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How Groundhog Day Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryan over there, and Jerry's
0:16
Speaker 1: right over there. Uh, Internet speaking wise, and this is
0:21
Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know, a special holiday edition that comes
0:25
Speaker 1: out on the holiday. Chuck, Now, is this can we
0:28
Speaker 1: call this a holiday? Yeah? Groundhog Day is definitely a holiday.
0:32
Speaker 1: Are you not a pagan? Well no, I just thought
0:35
Speaker 1: holidays meant like work. You don't work in businesses, clothes.
0:41
Speaker 1: I there's gotta be somebody that's closed on groundhog Day. Well,
0:46
Speaker 1: I bet certain people in a certain town. Well, actually
0:49
Speaker 1: they're probably everything's open because they're they're just doing this
0:52
Speaker 1: to make money, right. They would be total fools if
0:54
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, I always close on groundhog Day. I
0:57
Speaker 1: didn't think that through. So um, yeah, we'll get to
1:00
Speaker 1: that town in a little bit. But first, Chuck, let's
1:03
Speaker 1: talk about groundhogs themselves. Because if you don't know what
1:06
Speaker 1: groundhog Day is, don't worry. This isn't one of those
1:09
Speaker 1: ones where we need to define it for you. Just
1:11
Speaker 1: kick back and relax and like, let us guide you
1:13
Speaker 1: down the river of knowledge. Okay right. Uh. Groundhogs a
1:20
Speaker 1: k a. Wood Chuck's podcast. Whistle pigs another name they are,
1:29
Speaker 1: uh you know what they are? There, beautiful? Um. They
1:32
Speaker 1: weigh twelve or fifteen pounds. They live. Put a pin
1:35
Speaker 1: in this stat They live six to eight years. That
1:38
Speaker 1: will come back later. They eat veggies and fruits. They're
1:42
Speaker 1: called whistle pigs sometimes because they whistle if they're scared
1:45
Speaker 1: or if they're looking for a mate. It's more of
1:47
Speaker 1: a chirping sound to me. Yeah, but chirping pigs is
1:51
Speaker 1: not as fun as whistle pig. That explains that high
1:53
Speaker 1: end bourbon. Though I had no idea why it was
1:56
Speaker 1: called whistle pig, but it's named after ground. Whistle pig.
2:00
Speaker 1: Is that high end? Yeah, it's pretty good. Okay, it's
2:04
Speaker 1: the kind they keep behind the counter. Well, it's on
2:08
Speaker 1: my shelf. I don't drink a lot of bourbon. But oh,
2:09
Speaker 1: we'll go turn it up right now while we're recording.
2:13
Speaker 1: Tell us what you think. All right, I'm back and
2:16
Speaker 1: I'm hammered everyone. Uh. They can climb trees, they can swim,
2:21
Speaker 1: and they hibernate in late fall. And this is kind
2:24
Speaker 1: of one of the important parts of wood chucks and
2:26
Speaker 1: groundhogs and how they figure in the groundhog day. They
2:29
Speaker 1: hibernate in the fall and their body temperatures drop, that
2:32
Speaker 1: heartbeat slows down from eight to about five beats a minute,
2:36
Speaker 1: they lose a lot of body fat, and then the
2:39
Speaker 1: males in February come out and say, who wants to
2:43
Speaker 1: do it? Right? What's crazy, though, is when they come out,
2:46
Speaker 1: they don't actually do it. They more like make plans
2:49
Speaker 1: for later. It's they're nervous. It's really weird. And the
2:53
Speaker 1: reason why they do this they literally break hibernation, which
2:56
Speaker 1: can kill them if they do it wrong and the
2:58
Speaker 1: timing is wrong or they don't have enough body fat
3:01
Speaker 1: stow it up. They do it because groundhogs are so
3:05
Speaker 1: ornerary toward one another. They're really territorial about their food
3:08
Speaker 1: supply and their burrow that they've probably made a lot
3:13
Speaker 1: of enemies and heard a lot of feelings over the
3:15
Speaker 1: past year. So they come out in February to basically
3:18
Speaker 1: be like, hey, how about you and I just bury
3:20
Speaker 1: the hatchet and I'm gonna go back to sleep for
3:23
Speaker 1: a few more weeks. But when I come out, we'll
3:25
Speaker 1: totally do it, and I'm going to bury something out
3:28
Speaker 1: and oh my god, and uh they do. There's some
3:33
Speaker 1: sort of agreement, uh, and they see each other a
3:36
Speaker 1: few weeks later. The groundhog goes back to his burrow
3:40
Speaker 1: and then he comes out for good. He finishes hybridating
3:43
Speaker 1: in March, and then the the groundhog fornication can begin
3:48
Speaker 1: forth with post taste. And that nuts. That's how ordnery
3:53
Speaker 1: they are. They have to come out and make plans
3:55
Speaker 1: for later. Yeah, they need a which is that chill
4:00
Speaker 1: time in between two to really gather themselves and make
4:03
Speaker 1: sure they're up for it. So that's super cute. That's
4:08
Speaker 1: a nice little primer on who these little beasts are.
4:11
Speaker 1: But this is about Groundhog Day, the holiday where America
4:16
Speaker 1: shuts down, government doesn't do business, the banks are closed.
4:21
Speaker 1: Can't buy a piece of gum to save your life.
4:23
Speaker 1: Oh man, if only so, get that gum on February one, everybody, right.
4:28
Speaker 1: But sometime between that point um between when America became
4:35
Speaker 1: a place and seven, someone looked at the groundhog and
4:41
Speaker 1: this little hibernation thing that they did, and they said,
4:44
Speaker 1: you know what, we also have this weird tradition that
4:46
Speaker 1: we're going to explain a second, where we like to
4:49
Speaker 1: try and predict when to plant crops and what the
4:52
Speaker 1: weather is going to do here towards the end of
4:54
Speaker 1: winter in the spring. And let's mash that up into
4:56
Speaker 1: a weird, weird day to honor this little thing. And
5:00
Speaker 1: that's Groundhog Day. That's where it came from. It's a
5:02
Speaker 1: couple of weird traditions, like you said, mashed together. And
5:07
Speaker 1: the other weird tradition UM in addition to the groundhog
5:11
Speaker 1: coming out UH in February, is UM. This this tradition
5:18
Speaker 1: of February two being observed as UM kind of this
5:22
Speaker 1: indicator of how much winter is going to be left.
5:26
Speaker 1: And it's based on an astronomical event called the cross
5:31
Speaker 1: quarter day, which was observed by the ancient Celts the
5:34
Speaker 1: Pagans I mentioned earlier. UM and cross quarter days are
5:38
Speaker 1: pretty interesting and that it's a it's a day of
5:41
Speaker 1: the year, and there's four of them that fall between
5:44
Speaker 1: a solstice and an equinox. And UM, do you have
5:50
Speaker 1: a solstice is where the sun is either at the
5:51
Speaker 1: most northerly or southernly part of the sky, UM, depending
5:55
Speaker 1: on what hemisphere you're in. So it's either summer or
5:58
Speaker 1: winter solstice. And then the equinox is where the equator
6:02
Speaker 1: of the Earth in the equator of the Sun are
6:05
Speaker 1: on an equal plane. Just for a minute, just for
6:07
Speaker 1: a moment, I should say, um, and you have your
6:10
Speaker 1: vernal or spring and autumnal fall equinox. Um. So those
6:15
Speaker 1: are four quarter dates, and then in between those are
6:17
Speaker 1: four cross quarter dates that carve up the I guess
6:21
Speaker 1: the year even further. And to the ancient Celts, it
6:24
Speaker 1: seems like to them the cross quarter dates weren't the
6:28
Speaker 1: midway point of anything. They were the beginning point, whereas
6:31
Speaker 1: to us the quarter dates, the solstices, and the equinox
6:34
Speaker 1: are the beginning of the seasons. The Celts didn't see
6:37
Speaker 1: it that way, and so they really celebrated the cross
6:40
Speaker 1: quarter dates. Yeah, it's kind of like I guess an
6:43
Speaker 1: American might see them as sort of a seasonal hump
6:46
Speaker 1: day where you're kind of smack dab in the middle
6:49
Speaker 1: of things, and we don't observe them like they do.
6:53
Speaker 1: But I feel like, just an instinctively, in sort of
6:58
Speaker 1: early to mid February every year, late January, my psyche
7:03
Speaker 1: sort of starts to think about, all right, we're easing
7:07
Speaker 1: towards spring. I feel like we're about halfway there, and
7:10
Speaker 1: this is in Atlanta. Even that's the ancient pagan blood
7:13
Speaker 1: coursing through your veins. It might be I think we're
7:17
Speaker 1: we're pagans, but yeah, but to the Pagans it was.
7:20
Speaker 1: It wasn't like the halfway points the beginning. So in
7:23
Speaker 1: on February twod this cross quarter day. It was actually
7:26
Speaker 1: a day called um. Well, it was called a number
7:30
Speaker 1: of things, but to the Celts it was it was
7:32
Speaker 1: the beginning of spring. Um. At first they called it
7:36
Speaker 1: in bold, which means in the belly like the world,
7:39
Speaker 1: the earth is pregnant and about to give birth from
7:42
Speaker 1: into spring. Um. Like, yeah, it was when the lambing
7:46
Speaker 1: season began, which I don't think I like that. No, no,
7:49
Speaker 1: you do. If you if you look up lambing pictures,
7:52
Speaker 1: it's like that's when all the baby lambs are born
7:54
Speaker 1: and hopping around. I thought, that's what I thought too,
7:58
Speaker 1: And and no, that probably a little bit later, but um,
8:02
Speaker 1: this is when everything's still cute and sweet. Okay. They
8:05
Speaker 1: also called it umu brigantia um after the after Bridgid,
8:12
Speaker 1: the female deity of light. And the whole point was that,
8:15
Speaker 1: you know, the sun had really kind of been hiding
8:19
Speaker 1: for most of the winter, ever since the winter solstice,
8:22
Speaker 1: and now it was starting to kind of creep out.
8:25
Speaker 1: And to those of us who are like, this is
8:27
Speaker 1: the halfway points kind of like, come on, son, keep going.
8:30
Speaker 1: And when the Christians got their hands on the Celts,
8:33
Speaker 1: the pagans Um, they said, well, how about this. Let's
8:36
Speaker 1: call this like the Festival of Lights, and we'll commemorate this.
8:39
Speaker 1: This is like, um the part of winter where it's
8:43
Speaker 1: starting to get sunny er and sunnier, by having you
8:45
Speaker 1: guys bring your candles around the church and we're gonna
8:48
Speaker 1: bless them and then they'll just keep burning for the
8:50
Speaker 1: rest of the winter. How about that? That's right, They
8:53
Speaker 1: turned them into magic candles. It became known not only
8:58
Speaker 1: as Festival of Lights, but handle moss. And you'll hear
9:02
Speaker 1: that word a few times later on. And it's sort
9:05
Speaker 1: of still grounded in seasons though. And the whole thing
9:09
Speaker 1: here is like as far as the ancient Celts go,
9:11
Speaker 1: and then you know people since then farmers, namely, is
9:16
Speaker 1: when can we when is the weather going to turn here?
9:19
Speaker 1: When is that ground gonna thaw? When can we expect
9:22
Speaker 1: good weather and not be fooled into planting, only to
9:26
Speaker 1: have it frost again and kill those early buds. That's
9:30
Speaker 1: something that you now that you're you've taken up gardening
9:34
Speaker 1: and stuff at your house, you will be frustrated by this.
9:37
Speaker 1: Now to my friend, when that happens, Oh yeah, the frost,
9:40
Speaker 1: the early frost or late frost, I should say late frosted.
9:45
Speaker 1: I can't sleep well. Emily always like when things start
9:49
Speaker 1: blooming to early. She's like, no, stop, stop, I think
9:52
Speaker 1: it's gonna frost again. It always does. I had to Uh,
9:55
Speaker 1: I had to stop myself. Now, I failed to stop myself.
10:00
Speaker 1: I fertilized too late in the season, and um, and
10:04
Speaker 1: I had a big problem with that. Man, my anecdotes
10:09
Speaker 1: have just really gone downhill in the last twelve years.
10:12
Speaker 1: I predicted your your gardening way back in the day.
10:15
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that in what episode
10:17
Speaker 1: how Gardening. Someone's gonna have to find it. But you
10:20
Speaker 1: kind of you kind of tease me, and I said,
10:22
Speaker 1: you're gonna get into it one day, trust me. And
10:25
Speaker 1: you're like, I see that doesn't sound like me. Yeah thing,
10:33
Speaker 1: huh yeah, I'm actually surprised at that. But I'll take
10:37
Speaker 1: your word for it. I do want to know. So
10:39
Speaker 1: anybody out there, if you know what Chuck's talking about,
10:41
Speaker 1: let us know what episode it is. And at times
10:43
Speaker 1: thing will be great toe so he can erase it. Right. So,
10:50
Speaker 1: like I said, they were trying to figure out when
10:52
Speaker 1: to plant, and uh, it was not a good omen
10:57
Speaker 1: if it was bright and sunny, because that was a
10:59
Speaker 1: sign of snow and a late frost to continue on
11:04
Speaker 1: and that would not be a good time to plan.
11:06
Speaker 1: And this is all a little confusing, yeah, if if
11:10
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, Yeah, So, like the the whole thing
11:13
Speaker 1: was if at Candle moss Um February two, if if
11:17
Speaker 1: it was if that day was nice out, if the
11:20
Speaker 1: sun was shining, if there were no clouds in the sky,
11:23
Speaker 1: that actually meant that there was going to be a
11:26
Speaker 1: much longer period of winter left. And the reason why
11:30
Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense from a farmer's standpoint is one,
11:34
Speaker 1: maybe you're saying, well, this pretends a growing season where
11:37
Speaker 1: it's just going to be nice out and there's not
11:38
Speaker 1: gonna be any rain. You don't want that. But also
11:41
Speaker 1: number two, it's like you said, and like that kind
11:44
Speaker 1: of weather might fool the plants into starting to grow
11:47
Speaker 1: again and then bam they get hit with a late frost.
11:50
Speaker 1: So even though it seems counterintuitive, if it's nice out
11:52
Speaker 1: on February two at candle Moss to the ancient Celts,
11:56
Speaker 1: that meant that there was more winter coming. If it
11:58
Speaker 1: was the opposite, it was overcast, maybe even storming. If
12:02
Speaker 1: it was just gross out, it meant that winter was
12:05
Speaker 1: almost over, that the it was more than halfway over,
12:08
Speaker 1: and you were probably going to see spring pretty pretty soon.
12:11
Speaker 1: So that is the initial um, the initial way that
12:16
Speaker 1: February two kind of plays into this whole thing. So
12:20
Speaker 1: you know what my problem with this is is uh,
12:24
Speaker 1: and you you put this one together and you kind
12:25
Speaker 1: of came up with some other signs found in nature
12:29
Speaker 1: and different cultures where they sort of looked to um
12:33
Speaker 1: the natural rule to kind of tell the future, like
12:36
Speaker 1: the widths of the bands of a wooly caterpillar, the
12:39
Speaker 1: size and number of webs a spider might spin in
12:42
Speaker 1: the fall, um, how the squirrels are gathering gathering their
12:46
Speaker 1: nuts like would you frantic or calm? Or when the
12:50
Speaker 1: geese depart from the north, how thick corn husks are
12:53
Speaker 1: at harvest, like I love all that that stuff because
12:58
Speaker 1: to me that is like pre science science. Um, yeah,
13:03
Speaker 1: I think all of that stuff is kind of rooted
13:05
Speaker 1: and some maybe it might be a reach for some,
13:08
Speaker 1: but some sort of scientific basis, and it was just
13:11
Speaker 1: from people observing, which was sort of the first science
13:13
Speaker 1: was observation. But to me, this one is the least
13:17
Speaker 1: scientific of them all the because it's just one day. Yeah,
13:21
Speaker 1: it is, like it is. It's just one day, Like
13:23
Speaker 1: if it's February. Second, if it's candle moss and this
13:25
Speaker 1: is the condition, then that's your indicator. So yeah, I
13:28
Speaker 1: guess it is the least unscientific pre science measure of
13:35
Speaker 1: of what's the most Yeah, it really is. It really is.
13:38
Speaker 1: It's on par with drowning a person as a witch
13:41
Speaker 1: because you're your prediction for the the winter didn't come true.
13:46
Speaker 1: The wooly caterpillars bands didn't pretend the future after all,
13:50
Speaker 1: because there's probably something I don't know about the caterpillar,
13:53
Speaker 1: but I bet you there's some little nugget of science
13:56
Speaker 1: in there as to how their bands grow depending on
13:59
Speaker 1: whether Yeah, I like the celt stuff. Oh man, that
14:02
Speaker 1: there reminds me. So I read this article in The
14:04
Speaker 1: New Yorker not too long ago, um, and it's about
14:07
Speaker 1: we got to do an episode on it. There's this lake,
14:10
Speaker 1: a little lake way up in the Himalayas, in the
14:12
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere, in this really dangerous pass, and there's
14:16
Speaker 1: always been a bunch of skeletons jumbled together at the
14:19
Speaker 1: bottom of this lake, and you can clearly see them.
14:22
Speaker 1: So anthropologists went in and grabbed these these skeletons or
14:25
Speaker 1: some of them to take samples. And it turns out
14:28
Speaker 1: some of them seem to be from southern Italy, um,
14:32
Speaker 1: maybe even from Greece, from the Mediterranean. They have no
14:35
Speaker 1: business whatsoever. Where is it up in the Himalayas, like
14:38
Speaker 1: in Nepal right on just along uh I think a
14:43
Speaker 1: Hindu or a Buddhist pilgrimage path um, and like it's
14:47
Speaker 1: just really bizarre that they're there. But the author took
14:51
Speaker 1: some time to just kind of go off on the
14:53
Speaker 1: side and talk about how there was the spread of
14:57
Speaker 1: this group from the steps of Russia uh many many
15:01
Speaker 1: thousands of years ago. They basically brought the Indo European
15:05
Speaker 1: language our way. But also we're super patriarch article, super
15:10
Speaker 1: rapey um, super murdery and they really had an impact
15:14
Speaker 1: you can tell a lasting impact today and how just
15:17
Speaker 1: humans operate. But apparently in Western Europe and including the
15:20
Speaker 1: British Isles, the Celts seemed to be much more peaceful,
15:25
Speaker 1: much more egalitarian. UM women held much more powerful roles
15:29
Speaker 1: than than they did under this other group. And it
15:33
Speaker 1: really kind of drove home like wow, like history could
15:36
Speaker 1: have gone a totally different direction, and like where would
15:38
Speaker 1: we be right now if that other group had to
15:40
Speaker 1: come out of the steps and dominated the rest of
15:42
Speaker 1: Europe and just basically change this like um fertility worshiping
15:47
Speaker 1: nature cult into you know, this hierarchical, patriarchical, um, murderous
15:56
Speaker 1: civilization that's basically Western civilization today. I think the people
16:02
Speaker 1: in the movie Midsummer would agree with you. That was
16:04
Speaker 1: a given movie that I kept thinking about that as well.
16:07
Speaker 1: During this of course, I watched that again and had
16:10
Speaker 1: a better feeling about it. I love it the first time,
16:14
Speaker 1: some crazy folk core man like it is really something else.
16:18
Speaker 1: I haven't only seen it once. I need to see
16:20
Speaker 1: it again. Well, maybe you won't like it the second time.
16:23
Speaker 1: I hope that's not true, but it's possible. All right,
16:26
Speaker 1: here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take a break,
16:28
Speaker 1: we're gonna regather ourselves, and we're gonna bring it back
16:31
Speaker 1: to February two right after this. Chuck, all right, So
17:02
Speaker 1: we set up what was going on back in the day,
17:05
Speaker 1: and groundhog Day is just something that survived from that
17:10
Speaker 1: ancient practice. Back then, especially in Germany, they had a
17:14
Speaker 1: tradition of waking up a badger not probably not a
17:18
Speaker 1: good idea, and seeing if it will crawl back into
17:20
Speaker 1: its borough to see if it was a sign of
17:23
Speaker 1: bad weather ahead, and then that eventually makes it over
17:26
Speaker 1: to the United States. Some people in Pennsylvania that settled
17:29
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania took that idea adapted it to groundhogs I guess,
17:34
Speaker 1: because there were more groundhogs and badgers, and started looking,
17:39
Speaker 1: uh at these groundhogs coming out and whether or not
17:43
Speaker 1: they would see their shadow, whether or not the people
17:45
Speaker 1: would see the shadow. It was the Germans who came
17:47
Speaker 1: over who said, well, wait, there's no badgers, so how
17:50
Speaker 1: are we going to tell about the whether there's winter
17:52
Speaker 1: left or not? And they said, well, groundhogs will do,
17:55
Speaker 1: I guess, And and the fact that like they were
17:59
Speaker 1: present and then brought the superstition with them that was
18:01
Speaker 1: based in this combination of badgers coming out of their
18:04
Speaker 1: borrow and going back and then candle Boss and the
18:09
Speaker 1: fact that there weren't any badgers and groundhogs will have
18:11
Speaker 1: to do. That's where groundhog Day came from, in that
18:14
Speaker 1: bizarre it is. But if you really want to talk
18:18
Speaker 1: about groundhog Day and what we'd know as groundhog Day,
18:21
Speaker 1: that's sort of goofy fun um money making scheme that
18:27
Speaker 1: they came up with. Is it can be traced back
18:29
Speaker 1: to one dude uh February seven, the very first groundhog
18:33
Speaker 1: Day celebration UM was created by climber Freeze F. R. E. A. S.
18:41
Speaker 1: The editor of the Punk Satani Spirit newspaper and Punk
18:46
Speaker 1: Sutani is about eighty miles from Pittsburgh, Um there in
18:50
Speaker 1: western Pennsylvania. It's a coal mining town and it's a
18:54
Speaker 1: very small town. I think it's indigenous name from the
18:58
Speaker 1: Native American People's was Town of the sand Flies. The
19:02
Speaker 1: LENNAPPI did they have sand flies? I guess, I don't
19:06
Speaker 1: know why else the Lennappy would have called it that.
19:08
Speaker 1: And I was like, sand flies don't sound great. Sand
19:12
Speaker 1: Flies are terrible. Not only does their bite hurt, but
19:15
Speaker 1: they spread all sorts of diseases too, and punks Punks
19:19
Speaker 1: Attorney basically means sand fly town, So I guess there
19:21
Speaker 1: was a real sand fly problem there at some point,
19:24
Speaker 1: But there's no sand western Pennsylvania. Did they have sand there?
19:27
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the United States was marshy
19:29
Speaker 1: before we started developing it, so there's probably a lot
19:33
Speaker 1: of marsh around Western Pennsylvania at the time. I thought
19:36
Speaker 1: they just might have really liked the settlement. And it's
19:40
Speaker 1: be like naming something like the bed bug or something.
19:42
Speaker 1: Isn't that why Iceland is called Iceland? And that the
19:45
Speaker 1: old story that they basically wanted to make people either
19:48
Speaker 1: that or else. They settlers of Greenland wanted to make
19:51
Speaker 1: Iceland look bad and Greenland look good, so they called
19:54
Speaker 1: Iceland Iceland something like that. I mean, that's one of
19:57
Speaker 1: the first little things you hear in elementary school from
20:00
Speaker 1: that guy. Did you know that Iceland is green and
20:03
Speaker 1: Greenland is? I said, I remember, I remember giving that
20:06
Speaker 1: kid a weggie. Oh wait, I was the kid who
20:08
Speaker 1: got the wedges. Okay, makes a lot more sense. So
20:12
Speaker 1: here we are in seven and climber Freeze has stumbled
20:15
Speaker 1: upon a great little money maker to bring thousands of
20:19
Speaker 1: people to his town to spend money. Actually, he he
20:22
Speaker 1: started a year before that, just ever so briefly. He
20:27
Speaker 1: just as the publisher of the punks Autawny Spirit. He
20:30
Speaker 1: published a line that said, today is groundhog Day, and
20:34
Speaker 1: up to the time of going to press, the beast
20:36
Speaker 1: has not seen as shadow. And the fact that he
20:39
Speaker 1: doesn't spend any time explaining what he's talking about suggests
20:43
Speaker 1: that it was already pretty well established, at least in
20:46
Speaker 1: the town of punks Autawny at the time, probably in
20:49
Speaker 1: western Pennsylvania what with their large German and large groundhog population.
20:55
Speaker 1: Um and that was it. That was the first mentioned
20:58
Speaker 1: in a newspaper in America of groundhog Day. And because
21:02
Speaker 1: groundhog Days was specifically American invention based on ancient Celtic
21:07
Speaker 1: in in German traditions, uh, this would be the first
21:11
Speaker 1: time in the world anyone ever mentioned it in the paper.
21:14
Speaker 1: So he plants that seed. He wants to get a
21:17
Speaker 1: buzz going. He's like, I'm gonna tease this out over
21:19
Speaker 1: a year. No one's gonna know what's coming. No one's
21:22
Speaker 1: gonna know. It hit him in seven and in that
21:26
Speaker 1: year that he was sort of the idea was brewing.
21:29
Speaker 1: He founded he got some folks together groundhog hunters and
21:33
Speaker 1: called it the Punk Suitani Groundhog Club that would become
21:38
Speaker 1: that in eighteen ninety nine. And they were groundhog hunters.
21:42
Speaker 1: Groundhogs were pest and they would go around kill groundhogs.
21:46
Speaker 1: Apparently they would eat them. It was a delicacy that
21:49
Speaker 1: they served to out of towners at first, I guess
21:53
Speaker 1: Jenny Biggs just to see if they died. And then
21:56
Speaker 1: the locals started eating groundhogs, which I can't imagine taste
21:59
Speaker 1: very good. But that's hilarious that the tradition of groundhog
22:02
Speaker 1: Day grew out of these people eating groundhogs like groundhog hunters.
22:08
Speaker 1: Terrible but also hilarious. And the fact that they served
22:11
Speaker 1: them two out of towners first, also, it just really
22:13
Speaker 1: gets me. But this this Punk's Tony Groundhog Club. Um,
22:18
Speaker 1: they held the first um groundhog Day in seven, as
22:23
Speaker 1: you were saying before, And I don't I could not
22:25
Speaker 1: find to save my life why they chose Gobbler's Knob. Um.
22:30
Speaker 1: But there may be a clue in why Gobbler's Knob
22:33
Speaker 1: is named that. There's two um possible reasons given. One
22:37
Speaker 1: is that I guess it was a hangout for turkeys,
22:40
Speaker 1: which okay, great um or it was the place that
22:44
Speaker 1: traditionally groundhog hunters or hunters of any woodland animal would
22:49
Speaker 1: kind of come out of the woods to this hilly
22:51
Speaker 1: area and eat what they had just caught, or cook
22:54
Speaker 1: and eat what they just caught, possibly having picnics in
22:57
Speaker 1: the area. So it would make sense that the ground
23:00
Speaker 1: Hog Club would go to Gobbler's Nob where they would
23:02
Speaker 1: normally eat groundhog if this was already associated with groundhogs
23:06
Speaker 1: in that way. But either way, that's where they helped
23:08
Speaker 1: your risk. Yeah, picturesque and um bloody, yeah, but I mean,
23:13
Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense to have a thing. There's
23:15
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, right right, so right, yeah, it is
23:17
Speaker 1: quite beautiful. But that's where the first Groundhog Day in
23:21
Speaker 1: seven was held, and it has been basically ever since.
23:24
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a stretch here there where they
23:26
Speaker 1: didn't do it, but as they were first starting to
23:28
Speaker 1: get their footings. But I think from the turn of
23:31
Speaker 1: the last century onward it's been at Gobbler's Knob every year.
23:35
Speaker 1: And I think of that first one h the groundhog
23:40
Speaker 1: saw his shadow and for parts of the area, and
23:44
Speaker 1: this is kind of how it goes. Of course, it
23:46
Speaker 1: was something that's unscientific parts of the area. Had it
23:51
Speaker 1: worked out parts of the area, it did not work
23:54
Speaker 1: out as far as winter ending sooner than later. Well,
23:57
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of par for the course for sure,
24:00
Speaker 1: of phills we'll see and so Um, although we can
24:03
Speaker 1: thank like climber Freeze for giving us groundhog Day, Like
24:07
Speaker 1: I said, like, it's clear this was already an established tradition,
24:10
Speaker 1: and I think the earliest mentioned they've been able to
24:12
Speaker 1: find somebody referencing groundhog Day goes back to one where
24:17
Speaker 1: a guy named James Morris wrote in his diary about
24:21
Speaker 1: he mentioned groundhog Day. Um, and I don't think he
24:24
Speaker 1: said whether the groundhog saw his shadow or not. He
24:28
Speaker 1: just mentions it and kind of describes it. So I'd
24:31
Speaker 1: have been around for many decades before climber Freeze came
24:35
Speaker 1: along with it, but climber Freeze is definitely the one
24:37
Speaker 1: to to popularize it. Yeah, I mean he started writing
24:41
Speaker 1: about it and writing about the you know, this amazing
24:45
Speaker 1: groundhog that could foretell the future whether and you know
24:48
Speaker 1: it's all a tongue in cheek and good fun. Um,
24:51
Speaker 1: we have to talk about punk Stani Phil, of course,
24:54
Speaker 1: the famous groundhog that is still the groundhog of record
25:00
Speaker 1: in punk Sutani full name Puntsatani Phil, seer of seers,
25:05
Speaker 1: stage of Stages, prognosticator of prognosticators, and weather profit extraordinary.
25:11
Speaker 1: Is Phil's full Name's right, and it's very cute. I
25:14
Speaker 1: guess he wasn't named Phil until I don't know the
25:19
Speaker 1: first half or the mid middle of the last century,
25:23
Speaker 1: because the the Punks Attanni Groundhog Hog Club on their
25:27
Speaker 1: website says that he is named after King Philip, and
25:31
Speaker 1: King Philip is not I don't think they're talking about.
25:34
Speaker 1: I think they're referencing Prince Philip, who is Queen Elizabeth's husband,
25:39
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't have really become a public figure until
25:42
Speaker 1: you know, the thirties, maybe the forties or fifties. So
25:46
Speaker 1: before that, um, the groundhog, you know, that's stretch um.
25:50
Speaker 1: But the groundhog was known as a bear groundhog, brother
25:55
Speaker 1: groundhog or brother groundhog. That's what they all called him before.
25:59
Speaker 1: But the thing about Punks Attorny Phil, which is what
26:02
Speaker 1: his name now, he may have had different names, but
26:05
Speaker 1: the Punks Attorny Groundhog Club maintains that he's still the
26:09
Speaker 1: same groundhog that they the group came upon back in
26:13
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven. That is this magically living, long living
26:17
Speaker 1: groundhog who's been alive for I guess now a hundred
26:21
Speaker 1: and thirty three years since that first Groundhog Day in
26:25
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven. Right, So you know we said earlier
26:30
Speaker 1: to put a pin in the fact that groundhogs live,
26:32
Speaker 1: was it like six to eight years or something like that,
26:34
Speaker 1: That ten in captivity. Sure, well, he's in captivity, but
26:39
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty three it seems like a wave beyond that.
26:43
Speaker 1: So they cooked up a fun little story there. They
26:46
Speaker 1: said that Phil is able to live so long because, um,
26:50
Speaker 1: he drinks a punch made of dandelions every summer. And
26:54
Speaker 1: I think they saw the riding on the wall and said, hey,
26:58
Speaker 1: we can make another money making day out of this
27:01
Speaker 1: thing if we have a little summer festival picnic thing
27:05
Speaker 1: where Phil drinks this uh, dandelion juice as it were.
27:11
Speaker 1: And so now they have a big celebration for Phil's
27:14
Speaker 1: annual drinking of the daisy juice or dandelion juice. And
27:18
Speaker 1: we mentioned that, you know, back years back, the groundhog
27:21
Speaker 1: was treated as a pest and eaten hunted and eaten,
27:24
Speaker 1: and that they may have had like a picnic around
27:26
Speaker 1: Gobbler's Knob to eat the groundhogs. This annual tradition now
27:32
Speaker 1: where they all celebrate Phil gaining seven more years to
27:36
Speaker 1: his life, seems to have been based on the annual
27:39
Speaker 1: groundhog hunt and roast. So they went from eating groundhogs
27:43
Speaker 1: to pretending that this one has been alive for a
27:48
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty three years thanks to this this magical
27:51
Speaker 1: potion that he drinks. I wonder if they make great
27:55
Speaker 1: efforts to get a groundhog that really looks like the
27:58
Speaker 1: original Phil think groundhogs look a lot alike to humans. Yeah,
28:04
Speaker 1: you know, but it's like Ugga for the Georgia bulldogs,
28:08
Speaker 1: Like they have different uggas and white bulldogs. You know,
28:11
Speaker 1: they all all the Uggans look a little bit different,
28:12
Speaker 1: and we all like that's part of the personality of
28:15
Speaker 1: of each Ugga. But I think the groundhogs you're saying,
28:20
Speaker 1: they just like he didn't have a big white stripe
28:22
Speaker 1: down the middle of his head or anything. I see,
28:24
Speaker 1: I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah no, but they've
28:26
Speaker 1: got to because it's you know, the thing about the
28:28
Speaker 1: uggas is, you know it's uga six or that's ug
28:30
Speaker 1: a million or something like that. Like they're meant to
28:33
Speaker 1: be there, different Uggas, but they're all related in some way,
28:36
Speaker 1: at least through school spirit. Um, this is supposed to
28:40
Speaker 1: be all of the successive groundhogs. Whenever they come upon
28:44
Speaker 1: you know, him and his burrow and he's not moving
28:46
Speaker 1: any longer, um like the yeah, they would, I guess
28:50
Speaker 1: kind of have to find a groundhog that looks kind
28:52
Speaker 1: of like him so that they can be like, well,
28:55
Speaker 1: this is the this is the same one. He's been
28:57
Speaker 1: around for a hundred thirty three years. All I'm saying
28:59
Speaker 1: is probably not very hard to pull the wool over
29:02
Speaker 1: human being's eyes when they're like, no, it's the same crownhog.
29:07
Speaker 1: You know. I think I think the Uggs are all
29:09
Speaker 1: the same family line, if I'm not mistaken. I don't
29:12
Speaker 1: know if all of them in history, but I think
29:14
Speaker 1: there's this very prominent Savannah family that, uh where all
29:19
Speaker 1: the Uggs come from, if I'm not mistaken. Didn't the
29:23
Speaker 1: main guy, the guy who was on trial and Midnight
29:26
Speaker 1: of the Garden of Good and Evil? Wasn't he the
29:28
Speaker 1: Ugga breeder for a while, I don't know, but it
29:31
Speaker 1: had something to do with that. I feel like he
29:33
Speaker 1: he had something. Yeah, he had something to do with
29:35
Speaker 1: the Uggs and if if not like the actual the
29:38
Speaker 1: owner of the the Ugga's mom or something. Yeah, pretty
29:42
Speaker 1: good movie. I never read the book. I did both
29:44
Speaker 1: and they were both pretty good. It was one of
29:46
Speaker 1: those ones where like the movies just about as good
29:48
Speaker 1: as the book. Back when you could watch a Kevin
29:51
Speaker 1: Spacey movie that's right, creeped out and John Kisack does
29:55
Speaker 1: a good job too, that's right. And you could watch
29:59
Speaker 1: a John Keisack movie to be crazy. So let's take
30:03
Speaker 1: let's take a break here and we'll talk about you know,
30:06
Speaker 1: we mentioned that, uh, when Phil dies in the dead
30:10
Speaker 1: of night, they have to get him out of there quietly.
30:12
Speaker 1: We'll talk about how they might do that right after this.
30:37
Speaker 1: Le Okay, so we're back and we have a dead
30:44
Speaker 1: groundhog on our hands. Yeah. Well, if punksatany Phil passes away,
30:49
Speaker 1: which has clearly happened probably ever every eight to ten years, Uh,
30:54
Speaker 1: they can do so quietly. Because Phil leads a very
30:56
Speaker 1: pampered life. Uh an indoor life, you might say, oh yeah,
31:01
Speaker 1: because he has handlers, he has a full sort of staff, volunteers,
31:07
Speaker 1: that look after Phil, and they all have funny titles
31:09
Speaker 1: like Shingle Shaker or Chief Chief health Man, and uh,
31:15
Speaker 1: they make sure Phil leads a pretty cush life there
31:19
Speaker 1: in captivity. I've read that he eats a lot of
31:22
Speaker 1: ice cream and actually had to have a tooth removed
31:24
Speaker 1: once because he had a cavity from eating so much. Yeah,
31:28
Speaker 1: he's he's basically kept very happy, um and strong out
31:32
Speaker 1: on junk food, I guess, um. But that inner circle
31:36
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, that's fifteen local volunteers who basically they're
31:40
Speaker 1: not the punk Stutawny ground Hog Club. They're like the
31:45
Speaker 1: the upper echelon the leaders of the punch Stutawny ground
31:49
Speaker 1: Hog Club, it sounds like. And only a couple of
31:52
Speaker 1: them are allowed to handle Phil um and the president
31:56
Speaker 1: is the only one who actually can communicate with Phil.
31:59
Speaker 1: As we'll see. Yeah, they and we'll talk about the
32:03
Speaker 1: movie in a bit. But if you've seen the movie,
32:05
Speaker 1: you've seen those tuxedos and top hats, or if you
32:09
Speaker 1: you know you got the Delpa work. Anyway, if you
32:11
Speaker 1: tune in to watch the coverage, you're gonna see those
32:14
Speaker 1: tuxedos and top hats because they say hey fills the
32:17
Speaker 1: v I P When v I P s came to
32:19
Speaker 1: town back in the day. This is what we'd wear
32:21
Speaker 1: when we met him at the train. And he is
32:23
Speaker 1: our most famous residents. We're going to pay him that respect. Well,
32:26
Speaker 1: the other thing that I saw, the other explanation I saw,
32:28
Speaker 1: and that explanation actually came from one of the former
32:31
Speaker 1: Inner Circle members. But in other explanations that some of
32:34
Speaker 1: those early like um nineteenth century depictions of Breyer groundhog
32:40
Speaker 1: Um was in a top hat, like he was supposed
32:42
Speaker 1: to be this very intelligent um uh forecaster of of weather. Um,
32:48
Speaker 1: And so they depict him in like a top hat.
32:50
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably likelier where it came from,
32:53
Speaker 1: and they just forgot somewhere along the way. Well, Phill
32:57
Speaker 1: does a lot of sleeping. Um. He does not hibernate though,
33:01
Speaker 1: because he, like I said, he's in his his climate
33:05
Speaker 1: controlled burrow. He doesn't have these cues from nature to
33:09
Speaker 1: let him know when anything is at all. Uh. He
33:12
Speaker 1: as far as he knows, it's always perfect weather, except
33:16
Speaker 1: every February when he gets yanked out of there, taken
33:20
Speaker 1: out in the cold in the middle of the night
33:22
Speaker 1: to his other thankfully climate controlled burrow that is built
33:27
Speaker 1: into a stump. If you've never seen it, you can
33:30
Speaker 1: just google an image of this. Um kind of nice scene.
33:34
Speaker 1: It's got a stage there in a stump, and it's
33:36
Speaker 1: you know, it looks like something you'd see it. Uh uh,
33:39
Speaker 1: like a show at six Flags or something that's exactly
33:42
Speaker 1: right the country bears jamboree or something totally. Um, yeah,
33:47
Speaker 1: that's great. I couldn't quite put my finger on what
33:49
Speaker 1: it looked like, but that is exactly what I was
33:51
Speaker 1: thinking of and could find now. So um, it's a
33:55
Speaker 1: bit of a rude awakening. Like you said, it's the
33:56
Speaker 1: middle of the night, ful phill, but they give him
33:58
Speaker 1: some time to kind of real ax and like get
34:00
Speaker 1: settled into his his um stump, his showtime stump, I guess,
34:05
Speaker 1: is what you call it. But I can't imagine that
34:08
Speaker 1: he's like getting a lot of relaxation. And because just
34:11
Speaker 1: outside of that stump is anywhere from I've seen eight
34:15
Speaker 1: thousand up to twenty thousand people all hanging out on
34:19
Speaker 1: Gobbler's Knob. And this is in a town of about
34:22
Speaker 1: five thousand people, so the population might be quadruple depending
34:27
Speaker 1: on whether Groundhog days, say, falls on a weekend, and
34:29
Speaker 1: they are so loud there. It's a rowdy, boisterous crowd um.
34:35
Speaker 1: They shoot off fireworks, they have live music all throughout
34:38
Speaker 1: the night. This is all leading up to dawn. Basically
34:41
Speaker 1: from about three am to about six thirty am, they
34:43
Speaker 1: just are partying right outside of Phil's stump. And then
34:47
Speaker 1: if there's a drink, like a signature drink, yeah, I
34:50
Speaker 1: saw there's a groundhog punch that has to do with
34:53
Speaker 1: like vodka and a bunch of other stuff. But I
34:56
Speaker 1: also have a distinct impression that this might be, if
35:00
Speaker 1: not dry, at least way more family friendly than yeah,
35:05
Speaker 1: everybody wasted on punch kind of thing. No, that's true.
35:08
Speaker 1: I mean you don't want to you don't want it
35:09
Speaker 1: to be like, uh well, like the Kentucky Derby. Dude, Man,
35:13
Speaker 1: things get dark. They're real quick. You've been to one
35:16
Speaker 1: of those, right, Yeah, and it got dark. They're real quick. Man.
35:21
Speaker 1: That was like like the second the race is over. Yeah,
35:23
Speaker 1: and even no before during after it's just utter chaos.
35:27
Speaker 1: You mean I were like, we we didn't leave, we fled.
35:30
Speaker 1: It was crazy, dude. Yeah, But now I think of
35:34
Speaker 1: the impression that this is a lot more clean cut
35:37
Speaker 1: than than the Kentucky Derby. I feel when I saw fireworks,
35:41
Speaker 1: I just felt bad for Phil that can't Yeah, you
35:44
Speaker 1: must have been scared, for sure. And I'm sure all
35:46
Speaker 1: the dogs in the area are like I hate groundhog Day,
35:51
Speaker 1: you know, and neighbors that aren't really big on Groundhog
35:54
Speaker 1: Day are probably not very happy. I mean, but airbnbr
35:59
Speaker 1: place is what you do. I would guess so, because again,
36:02
Speaker 1: five thousand people live in town, twenty additional people show
36:05
Speaker 1: up and hopefully if you own a business you've listened
36:08
Speaker 1: to chuck in your businesses open that day. So you
36:11
Speaker 1: mentioned the president is the only one who can speak
36:14
Speaker 1: to Phil or understand Phil. Uh. When Phil emerges from
36:18
Speaker 1: that borough, he does speak. Um. Groundhog ease is what
36:22
Speaker 1: they call it. And the president is the only person
36:25
Speaker 1: even in that inner circle that can understand and translate
36:28
Speaker 1: for the people. And Phil is is kind of a rapper,
36:32
Speaker 1: Isn't that right? I think that's being rather generous, But yes,
36:37
Speaker 1: he he speaks in rhyme, kind of sing song rhyme. Yeah, well,
36:42
Speaker 1: I mean it looks like wrapped to me on this
36:44
Speaker 1: groundhog Day. I'm happy to say I love fruity pebbles
36:48
Speaker 1: in a major way. Was that a commercial? Yes, it
36:54
Speaker 1: was ironically well, I guess the opposite of ironically expectedly, um,
36:58
Speaker 1: fruity pebbles commercial. Uh so yeah, So he speaks and
37:03
Speaker 1: sings song, the president translates for everyone. They all have
37:07
Speaker 1: a good time. And keep in mind, this is at dawn.
37:10
Speaker 1: So I imagined the whole affair is over pretty quickly. Yeah,
37:13
Speaker 1: they've got to be so tired too. Um, but everybody
37:17
Speaker 1: gets powered up by some vodka based groundhog punch. Sure,
37:21
Speaker 1: they're like, why are we drunk? Aft is right? I
37:24
Speaker 1: think that's kind of the case, at least for some people.
37:26
Speaker 1: But um, that's the whole shebang. They kind of stretched
37:30
Speaker 1: it out for a week. I've seen that the whole
37:33
Speaker 1: festivities kind of take place over the week. But it
37:35
Speaker 1: seems like February second is kind of the big day
37:38
Speaker 1: February first slash second. So is he accurate though, that's
37:41
Speaker 1: the question that The answer to that question is no,
37:44
Speaker 1: not at all, because it's unscientific. Well yeah, that's definitely unscientific.
37:50
Speaker 1: But somehow Phil is even worse than chance at predicting
37:54
Speaker 1: the weather. Now, the Groundhog Club says he's he's correct
37:58
Speaker 1: a percent of the time. Um. That's the whole tongue
38:01
Speaker 1: in cheek thing. And then some people like to try
38:03
Speaker 1: to prove them right and say, well, yes, in some
38:05
Speaker 1: parts of the country he's right, in other parts he's not.
38:09
Speaker 1: But for the punk Sittawny area or western Pennsylvania he's
38:13
Speaker 1: he's he hits between thirty and forty on any given
38:18
Speaker 1: ten year stretch between two thousand ten and two thousand nineteen,
38:23
Speaker 1: between two thousand and one and two thousand ten, um,
38:27
Speaker 1: So that's not very good. I mean, like, if you
38:29
Speaker 1: just toss a coin, you could expect to come up
38:31
Speaker 1: heads or tails better than that, And that's basically what
38:33
Speaker 1: they're doing. UM. And we should say, in Phil's defense,
38:37
Speaker 1: he's not predicting anything. This is all the very very
38:40
Speaker 1: insane inner circle who are making these predictions. So they're
38:43
Speaker 1: technically the ones who are worse than chance at predicting
38:46
Speaker 1: whether there's going to be six more weeks of winter
38:48
Speaker 1: or in early spring. Yeah. I didn't want to be
38:51
Speaker 1: there in the first place. That's right. There's I saw
38:53
Speaker 1: footage of one a bit the the gout the handler's finger,
38:59
Speaker 1: and um only got some of the glove, but it
39:01
Speaker 1: looked like it would have been pretty vicious had he
39:02
Speaker 1: gotten any of his actual finger. It was hilarious and
39:05
Speaker 1: the crowd went wild. They loved it. He literally bit
39:09
Speaker 1: the hand that feds it. Yeah, I guess, so he's like,
39:11
Speaker 1: give me some more ice cream. So should we talk
39:14
Speaker 1: about the movie? We can't not talk about the movie.
39:17
Speaker 1: I didn't think we were talking about the movie groundhog Day,
39:22
Speaker 1: a movie which I have covered on movie Crush. This
39:25
Speaker 1: was the favorite movie of Griffin McElroy, of the famous
39:30
Speaker 1: McElroy Brothers podcasting. I saw that. I thought it was
39:33
Speaker 1: Justin mclroy was a Griffin, now justin. He was on
39:36
Speaker 1: two though. He did with Nail and I another great movie,
39:41
Speaker 1: and Griffin picked picked groundhog Day, and he says. Griffin's
39:44
Speaker 1: quote was not only do I think it's my favorite movie?
39:49
Speaker 1: He said, I think it's the best movie, like literally
39:53
Speaker 1: the best movie. He had some groundhog punch himself. He
39:58
Speaker 1: loves it, and uh and love it. It's a little
40:00
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't age super well. Kind of it's
40:03
Speaker 1: a little problematic, is kind. He's a little he's a
40:09
Speaker 1: little he's just a little aggressive. He he doesn't take
40:13
Speaker 1: no for an answer over and over and over, and
40:16
Speaker 1: that's the point of the movie. But watching it through
40:19
Speaker 1: to today's lens is sort of like he back off, Dude,
40:21
Speaker 1: She's not interested, right, So yeah, I get you. Um
40:26
Speaker 1: So the for those of you who haven't seen it,
40:28
Speaker 1: first of all, go see it. But then secondly, it's
40:31
Speaker 1: it's um about this reporter. He gets stuck in this
40:34
Speaker 1: time loop where he's living February second Groundhog Day in
40:37
Speaker 1: punks its hawny over and over and over again. His
40:40
Speaker 1: name is Phil And it had such a huge impact. Yeah,
40:43
Speaker 1: and they never explained why this happens. It just happens
40:46
Speaker 1: to him, which I think is something that makes the
40:48
Speaker 1: movie that much more enjoyable. But um, the this movie
40:55
Speaker 1: had such an impact on um the culture that today
40:59
Speaker 1: people associate groundhog Day not just with you know, predicting
41:02
Speaker 1: whether there's gonna be an early spring or more winter.
41:05
Speaker 1: They predicted with weird things like losing track of time
41:09
Speaker 1: or time doing odd things, or having deja vu. And
41:12
Speaker 1: that's strictly from the movie. Like that was never a
41:16
Speaker 1: part of Groundhog Day until this movie came along. Yeah,
41:20
Speaker 1: I mean people will say that if something happened again
41:24
Speaker 1: to you or whatever you say. Oh man, it's like
41:26
Speaker 1: groundhog Day. Uh. And it's you know, it's pretty rare
41:29
Speaker 1: for a movie to enter the sort of public consciousness
41:31
Speaker 1: to that degree. And also it's interesting and displace something
41:35
Speaker 1: that's already taking that spot even you know what I'm saying,
41:39
Speaker 1: or add to it at least. Yeah, for sure. Um.
41:43
Speaker 1: When I was doing research for the movie Crush episode,
41:46
Speaker 1: I did see that thing that you included here that
41:49
Speaker 1: the original screenwriter and eventual co writer to Harold Ramos,
41:53
Speaker 1: Danny Ruben Um the original script it was ten thousand
41:57
Speaker 1: years um that he was living because is of the
42:00
Speaker 1: Buddhist principle that it takes ten thousand years for a
42:03
Speaker 1: human soul to be perfect, and they change that up
42:07
Speaker 1: in the movie. And there is a lot of robust
42:10
Speaker 1: debate about how many days occur in the movie. Um, supposedly,
42:18
Speaker 1: and I look this up in a bunch of different places.
42:20
Speaker 1: If you just look at the movie the number of
42:22
Speaker 1: times it repeats, it's thirty eight, Okay, I saw, But
42:28
Speaker 1: if there are people who have taken time to calculate
42:32
Speaker 1: how long it really is. Because you know, he learns
42:35
Speaker 1: foreign languages, he becomes a master piano player. Uh and
42:40
Speaker 1: and people have taken great links to actually calculate how
42:43
Speaker 1: long it would take to do all this, and everyone,
42:46
Speaker 1: I mean, there are some exact days that people have calculated,
42:49
Speaker 1: but everyone is sort of landed in the neighborhood of
42:52
Speaker 1: about ten years, including Harold Ramos saying, yeah, we feel
42:56
Speaker 1: like it's about ten years that he's relived in order
42:59
Speaker 1: to learn all this stuff. I like ten thousand more.
43:03
Speaker 1: I'm going with Danny Ruben's estimate. You know, well, if
43:07
Speaker 1: it was ten thousand years, he would just be like
43:08
Speaker 1: it'd be like in the matrix at the end or something. Well,
43:10
Speaker 1: at some point he says, I'm a god, so you know,
43:16
Speaker 1: maybe it still is in there. But um, yeah. One
43:21
Speaker 1: of the things about that movie too, Chuck, is, um
43:23
Speaker 1: it's part of the festivities now, the show it the
43:25
Speaker 1: night before at like the local theater, and um it's
43:30
Speaker 1: been a boon for the town as well, not just
43:33
Speaker 1: Groundhog Day, but the movie itself has drawn people to
43:36
Speaker 1: the town to kind of see, you know, Punks Attawny,
43:39
Speaker 1: and they're usually very disappointed to find out that they
43:41
Speaker 1: didn't actually shoot the town in Punks Autonny. They shot
43:44
Speaker 1: it in Woodstock, Illinois. So while they named like the
43:47
Speaker 1: businesses and took like cop cars from Punksutawni and like
43:51
Speaker 1: moved a lot of punks Tawny two Woodstock, you can't
43:54
Speaker 1: visually see like, oh this is where this this you know,
43:57
Speaker 1: this is where ned Ryerson crosses the street um to
44:00
Speaker 1: say hi, you know downtown, Like that's in Woodstock, Illinois.
44:05
Speaker 1: So I think they don't tell people that until after
44:08
Speaker 1: they've made their way to punt Stani and spend at
44:10
Speaker 1: least fifty dollars, then they tell them, Okay, this wood Stock,
44:14
Speaker 1: Illinois that you're really after. Yeah, I mean what do
44:17
Speaker 1: you think. Do you want to go to punt Stani
44:19
Speaker 1: and kind of be at the real place or do
44:21
Speaker 1: you want to go to Illinois to kind of see
44:23
Speaker 1: these real old movie locations. I would like to go
44:25
Speaker 1: to neither of those places. I'm good with the seeing
44:31
Speaker 1: clips old clips um on YouTube. That's fine with me.
44:34
Speaker 1: Like It's never struck me as like a great um
44:38
Speaker 1: uh holiday. I think, not because of Groundhog Day or
44:42
Speaker 1: the fact that it's in western Pennsylvania or anything like that, um,
44:45
Speaker 1: but because February two is just such a sucky time
44:49
Speaker 1: of the year. I hate that time of the year.
44:52
Speaker 1: Um that nothing really good can happen around then. So
44:56
Speaker 1: you know, the beginning of February always thinks, which is
44:59
Speaker 1: ironic because my wedding anniversaries in mid February. That to
45:02
Speaker 1: me is when things pick up. Yeah, I pulled that
45:05
Speaker 1: out at the end of night. You did, I forgot
45:09
Speaker 1: you guys got you got married in warm climbs. Yeah,
45:12
Speaker 1: we we escaped to Hawaii because February is kind of
45:16
Speaker 1: gross in the United States. Yeah, my anniversary sometime in
45:19
Speaker 1: late April. I can never remember the day. Well, hey,
45:24
Speaker 1: just start saying after this, we'll just say all the
45:27
Speaker 1: different numbers, will find out the right one and then
45:29
Speaker 1: Jerry can edit it in all right, Um, you you
45:33
Speaker 1: got anything else? I got nothing else. Um well, if
45:37
Speaker 1: you want to know more about Groundhog Day, just go online.
45:40
Speaker 1: I think this year it's a streaming there because of COVID.
45:43
Speaker 1: They're not having people out, but they are streaming is
45:46
Speaker 1: so you can go check out the punks Attorny Groundhog
45:48
Speaker 1: Clubs website for all the links and everything. And since
45:52
Speaker 1: I directed everyone to the punks Attorny Groundhog Clubs website.
45:56
Speaker 1: As per usual, it's time for a listener. Now I'm
46:02
Speaker 1: going to call this hot off the presses. This came
46:04
Speaker 1: in thirty seconds ago and I didn't have one prepared,
46:07
Speaker 1: and this is a good one. Hey, guys, hope you're
46:10
Speaker 1: doing well. Josh, Chuck and Jerry over there. My name
46:13
Speaker 1: is Mike Martin. He him his thank you for that. Mike.
46:17
Speaker 1: I'm a classical musician, a bassist in the New World
46:21
Speaker 1: Symphony in Miami Beats, Florida. Been an avid listener for
46:24
Speaker 1: six years. My sister Jessica got me hooked on your
46:26
Speaker 1: show after we were traveling to see our family got
46:29
Speaker 1: stuck behind an oil tanker. The truck pulled to a
46:31
Speaker 1: stop on a quiet stretch of highway Rural in the
46:34
Speaker 1: middle of the night, when the driver put on the
46:36
Speaker 1: hazards jumped out of the vehicle. Confused, we attempted to
46:40
Speaker 1: go around when the hood of the truck burst into flames.
46:43
Speaker 1: After backing away to a safe distance, my sister laughed side,
46:47
Speaker 1: pulled out her phone and said, looks like we're not
46:48
Speaker 1: going anywhere. Have you heard of stuff you should know?
46:52
Speaker 1: Since then, I've listened to your entire catalog five times. Wow.
46:59
Speaker 1: So this is a long email, but I'm gonna get
47:01
Speaker 1: to the cruxt of it here. It was about the
47:03
Speaker 1: Clan episode uh in his experience as a black man.
47:07
Speaker 1: He said, I really appreciate your recent episode in the KKK,
47:10
Speaker 1: especially with Chuck mentioned about feeling you need to do
47:12
Speaker 1: a comprehensive dive on the Clan because of the terror
47:15
Speaker 1: and harm they visited on Black Americans like myself twenty
47:18
Speaker 1: six years old, and even when I was a young
47:20
Speaker 1: child in the nineties, there were cross burnings near my
47:23
Speaker 1: home in semi rural Pennsylvania. Uh. We moved a few
47:28
Speaker 1: towns over not long afterwards, but all my life as
47:30
Speaker 1: a black child living in the Northeast, I live with
47:32
Speaker 1: explicitly racist iconography. On walks with friends in the woods,
47:37
Speaker 1: we'd find swastikas and racist screeds spray painted on abandoned
47:41
Speaker 1: railroad buildings. Who was not uncommon to see Confederate flags
47:44
Speaker 1: on people's homes and cars. Even in school, I'd find
47:47
Speaker 1: nooses tied on the pool cords of blinds. I even
47:51
Speaker 1: remember the first time I was called the N word
47:54
Speaker 1: in a school bathroom in the first grade, and the
47:57
Speaker 1: principle's response to my parents in his office, we can't
48:00
Speaker 1: help what people teach their kids at home. Man, the
48:04
Speaker 1: way I was treated improved as I got older, but
48:06
Speaker 1: it prompted me to start thinking about how the more
48:08
Speaker 1: insidious and subtle elements of racism impact my life and
48:11
Speaker 1: those of others from a very young age. And then
48:15
Speaker 1: Mike went on to give a lot of great recommendations
48:18
Speaker 1: for episodes he thinks we should do uh, and he says,
48:21
Speaker 1: stay safe and be well. And that is from Mike
48:23
Speaker 1: Martin the bass player. Nice Mike, thanks a lot for
48:26
Speaker 1: writing and I'm sorry all of that could happen to you. Yeah, um,
48:31
Speaker 1: and yeah, thanks for the ideas. Give me an idea
48:34
Speaker 1: that he gave us for an episode. He said jazz
48:38
Speaker 1: because he said it. It's a lot of different things
48:40
Speaker 1: that we've talked about, um, kind of coming together uh
48:44
Speaker 1: in musical movement. So that's one that we've talked about.
48:48
Speaker 1: Is just cheez like Ken Burns did. However many hours
48:52
Speaker 1: on jazz. How do we do five minutes on jazz? Whatever?
48:55
Speaker 1: We did a two part on evil kinevel. We can
48:57
Speaker 1: do anything. Be about scooda dude, you just do that
49:02
Speaker 1: the whole time, all right, Maybe we shouldn't do one
49:05
Speaker 1: on jazz. Now I think about sorry Mike. Well, if
49:09
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with this like Mike
49:10
Speaker 1: didn't and share the horrors of your childhood, we want
49:13
Speaker 1: to hear that in a weird way, um, and also
49:16
Speaker 1: to share with the rest of you so we can
49:17
Speaker 1: all feel like a stuff you Should Know family even
49:20
Speaker 1: more than we did before. Uh. And you can wrap
49:23
Speaker 1: it up, spank it on the bottom gently, and send
49:26
Speaker 1: it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
49:34
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
49:37
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio because at the iHeart
49:39
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
49:41
Speaker 1: favorite shows.