This week: After Groundhog Day Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours."
— Robert Byrne
The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.
— Patrick Young
Pitiful, a thousand people freezing their butts off waiting to worship a rat.
— Phil Connors, Groundhog Day |
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As you read this, another Groundhog Day will have come and gone.
For the last 28 years, Groundhog Day has meant one important thing: watching the Harold Ramis movie over and over again.
That's right: 28 years. GHD came out in 1993. Don't you feel old now? Although technically 27 since it was released in mid-February of 1993.
If you've never seen this movie, then what the hell are you doing reading a Comedy Newsletter editorial? But in brief, the protagonist (Bill Murray) is a meteorologist named Phil; his occupation and name are, of course, both shared with the most famous groundhog of all. In the movie, Phil (the two-legged one) replays the same day (guess which one) over and over until he figures life out.
Since then, the title of the movie has become shorthand for any time loop in fiction, and it seems like every show that's even remotely in the science fiction genre has to do at least one Groundhog Day episode -- though as I'm quite fond of pointing out, Star Trek: The Next Generation did a time loop episode the year before GHD came out (Cause and Effect, Season 5, 1992). But the GHD trope is so pervasive that this episode has been retconned as a "Groundhog Day" episode, and... well. Sorry. This discussion would be more appropriate for my Fantasy newsletter next week.
Point is, as with the plot of the movie itself, the association of Groundhog Day with time loops is now pervasive.
But the important thing, for us, is: Was the groundhog himself aware of the loop, or was it only the human Phil?
In my headcanon, not only was he aware, but that overgrown rat was responsible for it.
Think about it. Never, not once in the movie, is the supernatural element explained. Not a single other human seems to be aware of Phil Connors' predicament. And the only nonhuman character is... Punxsutawney Phil.
My primary evidence for the groundhog being responsible is one scene: Connors ratnaps the fat squirrel and drives them both off a cliff. Why bother with stealing the fuzzball, if not to try to break the cycle? Connors seemed unable to do so on his own, so he takes with him the one creature that put him in the loop to begin with, figuring that removing the source of his agony could end the loop -- with the side-effect, of course, of both of them being dead, but hey, you try living the same winter day over and over in Pennsylvania and see if you don't at least consider it.
Admittedly, I'm unclear on what the overpowered woodchuck's motivation for this might be. Best I can come up with is that he's the latest incarnation of the Trickster God, who in other cultures was represented by coyotes, corvids, foxes, spiders... the point being, they're all animal spirits, so why not a groundhog? Messing with peoples' heads is what trickster gods do, and their motivations don't have to make sense to us puny humans.
It's all the groundhog's fault. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, even if it means suffering through another six weeks of winter.
It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be gray, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life. |
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Last time, in "2021" , I talked about going into a new year.
s  : I resolved to stop sticking my face in the blender.
3 days into January and there's another resolution that I've broken!
At least you're not alone.
GeminiGem🐾  : I've never believed in New Year's resolutions. Thanks for putting all that nonsense in perspective, bro. It does make me think of a line in one of my favorite Crosby, Stills & Nash songs, though (Southern Cross).
And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do
Yep... that's one of my traditional New Year's Eve songs.
dragonwoman : There's no life without humour. It can make the wonderful moments truly glorious, and the tragic moments bearable. Rufus Wainwright in Reader's Digest
Seriously, I don't know how all the people with no sense of humor manage to get through life.
Elycia Lee ☮  : Heyyy! Except for the fact that I don't drink, I excel in all of that! I might fail to fail at them.
Only then can you succeed, grasshopper.
So that's it for me for February... or is it? You might have to read this newsletter again and again for full effect. Until next month,
LAUGH ON!!!
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Comedy: February 03, 2021 Issue [#10592]
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