Film / Groundhog Day

♫ Then put your little hand in mine... ♫

"Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!"

— Phil Connors

Groundhog Day is a 1993 fantasy comedy film directed by Harold Ramis from a screenplay by him and Danny Rubin, and starring Bill Murray. Known for massively popularizing the time loop trope (to the extent that it's referred to on this site as the "Groundhog Day" Loop), cementing its namesake day into the modern lexicon as a stand-in for an unpleasant, repetitive situation, and serving as a dramatic showcase for Murray (then primarily known as a comic actor), the film is considered a modern classic.

Phil Connors (Murray), an arrogant and smarmy weatherman for a local TV news station in Pittsburgh, his new producer Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell), and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) go to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to film the annual Groundhog Day festival. Phil loathes the annual celebration and is surly throughout the proceedings, wanting nothing more than to pack up and go home. That proves impossible when a sudden blizzard arrives and closes the roads, forcing Phil and the crew to stay the night.

He wakes up the next morning to find it's Groundhog Day again. Everyone goes on exactly as they did the previous day, with only him aware of it. Though surprised, Phil goes through the motions, still gets stuck in Punxsutawney, and wakes up the next morning to find it’s still Groundhog Day — again. And again. And so on, with no end to the loop in sight.

The film proceeds to follow Phil as he tries to both adjust to and escape from his bizarre dilemma, with the comedy and drama drawn from the various ways he reacts to it. From irresponsible, self-centered hedonism (after all, if tomorrow never comes, there are no consequences) to suicidal despair (if tomorrow never comes, it’s no use going on) to an insane number of time-eating hobbies (if tomorrow never comes, you might as well try everything) — no matter what he does, Phil's efforts seem doomed to leave him forever trapped in his own personal Groundhog Day. But with help from the kind-hearted Rita and his own unexpected potential for self-growth and redemption, the possibility arises that tomorrow will come for Phil after all.

In 2016, the film was adapted into a musical, written by the screenplay's original author Danny Rubin and Tim Minchin, which played a limited run in London before opening on Broadway in 2017. In 2019, Sony confirmed a sequel called Groundhog Day: Like Father, Like Son for the PlayStation VR, starring Phil's son as he experiences this time loop.

In 2020, Murray, Stephen Tobolowsky and Brian-Doyle Murray reprised their roles and returned to Woodstock to film a Groundhog Day-themed Jeep commercial for Super Bowl LIV. Appropriately enough, the Super Bowl took place on February 2.

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"Okay, tropers, rise and shine and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cold out there today!":

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • In the final loop, Larry is flirting with Nancy, who really doesn't appreciate it.
  • He gets his own back when he is bought for 25 cents at the auction by an old lady who disgusts him.
  • Phil eventually figures out he needs to fake being one of these to drive off Ned Ryerson.
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Harold Ramis noted that from the piano teacher's perspective, she's met Phil only once (not counting telling him "It's Groundhog Day!" when he asks what day it is), so she either has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory or she has a gigantic ego thinking she trained Phil as a classically-trained pianist when he was already nearly one during his last visits.
  • See also New Body, Old Abilities below.
• All Therapists Are Muggles: The psychiatrist Phil visits disbelieves his story and then offers to schedule another appointment for tomorrow. Cue Phil covering his face with a cushion and punching it.
• Ambiguous Situation: Just as mysterious as the loop itself is how Phil finally exits it. Did he have to serve out a specific number of days? Did he have to complete selfless tasks in a certain order or amount? Or was the task itself to become genuinely selfless? The ending answers no questions, and Phil is too overjoyed at having his life back to ask them.
• Anti-Hero: Phil really has no heroic or really any redeeming qualities before the character development.
• The Anti-Nihilist: At some point in the movie, arguably the moment he wakes up after spending a nice day with Rita and finds himself still stuck in the loop, Phil realizes that he may actually never get out of the loop or get Rita to be his girlfriend. But instead of endlessly despairing over it, he decides to accept his situation and make the most out of it, helping people in need using his knowledge, never asking for payback or recognition, fully knowing that there will be no lasting consequences whatsoever.
• Apocalypse Anarchy: While it doesn't happen for the world, Phil discusses with a couple of local guys what they would do if there was no tomorrow. Their enthusiastic answer is that they could do whatever they wanted, now with no consequences. Inspired by this, Phil decides to live his "Groundhog Day" Loop in the most outlandish way possible, which consists mostly of leading the police on a car chase and then crashing.
  • Subverted by the guys' dismayed responses, which indicate they wouldn't want to live out his nihilistic anarchy even before lasting consequences are taken into account.
• Armor-Piercing Response: A very subtle one, and Played for Laughs, but it really gets to the heart of the Aesop of the film.
  Phil: (rhetorically) What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?
  Fred: *takes a shot*
  Ralph: (morosely) That about sums it up for me.
• Artist Disillusionment: In-Universe, Phil doesn't like his fanbase, but normally keeps it off camera. However, within the loop, at times, he doesn't bother hiding it, though the loop keeps people from remembering.
• Artistic License: Granting that the two drivers are apparently pretty boneheaded and inattentive, armored car carriers only have the exact amounts their customers ordered in the specific denominations they asked for, so they can't make change for someone without getting a complaint from the customer whose order they just screwed up. Doris should really be going into the bank they just parked at to get a roll of quarters, but then Phil wouldn't have such a golden opportunity to swipe a bag of cash from the back of their truck.
• Artistic License – Cars: When Phil drives the truck off the cliff to kill him and the groundhog, it doesn't have a driveline. Then it explodes.
• Artistic License – Geography: Western Pennsylvania does not experience sunrise on February 2 until around 7:00 AM. In the film, it’s already broad daylight by 6:00 AM. This is an understandable trope to invoke because it saves the crew from repeatedly having to catch and film through twilight, which is a tall order because it's so brief and wanders in time due to cloudy conditions.
• Artistic License – Music: At the end of the film, shots of the swing band show an upright plucked bass, but the soundtrack has an electric bass.
• As Himself: Scooter, as The Groundhog.
• Ascended Extra: A rare in-universe example. Many of the characters seen in the Punxsutawney crowd scene and the diner become major characters in Phil's life as he’s forced to become intimately familiar with the town, especially Nancy, Gus, Ralph, and even his piano teacher (who is the townsperson telling Phil "It's Groundhog Day!").
• Bachelor Auction: One occurs at the groundhog party. Larry gets bought by a couple of old ladies for 25 cents while Rita empties her purse for Phil.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: After Phil kidnaps the groundhog, Rita wonders outloud why anyone would do that. Larry responds with "I can probably think of a couple reasons" before muttering "Pervert." under his breath.
• Bedmate Reveal: Phil waking up next to Rita demonstrates that the time loop is finally over.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Zigzagged, being tortured by immortality first drives Phil to sociopathic despair, but then it turns him benevolent.
• Big Eater:
  • Phil's discovered the greatest diet plan ever.
  • And he doesn't think twice about smoking in the diner, either. Of course, Rita worries about his potential to get "cholesterol, lung cancer, love handles", but he can afford to disregard her advice.
    Rita: I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the wind. It's inspiring, in a way.
    Phil: My years are not advancing as fast as you might think.
• Black Comedy: The entire montage of Phil committing suicide over and over again, full stop. It's easy to feel sorry for him, but the movie still plays up the comedy of the suicides.
• Blah, Blah, Blah: Phil invokes this during one of his cycles.
  Phil: Once again, the eyes of the nation have turned here to this... [silly voice] tiny village in Western Pennsylvania, blah, bl-blah, bl-blah!
• Bored with Insanity: The endless repetition of February 2nd causes Phil to go through a breakdown period where he repeatedly tries to kill himself and, when that doesn't work, declares his Godhood to Rita. He eventually settles down and becomes rather zen about the whole thing. So at ease with the whole thing does he get that he finally gets his one perfect day with Rita and snaps out of the loop, a much better and saner person for it.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Phil tries in vain to call Pittsburgh for assistance when he gets stuck in the blizzard.
  Phil: Don't you have some kind of a line that you keep open for emergencies, or celebrities? I'm both! I’m a celebrity in an emergency!
• Break the Haughty: At the beginning of the movie, Phil could really do with being taken down a peg or two. The time loop obliges, and then some — but it also allows him to eventually put himself back together as a better person.
• Brick Joke: A subtle one. On his very first repeated day Phil suspects that the radio just plays yesterday's tape. Then he grows to hate Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe", playing on the radio every repeated Groundhog Day morning. Finally, Phil progresses to February 3rd... only to be awakened by the same song (albeit a different segment, to indicate that the change has happened) at the same time again. Looks like they did use yesterday's tape after all.
  • This is even lampshaded by the subsequent conversation between the radio hosts:
    Host 1: Please, not again!
    Host 2: That is a great song!
    Host 1: It's not!
• Broken Record:
  • "I Got You Babe." The same (and worse) could be said for the "Pennsylvania Polka."
  • If you think about it, the time loop itself is a temporal version of this.
• Buffy Speak: Phil indulges in this during his initial newscast.
  Phil: Big blizzard thing.
• Bungled Suicide: Several of these, all committed by Phil after he decides there's Nothing Left to Do but Die. Even though each one does result in his death, they all count as bungled by virtue of the fact that none of them kills him for good and Phil always wakes up at 6:00 AM of Groundhog Day all over again the next morning.
  Phil: [waking up after his first suicide] Aw, nuts!
• Busman's Holiday: Double inverted for Phil, because he actually is in town on business as a weatherman, but then the lady who runs his bed and breakfast makes chit-chat about the weather and he goes full professional on her.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Phil is this while he is being made to eat humble pie.
  • Larry the cameraman is the butt of many jokes and is ultimately bought at a bachelor auction by a pair of old ladies for 25 cents.
• Career Versus Man: Gender-flipped, Phil starts the film with the intention of going to a national broadcast (and leaving his current colleagues behind) and ends up agreeing to settle down in Punxatawney with Rita.
• Casanova Wannabe: Larry the cameraman does a pretty bad job picking up women.
• Catchphrase: Ned's "Bing!"
• Character Development: Phil goes from a grade-A Jerkass to a genuine Nice Guy over the course of the movie's running time — and it's believable. Of course, "running time" definitely doesn’t equal "real time" in this case.
• Character’s Most Hated Song: "I've Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher temporarily becomes this for Phil Conners after waking up to it every single day during his "Groundhog Day" Loop. Overlaps with Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!, as this is his alarm clock song. Eventually, he comes to accept it.
• Chekhov's Gag: To the question "Will you be checking out today, Mr. Connors?"
  Phil: [day one] Chance of departure today: one hundred percent.
  Phil: [day two] Chance of departure today... eighty percent. Seventy-five to eighty?
  Phil: [day ???] Will you hold my room? I’m gonna stay another day.
• Clock King: Phil initially uses this power for evil, namely by stealing money from an armored car. He later uses it for more benevolent purposes by becoming a sort of guardian angel to everybody.
• Closed Circle: The very premise is an extreme time-based example of this trope, but there is also the blizzard blocking the road to Pittsburgh (and hence forcing Phil to stay in Punxsutawney), which acts as a more conventional spatial one.
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • Phil eventually realizes that the time loop he's in allows him to live without consequences or guilt. He uses his situation to steal money from an armored car and weasel his way into sex with an attractive local woman. He also tries to weasel his way into sex with Rita, but his failure there spurs his Character Development.
  • The worst Phil ever does is deck Ned and kill Punxsutawney Phil in his first suicide attempt.
• Convenient Slow Dance: Although by that point, Phil is savvy enough to have deliberately arranged it.
  • And the best part of this? He wasn't even really arranging it, and certainly not in an attempt to take advantage of Rita. The dance and all that follows is his reward for being able to earn genuine admiration and love from Rita and the citizens of Punxsutawney alike under no selfish pretenses.
• Cosmic Plaything: Hinted at when Phil finally reveals to Rita the truth. He says he's pretty sure he's some type of god, but not Top God (though even he doubts himself on this). In the grand scheme, it appears that whatever cosmic entity controls the universe decided it had had enough of Phil's constant jerk-ass shtick, and punished him by looping his day until he finally learned to lighten up.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Phil attempts CPR in an alley as a last-ditch effort to save a homeless old man, but it doesn't work. Nothing does, really. The man dies every time, regardless of what Phil does to save him.
• Creator Cameo: Harold Ramis plays a doctor. He makes a very good doctor, since most people associate him with Dr. Egon Spengler.
• Cursed with Awesome: Phil grows to feel that his condition is this after a long time.
• Darker and Edgier: According to the director, they averted this trope by not having Phil go down the really dark path where he would be utterly cruel to people and even kill them without consequence.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Phil, par excellence.
    Phil: Well, what if there is no tomorrow? [Beat] There wasn’t one today!
  • Larry gets his shots in, too.
    Larry: I don’t know, Phil. Perhaps it's that giant blizzard we're not supposed to get.
  • Rita shows this off on occasion, especially her way of getting rid of Ned.
    Ned: I got that! (makes a cat noise)
• Death as Comedy: The suicide montage is initially somewhat absurd but it is more bittersweet than this trope usually due to Phil's anguish.
• Death Montage: A montage of Phil's numerous attempted suicides.
• Deathless and Debauched: Once Phil grasps the nature of the time loop he's been trapped in, he goes drunk-driving, binge-eats, seduces local women, and chain-smokes.
  I don't even have to floss!
• Delusions of Local Grandeur: Phil Connors is an arrogant and smarmy weatherman for a local TV news station in Pittsburgh before he matures.
  Phil: For your information, Hairdo... there is a major network interested in me.
  Larry: That would be the Home Shopping Network.
• Despair Event Horizon: Phil is eventually driven to the depths of suicidal despair by the endless repetition of February 2. Then, he's driven into even further depths of suicidal despair by the fact that suicide doesn't work. Interestingly, it's when he's at his lowest that he eventually decides simply to tell Rita the truth of what's happening to him...and things begin to improve from that point on.
  Phil: [to Rita, darkly] You want a prediction about the weather? You're asking the wrong Phil. I'm going to give you a prediction about this winter: it's going to be cold, it's going to be dark and it's going to last you for the rest of your lives.
• Double Entendre: When the old ladies whose flat tire Phil fixed come to thank (and praise) him:
  Old lady: He's the fastest jack in Jefferson County!
  Rita: What was that about?
  Phil: I don't know, they've been hitting on me all day.
• Double Standard: This happens in the same scene as the Convenient Slow Dance entry. After Debbie and Fred Kleiser get the WrestleMania tickets from Phil, she kisses him on the lips. Fred then kisses Rita on the cheek, provoking an angry glare from Debbie. Justified, though, since Phil helped them get married and got them tickets, while Rita didn’t do anything for them.
• Driven to Suicide: Several times. It doesn't take.
  Phil: [sadly] I’ve killed myself so many times, I don’t even exist anymore.
• Dumbass DJ:
  • Say it with us now:
    DJ 1: OK, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today!
    DJ 2: It's cold out there every day! What is this, Miami Beach?!
  • Phil plays this up at the TV studio:
    Phil: The National Weather Service is calling for a big blizzard thing.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: When Phil turns completely into a nice guy, he is finally able to wake up to a brand new day.
• Electrified Bathtub: One of Phil’s suicide attempts involves him filling a tub with water, putting toast in a toaster, and then dropping the activated toaster in the tub.
• Endless Winter: It's always February 2, in a Northern Hemisphere setting.
  Phil: There is no way this winter is EVER going to end, as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don't see any other way out. He's got to be stopped.
• Epiphanic Prison: The time loop can be thought of as this.
• Establishing Character Moment: Rita is first seen playing around with the weather blue screen, establishing her easy-going, playful personality.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: Parodied. When Phil’s stolen truck (with him in it) falls off a cliff, Larry suggests unconvincingly that he could still be alive. The truck then immediately explodes.
• Everything but the Girl: Closer to "Everything Before the Girl", but it counts.
• Exact Words: At one point, Rita joins Phil to see how he deals with eternity. She's told everything resets on February 3. However, when it's midnight, she's surprised, and asks him why there's no reset. He replies he never said it was at midnight.
• Extremely Short Time Span: Played With. Technically, the film begins on February 1 in the afternoon and ends in the early morning of February 3. But the time loop made Phil spend at least ten years within this time span. The same could be said about a lot of the films capitalizing on "Groundhog Day" Loop, a trope named after and codified by this film.
• Eye Take: Used to full effect by Bill Murray.
• Face Palm: Of the "covering my face with a pillow and punching it" variety.
  Phil: So, what do I do?
  Psychiatrist: I think we should meet again. How's tomorrow for you?
  [Phil slowly covers head with a pillow]
  Psychiatrist: Is that not good?
  [Phil starts punching the pillow]
• Failure Is the Only Option: Phil will never be able to save the old homeless man. His realizing this is a key part of his decision to use the time loop for good.
• Failure Montage: Several. There’s one for Phil’s failed attempts at wooing Rita (with repeated slaps in the face), another for his attempts to save the old homeless person's life, and a particularly morbid one of him repeatedly committing suicide.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • Zig-zagged. At first, Phil indulges in his ability to relive the same day over and over again, by overeating, sleeping with women, stealing money, and committing felonies. But later, his inability to form a bond with Rita slowly wears him down. He becomes depressed and tries to kill himself, only to get even more depressed when he realizes he'll keep looping even if he dies, but later, he decides to use his time loop for good.
  • With the highway closed due to heavy snowfall, a cop tells Phil he can either return to Punxsutawney or freeze to death.
    Phil: I'm thinking.
• Five Stages of Grief: Phil is going through precisely these stages as he learns how to deal with the eponymous day. First he can't believe it (denial), then he does all sorts of anti-social things like over-eating, robbing the armored car, sleeping with all of the attractive women in town, etc. (anger), then he tries to figure out what he can do (bargaining), then he just gives up and falls back into bed and/or tries to kill himself (despair), until finally he accepts the situation and becomes a better person.
• Flipping the Bird: Phil has an unusual way of doing a countdown with fingers.
• Flushing Toilet, Screaming Shower: Subverted. Phil does scream in the guest house shower, but it's because the water is ice cold, and there is no toilet flush.
• Foil: Ned Ryerson, provoking the same reactions from Phil that Phil causes in others.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: A perceptive viewer’s first clue that Phil escaped the "Groundhog Day" Loop is that the radio is playing a different part of “I Got You Babe” when it turns on the final time.
• Foreign Remake: Italian director Giulio Manfredonia remade the film in 2004 using Italian and Spanish actors. The plot is extremely similar with the two major differences being that it happens in the Canary Islands and that the protagonist has to film storks and has many scenes that follow the original exactly, but there are some notable differences, some of which make the Italian version less empathetic.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The very first words out of Phil's mouth is where he'd want to be most of all. He's pointing on a weather map, but since we're looking at him live, he's pointing to blue screen: nothingness and nowhere.
  • Phil notes that he's "going out on a limb here" when he says he thinks the snow won't hit them in Pennsylvania.
  • A very clever one. Before Phil even enters the time loop, he complains about having to do the Groundhog Day Festival every year. During the first ceremony, Phil describes everything that’s going to happen before it does.
    Phil: They do the same old shtick every year. Guy comes out with a big stick and raps on the door. They pull the little rat out. They talk to him. The rat talks back. And then they tell us what’s going to happen.
  • Sound familiar? He begins doing that later in the film, especially with the armored-car heist.
  • At the beginning of the movie, Phil’s co-anchor mentions a story about sex and violence in movies. Both appear later on.
  • Phil is quickly distracted from his assistant talking about what's going to happen as they leave town by Rita's antic's wearing a blue coat in front of the blue-screen.
  • Rita saying that her ideal man plays an instrument and cries. By the end of the film, he's learned to play the piano, and when the curse is broken, he cries quietly.
  • The groundhog sees his shadow. It's gonna be a looooong winter!
  • When Phil catches a boy falling out of a tree and the boy runs away without thanking him, he says, "You little brat! You have never thanked me! See you tomorrow! Maybe!" The "maybe" from Phil's perspective means "Maybe I'll just let you fall and break your arm tomorrow," but from the viewer's perspective, it also means "Maybe this is Phil's last day in the loop, and he won't need to save the boy tomorrow." Which, in fact, it is.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: From Rita's perspective she only got to know the old, Jerkass Phil recently, met the new, sophisticated Phil on Groundhog Day, and only began a relationship with him that night, the night before they agree to move in together.
• French Maid Outfit: One of the women whom Phil seduces is dressed thus because she thinks she’s going to a costume party.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: Rita and Phil start as this, as Rita finds Punxsutawney and the Groundhog Day festivities charming while Phil finds it nauseating. As things progress, Rita eventually encourages Phil to see his loops in a more positive light, leading to his eventual redemption.
• A God Am I: Part of Phil's Character Development centers on this trope.
  • Act I, mocked and simultaneously foreshadowed: Phil has such an ego, he denies there’s a blizzard because he makes the weather.
  • Act II, thanks to his apparent Resurrective Immortality, Phil seriously considers this as the reason for his situation.
    Rita: You're God?
    Phil: I'm a god — I'm not the God. I don't think.
  • Finally, Act III really begins when this trope is inverted hard, in the heartbreaking sequence of Phil's repeated failures to save the life of the homeless elderly man. When Phil finally truly realizes he isn't God, he begins to grow as a man.
• Golden Ending: A very rare non-videogame, non-interactive-media example. After being trapped in the loop for God knows how long and getting God knows how many endings, Phil manages to help everyone in the town with all of their problems, woo Rita, and bring about a perfect day. Only then does the loop break. Unfortunately, even on a perfect day someone just has to die.
  • Gainax Ending: Essays have noted that Phil's non-committal. Maybe they'll stay in Punxsutawney. Maybe they'll rent to begin. The song is "It's Almost Like Being In Love". It's a clue that now there are consequences to actions. (For example, that marriage Phil helped doesn't seem like it'll last.)
• Good Feels Good: Phil eventually settles into Punxatawney, creating a perfect day where he helps people just for the sake of helping them, even if he'll have to do it all over again tomorrow. He learns to find joy in trying to create the perfect day for everyone around him, over and over.
• Good Samaritan: Phil eventually becomes one once he becomes resigned to the loop. He starts doing good deeds, over and over, and adding new ones as he finds new opportunities each day. He saves a boy from falling, saves the mayor from choking in a restaurant, he buys enough insurance from Ned to help Ned meet his quota (which becomes even more amazing when you realize that this is February 2), etc. Eventually, the whole town loves him, but even this alone can’t break the cycle. Only when he becomes such a nice guy that Rita truly falls in love with him does tomorrow come.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: This is one of Ned's annoying speaking mannerisms.
  Ned: Don't you tell me you don't remember me, because I sure as heck-fire remember you!
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: This film is the invoked Trope Namer by virtue of its basic premise of the film as Phil keeps looping back to February 2. This film also indirectly named the trope Groundhog Peggy Sue.
• The Hedonist: Phil becomes this in some of the early cycles when he realizes that no tomorrow means no consequence. He takes the opportunity to indulge in unhealthy food, wild behavior, and bedding various women through what amounts to Save Scumming. The BFI Modern Classics analysis of Groundhog Day notes no one could do absolute hedonism like Bill Murray, such as shoving an entire pastry into his maw before even chewing.
• Happily Failed Suicide: Phil's many suicides become this retroactively.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Getting the girl will solve your problems. Or "solving your problems will get you the girl." Neither one's all that family-friendly, but the core concept — that you can't move forward without solving your problems — is quite sound. Both assume Phil's problems were solved by getting the girl, which is disproved by the second-to-last loop, when he does get Rita, but the loop continues. In fact, when Phil gives up trying to seduce Rita, and becomes a whole person, he does get her.
• Heel–Face Turn: Even if it did take thirty to forty years from his perspective.
• Held Gaze: Several happen between Phil and Rita over the course of the film, mainly when they’re playing in the snow together.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • While on camera:
    Phil: This is pitiful. A thousand people freezing their butts off waiting to worship a rat. [raises his voice] What a hype. Groundhog Day used to mean something in this town. They used to pull the hog out, and they used to eat it. [turns to the crowd] You’re hypocrites, all of you!
  • A few loops later...
    Phil: Once again the eyes of the nation have turned here to this.. [silly voice] tiny village in Western Pennsylvania, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... [seriously] There is no way that this winter... is ever going to end, as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don’t see any other way out. He’s gotta be stopped. [beat] And I have to stop him.
  • Then he drives off a cliff, and the loop repeats.
    Phil: Ah, nuts!
• Hope Spot:
  • Invoked by Larry after the results of Phil's initial Heroic BSoD.
    Larry: He might be OK.
    [Phil's truck promptly explodes]
    Larry: ...Well, no, probably not now.
  • The day in which Phil tells Rita about the time loop and convinces her it’s real makes you think it’ll be the final loop. When he wakes up afterward, the audience is more disappointed than Phil that the Reset Button has hit again.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Subverted. While the endless time loop does take place on Groundhog Day, it is not intended to terrify or harm Phil in any way. Instead, it ends up making him a better person.
• Humans Are Morons: This is one of opening-act Phil's traits.
  Phil: People like blood sausage: people are morons.
• Hypocrite: Phil accuses the townspeople of being hypocrites on one of the loops after berating them for their repeated celebration of the ceremony.
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: In desperation and despair, Phil tries to end being trapped in the time loop by ending his own life. However, he always wakes up alive and well next time 6 am rolls around.
• Identifying the Body: After one of Phil's suicides Rita is shown identifying his body at the morgue, showing that the time loop isn't entirely dependent on him. Also played for laughs a bit, as his former cameraman notes it's a tragic loss while his body language screams "Ding dong the witch is dead!".
• Ignored Confession: During the loop where Phil demonstrates his intimate knowledge of Punxsutawney’s residents to Rita and she stays in his room with him, he confesses his love for her and kisses her on the cheek, but she doesn’t hear any of it due to drifting off towards sleep. His awakening the next day marks his decision to use the loop to better himself.
• I'm Thinking It Over!: Phil really hates the idea of going back to Punxsutawney.
  Cop: Now you can either go back to Punxsutawney, or you can go ahead and freeze to death. It's your choice. So what's it gonna be?
  [beat]
  Phil: I'm thinking...
• Incessant Music Madness: Phil's clock radio becomes this after not too long.
  Sonny and Cher: THEN PUT YOUR LI’L HAND IN MINE... ♫
• Indignant Slap: There is a montage of Rita slapping Phil as he repeatedly tries and fails to use the "Groundhog Day" Loop to get her to fall in love with him.
• Inherently Funny Word: Well, Phrase: Gobbler's Knob, site of the groundhog ceremony. It’s a real place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, too. It just doesn’t look like it does in the movie because it wasn’t filmed in the real Punxsutawney. Punxsutawney: that’s a funny word, too!
  Rita: [on the perfect man] He'll change poopy diapers.
  Phil: Does he have to use the word "poopy"?
• Instant Expert: Not to the audience, since Phil puts plenty of hours in, but he certainly appears this way to other characters.
  Piano Teacher: And you’ve never played before?
  Phil: Not before today.
• Ironic Echo: The DJ chatter, twice by Phil. The first time, he repeats it joyously when he escapes jail via the loop; the second time, it’s a Dark Reprise when he's reached his Despair Event Horizon and about to kill himself.
• Is It Something You Eat?:
  Phil: [to the bed and breakfast owner] Do you ever have déjà vu, Mrs. Lancaster?
  Mrs. Lancaster: I don’t think so, but I could check with the kitchen.
• It's All About Me: Phil has this in spades at the beginning even going so far as calling himself "the talent". As Rita notes, "egocentrism is [his] defining characteristic."
• Jeopardy! Intelligence Test: Played with. After a few days, the other guests at the B&B start to think Phil’s a genius because he answers every question on that day’s edition of Jeopardy! correctly, but, of course, we know he only knows all the answers because he’s seen that particular episode over and over again.
  • It gets to the point where he answers one of the questions before it's even finished being asked, which visibly creeps one of the B&B guests out. Though this is Truth in Television, since some viewers tend to read the answers quickly before Alex finishes reading them and give the response quickly.
• Jerkass: Phil most obviously, Ned somewhat less intentionally. It’s also made pretty clear that Larry’s a bit of a jerk as well. Phil later evolves into a pretty nice guy thanks to his Character Development. Roger Ebert notes in his Great Movies retrospective of the film that it is Murray’s deadpan-Jerkassery that is vital to the film; had a lesser actor taken it over the top, the film would not have worked.
• Karma Houdini: Played With. Phil initially exploits the time loop to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants at any time he wants and avoid the consequences; he ends up repeatedly robbing, seducing, attacking, cheating, and manipulating the townsfolk seemingly without punishment. Over the course of the movie, however, it becomes clear that the time loop is his punishment — not only for his actions in the movie, but for his whole Jerkass nature before the day began. Since all his misdeeds are undone at the end of every day, it hardly matters in the end. A deleted idea that the loop was the result of a curse from a jilted ex-lover underscores this point.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Phil does this to everyone around him towards the beginning of the movie.
  • Larry, too. At first, he just comes off as a guy who won’t put up with Phil's crap, but the scene where he steals back part of his tip money is supposed to indicate that he's not a very nice person.
• Lack of Empathy: The second act of the film is all about Phil learning, painfully, that you can't successfully substitute fake empathy for the real thing no matter how much effort you put into it.
• Large Ham: Ned Ryerson in contrast to the deadpan Phil.
• Left the Background Music On: During one of Phil's later time loops, Mozart's Piano Sonata in C plays. It turns out to be a little girl playing it for her piano teacher before she's kicked out when Phil lays down $1,000 for a single piano lesson.
• Love Redeems: This is how Phil escapes the time loop.
• Magic Realism: The setting is extremely mundane, with the time loop the only supernatural element.
• Manipulative Bastard: Phil becomes one when initially trying to seduce Rita by molding his likes and dislikes to match Rita's.
• Manly Tears: Phil is driven to tears when he finds that, try as he might, he can't stop the old man from dying.
  • He also cries again when he finally wakes on February 3rd.
• Meaningful Name: Phil having the same name as the groundhog, and his job being to report the weather. It could be construed that Phil is in the time loop until he can no longer see his own ‘shadow’ as well.
• Memory Wipe Exploitation: Phil seduces Nancy by asking her questions about where she went to school, her teachers, etc. then on the next iteration of the "Groundhog Day" Loop pretending to be an old classmate of hers. He attempts to do something similar with Rita, learning her likes and interests on one iteration and pretending to have similar interests on the next. However, this never works with Rita, and after many, many failed attempts, he eventually gives up.
• Men Act, Women Are: Phil spends possibly thousands of years learning new skills and experiencing personal growth before finally breaking the loop by proving himself worthy of female Love Interest Rita. Rita is the same vaguely pleasant person at the end of the film as she is in the beginning — then again, for her, only two days have passed.
• Men Don't Cry:
  • Rita says that her ideal man wouldn’t be afraid of crying.
    Phil: This is a man we're talking about, right?
  • He himself subverts this belief later when he finally learns how precious life is through his futile attempts to save a homeless old man from dying of old age.
  • He also cries on the morning of February 3 — after 6:00 AM.
• Mental Time Travel: One of the possible explanations for the time loop.
• Mistaken for Gay: Phil pulls one on Ned one day just to scare him off.
• Mistaken for Quake: The old ladies with the flat tire think there’s one when Phil jacks their car.
• Montage: Used effectively a couple of times to speed up the consequences of some of Phil's actions.
• Mood Whiplash: Phil’s protracted series of suicides and the montage in which he tries to save the old man are a bit jarring.
• Motor Mouth: Ned. Phil doesn’t have a chance to say anything until he gives Ned the advice to Talk to the Fist.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Ned apparently dated Phil's sister until Phil told him not to.
• Never Heard That One Before: Yes, his name is Phil. Like the groundhog that actually lives in Punxsutawney.
• New Body, Old Abilities: Or a variation thereon. Like everything else in Punxsutawney, Phil's body resets itself every morning at 6:00am.
• Nice Guy: What Phil finally becomes when he grows to love all of humanity, Rita included..
• No Antagonist: Here is a heavily flawed man who is trapped in a time loop, and goes through the same day all over again indefinitely, until he learns to become a better person. The film has no villain, since Phil is at worst a Jerkass Anti-Hero, and the time loop is simply an unexplained event.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: As the time loop gradually grinds away his sanity, to occupy himself Phil indulges in all manner of pleasure, and sees winning over the strong-willed Rita in a single day as a challenge he can't refuse. When this fails, repeatedly, a long spiral into depression begins, until Rita constructively suggests he strive for a better outlook on life. Eventually, using his knowledge of the day's events, Phil is determined to make everyone's day a great one.
• No Endor Holocaust:
  • The movie glosses over the immense psychological strain that would be placed on Phil getting used to surprises again after living a few decades' worth of the same day.
  • Harold Ramis stated that Phil lived the equivalent of 10,000 years. So, whatever psychological state Phil was in, he passed it. Maybe he committed suicide for a few hundred years? Towards the end of the invoked DVD Commentary, Ramis suggests that, based on how well Phil can play the piano now, he was probably learning for ten years. The time frame is open to interpretation.
  • It takes several years to learn a language to fluency. It is implied he has learned French, Italian, and Spanish, although we also know Phil is not above inflating his credentials.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Phil mentions he "stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted and burned" himself, but we only get to see the electrocution.
  • Ned Ryerson mentions a few in short succession:
    Ned: Ned! Ryerson! "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C’mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling-belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn’t graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?
• Nothing Left to Do but Die: An extremely bored and depressed Phil kills himself multiple times. Then, in a subsequent scene, he lists each one to Rita calmly as a shocked waitress looks on. Hilarity Ensues.
• Off the Rails: Phil tries this by kidnapping the groundhog, going on a car chase, and getting both of them killed. It doesn’t work.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The first time it loops, Phil reacts to the radio "Put your little hand in mine" by simply saying "Nice going, boys, you’re playing yesterday’s tape", but then they talk about the Groundhog Day celebration. When he looks out the window, he sees there’s no snow from the blizzard. That's his first Oh, Crap! moment, but it’s certainly not the last.
  • Larry mouths "Oh, shit!" when he sees who bought him at the bachelor auction for twenty-five cents.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Phil obviously looks like this on the first several loops. But hilariously, part of how we know he broke the loop when it's finally February 3 is one of the radio hosts he (and, this time, Rita) wakes up to says this almost word-for-word (in addition to "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher being at a much earlier point in the song when the radio alarm goes off this time):
  D.J. #2: Oh, please, not again.
  D.J. #1: That is a great song! Don't listen to this man...
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: It's never established where the character of Rita is from, but there are moments when Andie MacDowell noticeably drops into her South Carolina drawl.
• Open Heart Dentistry: The only person with a psychology degree in town for Phil to visit is primarily a family therapist.
• Overly Long Hug: One of the recurring events of Phil's endless single day loop is having to run into his annoying old classmate Ned every single morning. After several unsuccessful loops of becoming increasingly abrasive to Ned, including punching him out a few times, Phil tries a different approach of being too nice to Ned, pulling him in for an uncomfortably long hug that causes Ned to back off.
• Pet the Dog: When Phil and the crew arrive in town, he loudly complains how much he hates the hotel where they’re staying, when Rita informs him she knew he didn’t like it and got him a reservation at a quaint bed and breakfast. After hearing this, Phil seems surprised at the act of kindness and sincerely (if smugly) thanks her for it. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the only decent thing Phil does prior to character development.
• Post–Wake-Up Realization: Phil always hears the same snippet of "I Got You Babe" on his alarm clock radio while he's in his "Groundhog Day" Loop. The morning after his "perfect day", he hears that song yet again, but suddenly bolts awake when he realizes it's a different part of the song and he's broken the cycle.
• The Power of Love: Only by winning Rita’s heart does Phil break the time loop.
• Railroad Tracks of Doom: On his night of lawbreaking, Phil actually drives on the tracks towards an oncoming train. He doesn't know at the time that even a collision would have no consequences, though.
• Redundant Romance Attempt: On the original day, Phil's first date with Rita goes great, so he wants it to continue. When he tries to force the same reaction during the next loop, his forwardness pushes her away. He finally gets it right by being himself again, mistakes and all, and not forcing any outcome.
• Renaissance Man: Through his massively-long ordeal throughout the "Groundhog Day" Loop, Phil becomes a master of many skills, many more than any one person could master without going insane from overwork.
• Required Secondary Powers: Phil must have superhuman memory to be able to memorize and keep straight in his head his encyclopedic knowledge of all the minor details of the day, the town, its inhabitants, and Rita's life.
• Reset Button: The clock turning six starts the day over.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Punxsutawney Phil is a rather pleasant-looking groundhog that Rita fawns over during the news broadcast.
• Radio: How both DJ #1 and 2 start the loop.
  D.J. #1: Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today.
  D.J. #2: It's coooold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?
  D.J. #1: Not hardly. And you know, you can expect hazardous travel later today with that, you know, that, uh, that blizzard thing.
  D.J. #2: That blizzard - thing. That blizzard - thing. Oh, well, here's the report! The National Weather Service is calling for a "big blizzard thing!"
  D.J. #1: Yessss, they are. But you know, there's another reason why today is especially exciting.
  D.J. #2: Especially cold!
  D.J. #1: Especially cold, okay, but the big question on everybody's lips...
  D.J. #2: On their chapped lips...
  D.J. #1: On their chapped lips, right: Do ya think Phil is gonna come out and see his shadow?
  D.J. #2: Punxsutawney Phil!
  D.J. #1: That's right, woodchuck-chuckers - it's...
  D.J. #1, D.J. #2: GROUNDHOG DAY!
• Riddle for the Ages: Just how long was Phil in the loop? If the character even knows himself, he never mentions it. The question is so hotly discussed among fans that the movie's page on Wikipedia has a section for it. "Official" answers from the producers vary from two weeks to a decade to an entire lifetime to ten thousand years.
• Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!:
  • Phil ends up doing this to his clock radio several times as a way to vent frustration from his situation.
  • When he’s finally out of the loop, the song starts at a totally different part with the alarm, and the radio show host says, "Oh no. Not again."
• Rousseau Was Right: The film’s message: there is love, kindness and decency in everyone; you just need time to bring it out.
• Sanity Slippage: Phil is definitely this when he kidnaps the groundhog. Lampshaded by Larry.
  Larry: He's out of his gourd!
• Save Scumming: An unusual non-video-game example of this trope.
  Phil: Want some white chocolate?
  Rita: Yecch, makes me sick.
  Phil: [to self] No white chocolate.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Happens on one of the loops during the ceremony.
  Phil: This is pitiful. A thousand people freezing their butts off waiting to worship a rat. [raises his voice] What a hype. Groundhog Day used to mean something in this town. They used to pull the hog out, and they used to eat it.
• The Scapegoat: Suffering a Sanity Slippage after countless loops, Phil becomes convinced that the groundhog is somehow responsible for his predicament because it's always the central figure of the particular day he's stuck in (since, you know, it's Groundhog Day) and that it always predicts a cold, long winter. And thus, he kidnaps the groundhog and kills it along with himself by driving off a cliff. It didn't break the loop.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Phil does this when he tries to have a shower but only cold water comes out and pours on him.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
  • The many errands Phil runs as he spends longer and longer in the loop.
  • Subverted in that some of his errands have no lasting effect beyond February 2. For example, the young couple whom Phil sends to see Wrestlemania may still be a failed marriage, since Debbie was having second thoughts for a reason. Phil has no idea what the long-lasting implications are because, well, there weren't any in the time loop.
  • And subverted with the homeless man, since no matter what Phil does, he dies in the loop.
• Shout-Out:
  • Very subtle, but Phil stuffing his face with the cake in the Tip Top gluttony scene, his guzzling from a bottle of Jack Daniels as he watches Jeopardy (for the nth time), and his music act at the end with the Ray-Bans all echo great moments from Bill Murray’s fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus, John Belushi.
  • Also, his "Be the hat!" line spoken to Rita as he's trying to coach her in precise throwing of cards into a hat is a shout-out to the similar "Be the ball!" line in Caddyshack, a film also shot by Harold Ramis and featuring Bill Murray as well.
  • When Phil tells Rita that he's a god, his "stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned" list echoes Vigo the Carpathian's Rasputinian Death in Ghostbusters II.
  • When passing by the man in the hallway, to end his conversation, Phil quotes "Work Without Hope" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
• Shown Their Work: A small example, but one which many creators don't bother to check: One of the old ladies Phil had changed the tire for calls him the "fastest jack in Jefferson County." Punxsutawney is indeed in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania.
• Slipstream: There is no in-universe explanation for the time loop. It just... happens to someone. An early draft of the screenplay had the time loop caused by a curse put upon Phil by his ex-girlfriend, but that was dropped.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Phil before the loop. He invariably responded to greetings with "Hi, thanks for watching."
  Larry: [practically giggling] Did he actually call himself "the talent"? ^note While the way Phil comes across is indeed egotistical, "talent" is actually the term used in the industry. Though as noted here and in other entries Phil has a vastly inflated ego for a weatherman, and so the sentiment behind Larry's comment is true.
• Snow Means Love: Several times. Alternately, exactly once. Time travel.
• Spiteful Gluttony: Upon realizing the truth of his situation, Phil has a period of hedonism, gorging himself on all the junk food he wants, because why not? If the citizens of Punxsutawney are repulsed by it, all the better to Phil.
• Stalker with a Crush: When Rita catches on that Phil is memorizing all the small details of her personal preferences (in order to romance her) she concludes this is what's going on, and asks if he's been calling up her friends.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: At first, Sonny and Cher’s "I Got You Babe" may seem like a random pop song on Phil's radio, but as the film goes along, it gets a sinister edge to it.
  I got you, babe. I got you, babe.
  • When the loop is broken, the lyrics are: "I got you, babe / They say our love won't pay the rent...", indicating Rita is with him now.
  • During Phil's unsuccessful attempts to seduce Rita in the snow, Ray Charles' "You Don’t Know Me" starts playing.
• Straw Nihilist: It only takes a few days for Phil to become this. It takes him a few thousand years to grow out of it.
• Switching P.O.V.: Phil is the center of the attention for almost the entire movie. There are short scenes where he is not involved, but will be or just was in the scene. The only glaring difference in point-of-view is one scene where Rita and Larry identify Phil’s corpse at the morgue. Although his body is still technically in the scene, so the film arguably just follows his corpse’s point-of-view instead.
• Talk About the Weather: Mrs. Lancaster tries to make small talk with Phil by talking about the weather — unfortunately, he’s a weather forecaster in a bad mood.
  Mrs. Lancaster: There's talk of a blizzard.
  Phil: We may catch a break and that blizzard’s gonna blow right by us. All of this moisture coming up out of the south by midday is probably gonna push on to the east of us and at high altitudes it’s gonna crystallize and probably give us what we call snow. Probably will be some accumulation but here in Punxsutawney our high is gonna get up to about thirty today, teens tonight. Chance of precipitation about twenty percent today, twenty percent tomorrow. Did you want to talk about the weather or were you just making chit-chat?
• Talk to the Fist: Phil dismisses Ned this way once just to make his daily encounter with him brief.
• Technically a Smile: During the second ceremony, Phil makes an awkward, nervous fake smile at the end of his intro.
• Thanking the Viewer: In-Universe: A couple walk by and the guy says, "Hey, it's Phil Connors," and Phil says, "Thanks, thanks for watching." The couple don't notice he's sabotaging the station broadcast truck.
• Three…Two…One…:Phil steals a bag from the armoured truck by knowing exactly when the hapless guards will be distracted by the dropped pennies, and that their incompetence is so great that they won’t remember how many bags of money they had in the van until later in the day. Phil counts down from 10 as he crosses the road, commenting in advance on what is about to happen.
• Time Loop Fatigue: Phil becomes so exhausted by his time loop that he attempts suicide multiple times. The loop continues anyway and he always comes straight back to life whenever 6 am rolls around again. The main problem Phil has is that he's trapped in this one Pennsylvania town and all the highways are closed off due to the weather. There's only so much he can do before he gets bored out of his skull.
• Time-Traveling Jerkass: Phil. He gets pretty nasty when he realizes he can do whatever he wants and no one will remember it, leading to (in no particular order) rudeness, assault and battery, robbery, poor table manners, suicide, and vehicular mayhem with a groundhog. Learning to make the most of his imprisonment is what leads him to become a better person by making the most of the loop as it occurs. Even so, his dickishness is Played for Laughs and used more to depict Phil as going through something of a Wish Fulfilment phase — the filmmakers deliberately kept Phil from engaging in truly horrific crimes because it would have made it impossible to redeem him in the audience's eyes.
• Title Drop: Groundhog Day gets brought up many times because of the setting.
• Took a Level in Badass: After he accepts that he's trapped in the time loop and that he can't have Rita, that there's no escape, he dedicates himself to self improvement. He starts reading every book he can find, takes piano lessons, learn to make ice sculptures...
  • Subverted when he dedicates himself to saving the homeless man. In the end, the old man dies no matter what Phil tries and he has to accept that there are limits to what he can accomplish in Punxatawney on February 2.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Phil Connors is contemptuous toward almost everyone and makes no attempt to hide it. Fate decides to put him in a "Groundhog Day" Loop (Trope Namer), causing him to re-live the same day over and over again. He decides to help other people avoid being hurt, betters himself by learning to play the piano and create ice sculptures and falls in love. When he has improved his personality enough he's freed from the loop.
• Understatement: Phil does this at least once to avoid talking about his problem.
  Rita: What did you do today?
  Phil: Oh, same old same old.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Throughout the loop he saves the same kid from falling from a tree. He snarks at the little brat for never thanking him once.
  Phil: What do you say? What do you say? [kid runs off] You little brat, you have never thanked me! I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe!
• The Unreveal:
  • The audience never finds out how Phil got trapped in the time loop. He blames the groundhog at one point, but that was after a good deal of Sanity Slippage and killing it didn't break the loop anyway.
  • Also, it is never explained why Phil was wearing his bathrobe in the diner when he finally told Rita all about his conundrum.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: Subverted by this film and many others that use "Groundhog Day" Loop plot devices, as each repetition has variations.
• Viewers Are Morons: The first time Phil meets the guy in the hallway of the B&B who asks him when he thinks spring is going to come, when Phil tells him "March 21st" the guy responds he thinks that actually is the first day of spring because the audience can't be expected to know the significance of that date on their own.
• Weather Report Opening: The first scene shows Phil in the studio giving a weather report to the TV audience.
• Wham Line: Rather, what Phil and Rita hear when they wake up finally on February 3, with a different (specifically, earlier) part of "I Got You Babe":
  D.J. #2: Oh no. Not again.
• Whammy Bid: Rita empties out her checking account to purchase Phil at the bachelor auction.
  Rita: Three hundred thirty-nine dollars and eighty-eight cents! ^note For the curious, that's $615.27 when adjusted for inflation.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: It’s six AM in this case. True, Phil relives Groundhog Day proper every day, but it's from 6:00 AM February 2 to 5:59 AM February 3. Lampshaded once when Rita says she expected one of them to disappear at midnight.
• A World Half Full: Invoked by Gus, when he comments Phil has a "glass-half-empty" mindset.
• Wrong Restaurant: Phil Connors gets pulled over by the cops for driving recklessly. When the cop walks up to his car window to question him, Phil acts like he's at a drive-thru and asks the cop for a burgers and fries.^note ... And some flapjacks!
• Wrong-Name Outburst: When Phil is seducing Nancy, he calls her Rita. Twice.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Phil has a hard time accepting that for all his time-repeating abilities, he can't change the fact that the old homeless man always dies.
  Phil: What did he die of?
  Doctor: He was just old, it was just his time... sometimes, people just die.
  Phil: Not today.

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♫ I got you, babe... ♫