the thirties, maybe the forties or fifties. So before that, um, the groundhog, you know, that's stretch um. But the groundhog was known as a bear groundhog, brother groundhog or brother groundhog. That's what they all called him before. But the thing about Punks Attorny Phil, which is what his name now, he may have had different names, but the Punks Attorny Groundhog Club maintains that he's still the same groundhog that they the group came upon back in eighteen eighty seven. That is this magically living, long living groundhog who's been alive for I guess now a hundred and thirty three years since that first Groundhog Day in eighteen eighty seven. Right, So you know we said earlier to put a pin in the fact that groundhogs live, was it like six to eight years or something like that, That ten in captivity. Sure, well, he's in captivity, but hundred and thirty three it seems like a wave beyond that. So they cooked up a fun little story there. They said that Phil is able to live so long because, um, he drinks a punch made of dandelions every summer. And I think they saw the riding on the wall and said, hey, we can make another money making day out of this thing if we have a little summer festival picnic thing where Phil drinks this uh, dandelion juice as it were. And so now they have a big celebration for Phil's annual drinking of the daisy juice or dandelion juice. And we mentioned that, you know, back years back, the groundhog was treated as a pest and eaten hunted and eaten, and that they may have had like a picnic around Gobbler's Knob to eat the groundhogs. This annual tradition now where they all celebrate Phil gaining seven more years to his life, seems to have been based on the annual groundhog hunt and roast. So they went from eating groundhogs to pretending that this one has been alive for a hundred and thirty three years thanks to this this magical potion that he drinks. I wonder if they make great efforts to get a groundhog that really looks like the original Phil think groundhogs look a lot alike to humans. Yeah, you know, but it's like Ugga for the Georgia bulldogs, Like they have different uggas and white bulldogs. You know, they all all the Uggans look a little bit different, and we all like that's part of the personality of of each Ugga. But I think the groundhogs you're saying, they just like he didn't have a big white stripe down the middle of his head or anything. I see, I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah no, but they've got to because it's you know, the thing about the uggas is, you know it's uga six or that's ug a million or something like that. Like they're meant to be there, different Uggas, but they're all related in some way, at least through school spirit. Um, this is supposed to be all of the successive groundhogs. Whenever they come upon you know, him and his burrow and he's not moving any longer, um like the yeah, they would, I guess kind of have to find a groundhog that looks kind of like him so that they can be like, well, this is the this is the same one. He's been around for a hundred thirty three years. All I'm saying is probably not very hard to pull the wool over human being's eyes when they're like, no, it's the same crownhog. You know. I think I think the Uggs are all the same family line, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if all of them in history, but I think there's this very prominent Savannah family that, uh where all the Uggs come from, if I'm not mistaken. Didn't the main guy, the guy who was on trial and Midnight of the Garden of Good and Evil? Wasn't he the Ugga breeder for a while, I don't know, but it had something to do with that. I feel like he he had something. Yeah, he had something to do with the Uggs and if if not like the actual the owner of the the Ugga's mom or something. Yeah, pretty good movie. I never read the book. I did both and they were both pretty good. It was one of those ones where like the movies just about as good as the book. Back when you could watch a Kevin Spacey movie that's right, creeped out and John Kisack does a good job too, that's right. And you could watch a John Keisack movie to be crazy. So let's take let's take a break here and we'll talk about you know, we mentioned that, uh, when Phil dies in the dead of night, they have to get him out of there quietly. We'll talk about how they might do that right after this. Le Okay, so we're back and we have a dead groundhog on our hands. Yeah. Well, if punksatany Phil passes away, which has clearly happened probably ever every eight to ten years, Uh, they can do so quietly. Because Phil leads a very pampered life. Uh an indoor life, you might say, oh yeah, because he has handlers, he has a full sort of staff, volunteers, that look after Phil, and they all have funny titles like Shingle Shaker or Chief Chief health Man, and uh, they make sure Phil leads a pretty cush life there in captivity. I've read that he eats a lot of ice cream and actually had to have a tooth removed once because he had a cavity from eating so much. Yeah, he's he's basically kept very happy, um and strong out on junk food, I guess, um. But that inner circle that you mentioned, that's fifteen local volunteers who basically they're not the punk Stutawny ground Hog Club. They're like the the upper echelon the leaders of the punch Stutawny ground Hog Club, it sounds like. And only a couple of them are allowed to handle Phil um and the president is the only one who actually can communicate with Phil. As we'll see. Yeah, they and we'll talk about the movie in a bit. But if you've seen the movie, you've seen those tuxedos and top hats, or if you you know you got the Delpa work. Anyway, if you tune in to watch the coverage, you're gonna see those tuxedos and top hats because they say hey fills the v I P When v I P s came to town back in the day. This is what we'd wear when we met him at the train. And he is our most famous residents. We're going to pay him that respect. Well, the other thing that I saw, the other explanation I saw, and that explanation actually came from one of the former Inner Circle members. But in other explanations that some of those early like um nineteenth century depictions of Breyer groundhog Um was in a top hat, like he was supposed to be this very intelligent um uh forecaster of of weather. Um, And so they depict him in like a top hat. And I think that's probably likelier where it came from, and they just forgot somewhere along the way. Well, Phill does a lot of sleeping. Um. He does not hibernate though, because he, like I said, he's in his his climate controlled burrow. He doesn't have these cues from nature to let him know when anything is at all. Uh. He as far as he knows, it's always perfect weather, except every February when he gets yanked out of there, taken out in the cold in the middle of the night to his other thankfully climate controlled burrow that is built into a stump. If you've never seen it, you can just google an image of this. Um kind of nice scene. It's got a stage there in a stump, and it's you know, it looks like something you'd see it. Uh uh, like a show at six Flags or something that's exactly right the country bears jamboree or something totally. Um, yeah, that's great. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it looked like, but that is exactly what I was thinking of and could find now. So um, it's a bit of a rude awakening. Like you said, it's the middle of the night, ful phill, but they give him some time to kind of real ax and like get settled into his his um stump, his showtime stump, I guess, is what you call it. But I can't imagine that he's like getting a lot of relaxation. And because just outside of that stump is anywhere from I've seen eight thousand up to twenty thousand people all hanging out on Gobbler's Knob. And this is in a town of about five thousand people, so the population might be quadruple depending on whether Groundhog days, say, falls on a weekend, and they are so loud there. It's a rowdy, boisterous crowd um. They shoot off fireworks, they have live music all throughout the night. This is all leading up to dawn. Basically from about three am to about six thirty am, they just are partying right outside of Phil's stump. And then if there's a drink, like a signature drink, yeah, I saw there's a groundhog punch that has to do with like vodka and a bunch of other stuff. But I also have a distinct impression that this might be, if not dry, at least way more family friendly than yeah, everybody wasted on punch kind of thing. No, that's true. I mean you don't want to you don't want it to be like, uh well, like the Kentucky Derby. Dude, Man, things get dark. They're real quick. You've been to one of those, right, Yeah, and it got dark. They're real quick. Man. That was like like the second the race is over. Yeah, and even no before during after it's just utter chaos. You mean I were like, we we didn't leave, we fled. It was crazy, dude. Yeah, But now I think of the impression that this is a lot more clean cut than than the Kentucky Derby. I feel when I saw fireworks, I just felt bad for Phil that can't Yeah, you must have been scared, for sure. And I'm sure all the dogs in the area are like I hate groundhog Day, you know, and neighbors that aren't really big on Groundhog Day are probably not very happy. I mean, but airbnbr place is what you do. I would guess so, because again, five thousand people live in town, twenty additional people show up and hopefully if you own a business you've listened to chuck in your businesses open that day. So you mentioned the president is the only one who can speak to Phil or understand Phil. Uh. When Phil emerges from that borough, he does speak. Um. Groundhog ease is what they call it. And the president is the only person even in that inner circle that can understand and translate for the people. And Phil is is kind of a rapper, Isn't that right? I think that's being rather generous, But yes, he he speaks in rhyme, kind of sing song rhyme. Yeah, well, I mean it looks like wrapped to me on this groundhog Day. I'm happy to say I love fruity pebbles in a major way. Was that a commercial? Yes, it was ironically well, I guess the opposite of ironically expectedly, um, fruity pebbles commercial. Uh so yeah, So he speaks and sings song, the president translates for everyone. They all have a good time. And keep in mind, this is at dawn. So I imagined the whole affair is over pretty quickly. Yeah, they've got to be so tired too. Um, but everybody gets powered up by some vodka based groundhog punch. Sure, they're like, why are we drunk? Aft is right? I think that's kind of the case, at least for some people. But um, that's the whole shebang. They kind of stretched it out for a week. I've seen that the whole festivities kind of take place over the week. But it seems like February second is kind of the big day February first slash second. So is he accurate though, that's the question that The answer to that question is no, not at all, because it's unscientific. Well yeah, that's definitely unscientific. But somehow Phil is even worse than chance at predicting the weather. Now, the Groundhog Club says he's he's correct a percent of the time. Um. That's the whole tongue in cheek thing. And then some people like to try to prove them right and say, well, yes, in some parts of the country he's right, in other parts he's not. But for the punk Sittawny area or western Pennsylvania he's he's he hits between thirty and forty on any given ten year stretch between two thousand ten and two thousand nineteen, between two thousand and one and two thousand ten, um, So that's not very good. I mean, like, if you just toss a coin, you could expect to come up heads or tails better than that, And that's basically what they're doing. UM. And we should say, in Phil's defense, he's not predicting anything. This is all the very very insane inner circle who are making these predictions. So they're technically the ones who are worse than chance at predicting whether there's going to be six more weeks of winter or in early spring. Yeah. I didn't want to be there in the first place. That's right. There's I saw footage of one a bit the the gout the handler's finger, and um only got some of the glove, but it looked like it would have been pretty vicious had he gotten any of his actual finger. It was hilarious and the crowd went wild. They loved it. He literally bit the hand that feds it. Yeah, I guess, so he's like, give me some more ice cream. So should we talk about the movie? We can't not talk about the movie. I didn't think we were talking about the movie groundhog Day, a movie which I have covered on movie Crush. This was the favorite movie of Griffin McElroy, of the famous McElroy Brothers podcasting. I saw that. I thought it was Justin mclroy was a Griffin, now justin. He was on two though. He did with Nail and I another great movie, and Griffin picked picked groundhog Day, and he says. Griffin's quote was not only do I think it's my favorite movie? He said, I think it's the best movie, like literally the best movie. He had some groundhog punch himself. He loves it, and uh and love it. It's a little you know, it doesn't age super well. Kind of it's a little problematic, is kind. He's a little he's a little he's just a little aggressive. He he doesn't take no for an answer over and over and over, and that's the point of the movie. But watching it through to today's lens is sort of like he back off, Dude, She's not interested, right, So yeah, I get you. Um So the for those of you who haven't seen it, first of all, go see it. But then secondly, it's it's um about this reporter. He gets stuck in this time loop where he's living February second Groundhog Day in punks its hawny over and over and over again. His name is Phil And it had such a huge impact. Yeah, and they never explained why this happens. It just happens to him, which I think is something that makes the movie that much more enjoyable. But um, the this movie had such an impact on um the culture that today people associate groundhog Day not just with you know, predicting whether there's gonna be an early spring or more winter. They predicted with weird things like losing track of time or time doing odd things, or having deja vu. And that's strictly from the movie. Like that was never a part of Groundhog Day until this movie came along. Yeah, I mean people will say that if something happened again to you or whatever you say. Oh man, it's like groundhog Day. Uh. And it's you know, it's pretty rare for a movie to enter the sort of public consciousness to that degree. And also it's interesting and displace something that's already taking that spot even you know what I'm saying, or add to it at least. Yeah, for sure. Um. When I was doing research for the movie Crush episode, I did see that thing that you included here that the original screenwriter and eventual co writer to Harold Ramos, Danny Ruben Um the original script it was ten thousand years um that he was living because is of the Buddhist principle that it takes ten thousand years for a human soul to be perfect, and they change that up in the movie. And there is a lot of robust debate about how many days occur in the movie. Um, supposedly, and I look this up in a bunch of different places. If you just look at the movie the number of times it repeats, it's thirty eight, Okay, I saw, But if there are people who have taken time to calculate how long it really is. Because you know, he learns foreign languages, he becomes a master piano player. Uh and and people have taken great links to actually calculate how long it would take to do all this, and everyone, I mean, there are some exact days that people have calculated, but everyone is sort of landed in the neighborhood of about ten years, including Harold Ramos saying, yeah, we feel like it's about ten years that he's relived in order to learn all this stuff. I like ten thousand more. I'm going with Danny Ruben's estimate. You know, well, if it was ten thousand years, he would just be like it'd be like in the matrix at the end or something. Well, at some point he says, I'm a god, so you know, maybe it still is in there. But um, yeah. One of the things about that movie too, Chuck, is, um it's part of the festivities now, the show it the night before at like the local theater, and um it's been a boon for the town as well, not just Groundhog Day, but the movie itself has drawn people to the town to kind of see, you know, Punks Attawny, and they're usually very disappointed to find out that they didn't actually shoot the town in Punks Autonny. They shot it in Woodstock, Illinois. So while they named like the businesses and took like cop cars from Punksutawni and like moved a lot of punks Tawny two Woodstock, you can't visually see like, oh this is where this this you know, this is where ned Ryerson crosses the street um to say hi, you know downtown, Like that's in Woodstock, Illinois. So I think they don't tell people that until after they've made their way to punt Stani and spend at least fifty dollars, then they tell them, Okay, this wood Stock, Illinois that you're really after. Yeah, I mean what do you think. Do you want to go to punt Stani and kind of be at the real place or do you want to go to Illinois to kind of see these real old movie locations. I would like to go to neither of those places. I'm good with the seeing clips old clips um on YouTube. That's fine with me. Like It's never struck me as like a great um uh holiday. I think, not because of Groundhog Day or the fact that it's in western Pennsylvania or anything like that, um, but because February two is just such a sucky time of the year. I hate that time of the year. Um that nothing really good can happen around then. So you know, the beginning of February always thinks, which is ironic because my wedding anniversaries in mid February. That to me is when things pick up. Yeah, I pulled that out at the end of night. You did, I forgot you guys got you got married in warm climbs. Yeah, we we escaped to Hawaii because February is kind of gross in the United States. Yeah, my anniversary sometime in late April. I can never remember the day. Well, hey, just start saying after this, we'll just say all the different numbers, will find out the right one and then Jerry can edit it in all right, Um, you you got anything else? I got nothing else. Um well, if you want to know more about Groundhog Day, just go online. I think this year it's a streaming there because of COVID. They're not having people out, but they are streaming is so you can go check out the punks Attorny Groundhog Clubs website for all the links and everything. And since I directed everyone to the punks Attorny Groundhog Clubs website. As per usual, it's time for a listener. Now I'm going to call this hot off the presses. This came in thirty seconds ago and I didn't have one prepared, and this is a good one. Hey, guys, hope you're doing well. Josh, Chuck and Jerry over there. My name is Mike Martin. He him his thank you for that. Mike. I'm a classical musician, a bassist in the New World Symphony in Miami Beats, Florida. Been an avid listener for six years. My sister Jessica got me hooked on your show after we were traveling to see our family got stuck behind an oil tanker. The truck pulled to a stop on a quiet stretch of highway Rural in the middle of the night, when the driver put on the hazards jumped out of the vehicle. Confused, we attempted to go around when the hood of the truck burst into flames. After backing away to a safe distance, my sister laughed side, pulled out her phone and said, looks like we're not going anywhere. Have you heard of stuff you should know? Since then, I've listened to your entire catalog five times. Wow. So this is a long email, but I'm gonna get to the cruxt of it here. It was about the Clan episode uh in his experience as a black man. He said, I really appreciate your recent episode in the KKK, especially with Chuck mentioned about feeling you need to do a comprehensive dive on the Clan because of the terror and harm they visited on Black Americans like myself twenty six years old, and even when I was a young child in the nineties, there were cross burnings near my home in semi rural Pennsylvania. Uh. We moved a few towns over not long afterwards, but all my life as a black child living in the Northeast, I live with explicitly racist iconography. On walks with friends in the woods, we'd find swastikas and racist screeds spray painted on abandoned railroad buildings. Who was not uncommon to see Confederate flags on people's homes and cars. Even in school, I'd find nooses tied on the pool cords of blinds. I even remember the first time I was called the N word in a school bathroom in the first grade, and the principle's response to my parents in his office, we can't help what people teach their kids at home. Man, the way I was treated improved as I got older, but it prompted me to start thinking about how the more insidious and subtle elements of racism impact my life and those of others from a very young age. And then Mike went on to give a lot of great recommendations for episodes he thinks we should do uh, and he says, stay safe and be well. And that is from Mike Martin the bass player. Nice Mike, thanks a lot for writing and I'm sorry all of that could happen to you. Yeah, um, and yeah, thanks for the ideas. Give me an idea that he gave us for an episode. He said jazz because he said it. It's a lot of different things that we've talked about, um, kind of coming together uh in musical movement. So that's one that we've talked about. Is just cheez like Ken Burns did. However many hours on jazz. How do we do five minutes on jazz? Whatever? We did a two part on evil kinevel. We can do anything. Be about scooda dude, you just do that the whole time, all right, Maybe we shouldn't do one on jazz. Now I think about sorry Mike. Well, if you want to get in touch with this like Mike didn't and share the horrors of your childhood, we want to hear that in a weird way, um, and also to share with the rest of you so we can all feel like a stuff you Should Know family even more than we did before. Uh. And you can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom gently, and send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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