How Woodstock, Illinois became the real-life home of Groundhog Day
CHICAGO - Groundhog Day is just a few days away. Believe it or not, thousands of people from around the world travel every year to northwest suburban Woodstock to celebrate it there. That’s because many are fans of the 1993 Bill Murray and Harold Ramis comedy classic movie.
In a Fox 32 special report, Jake Hamilton takes a look back at what it was like when this fan favorite was being filmed just outside Chicago.
The backstory:
When you look at Woodstock's town square today, it looks almost the same as when the movie "Groundhog Day" was being shot. Except there are now more businesses open than back in 1992.
"It was a pretty dead time - economically bad time, so it brought some life to Woodstock," said Maggie Crane, a retired Woodstock librarian.
Along with Rick Bellairs, Crane is also a member of Woodstock’s Groundhog Days Committee, the group that plans the city's annual events to honor this day and the movie being shot here.
Both were also on the front lines of filming when it happened and showed Fox 32 the city's memorabilia collection from it.
"Nobody knew what the movie was going to be about," Bellairs said. "They came to town, they had a casting call. They put out a notice wanting people from the community to be background extras. I was between jobs at the time and I went and signed up."
While Bellairs was an extra on camera, Crane was off camera answering what she called reference questions for producers.
"A library is a place that you come for answers, especially back in those days. There were no cell phones. There was no internet," Crane said.
She also helped producers find a much-needed French poetry book for an important scene.
The Impact on Woodstock:
When filming began, Crane said about a quarter of the businesses on the square were empty, which meant the producers could use those buildings for various things.
For example, Bellairs said what is now the Read Between the Lynes bookstore was used as a holding area for extras to stay warm in between scenes.
Today, it’s one of the busiest shops on the square thanks in part to the movie.
"We carry a variety of merchandise," said Arlene Lynes, the bookstore’s owner. "Mugs, Woodstock Willie hot sauce, groundhog puppets and, of course, a variety of groundhog-themed books."
For Lynes, February 2 is the busiest day of the year for her store, hands down.
"The store is packed full. People are shoulder to shoulder. It’s hard to move in here. We have hundreds if not thousands of people come through on Groundhog Day," Lynes said.
That’s because people from across the country and around the globe now come to Woodstock to celebrate Groundhog Day.
The other side:
Regardless of how much this movie is loved now, that was not the story back then, especially with some business owners – despite the tough economy they were facing.
"Some of the business owners were really worried the effect filming would have on their business, but Columbia Pictures made sure they bought all their supplies from local businesses, and they did their best to make it easier for the business owners. So, at first there was something like 38 business owners who said ‘no,'" Crane said.
As producers continued to talk to those business owners, Crane said the number of those opposed to the film dwindled to 14 and then down to just three.
"From the other side, I think the people of Woodstock loved it. It brought excitement. It brought celebrity status to us," Bellairs said.
"There’s a story that one day when the crowds were gathered around watching Bill Murray do his scene on the sidewalk, he went into the local bakery and came out with a couple boxes of donuts and went out and started passing them around to the people watching the movie."
There were many other businesses on and off the square that were quick to embrace the movie, putting ads in the paper to welcome the crew and putting up billboards to draw people from across the Chicago area to come watch the filming.
Production challenges
Shooting from March to May, another challenge the movie crew had to tackle was making sure they always had enough snow for their February storyline.
"So they made a decision to make it patchy snow. And so they mapped out where they needed the snow and at 4 o’clock every morning, a big ice truck came, and it was shoved on and crunched, sprayed on various parts of the square in the same spots," Crane said.
Politics and weather aside, perhaps the biggest challenge the producers faced while filming was locating an actual groundhog.
"That was the joke," said Bob Hudgins, the film’s location manager. "We don’t have a groundhog. Whoops. And this was well before the days of CGI and any of that works. We had to have a real groundhog."
Hudgins worked closely with the movie's director, Harold Ramis, and producer Doc Erickson as they were scouting sites for the movie.
"The phone calls to Los Angeles, etc. would start by about by noon. They would start getting on the phone to LA and having all their conversations about actors, etc., and from the very beginning, it was, ‘Hey, we need to get a groundhog. Surely, we’ll be able to do that. Right?’," Hudgins said.
Actually no, it wasn't going to be that easy to find the animal actor to play the title character.
"There was a bit of tension because it kept coming up negative, negative, negative," Hudgins said.
"They came to find out there were no professional groundhogs out there, and it was kind of a challenge. And they talked to everybody in Los Angeles. They’re not very available out there," Hudgins added.
Enter Animal Rentals and Displays in Chicago. Mark Szafran owns the company now.
He was a teenager who worked there when producers hired them in 1992 to find and train groundhogs for movies. His boss back then was Bill Hoffman.
"I don’t know if they would have found anyone else," Szafran said. "Because of the nature of a groundhog. Zoos don’t like keeping groundhogs. They are the Tasmanian Devils of North America. They’re destructive animals. They dig. They chew through anything. Climb. They’re acrobatic. They can swim."
Hoffman was known for his experience in training exotic animals. Because of that, Szafran said his old boss is the one who primarily handled the groundhogs when they were filming in Woodstock.
"Yes, no one wanted to get near him (groundhog) laughs. Nobody wanted to handle a groundhog," Szafran said.
What's next:
Once all the pieces fell into place and the cameras began rolling, movie lovers have not stopped watching this beloved cult classic and now keep coming to Woodstock to celebrate this special day.
"We have people who come from all around the Chicagoland area. We have people who come from all around the Midwest. We have people who have come from across the country. We’ve had people from California to New York, from Florida to Alaska," Bellairs said.
"They come from all over the world. We have them from Australia, Portugal, Spain, Italy, China. Last year, every country really," Crane said.
All so they can get up close and personal with a favorite movie by seeing where the magic happened.
Bellairs said the top spots people ask to see include the famous puddle, which is no more, the diner, which is now a Mexican restaurant, and, of course the bed and breakfast.
"We certainly had no expectation that it would have this lasting impression, and that people would still be celebrating the movie. It’s probably more popular now than it was then," Bellairs said.
This year's Groundhog Days kicks off on Thursday, Jan. 30 and, of course, runs through Feb. 2.
The Source: Fox 32's Jake Hamilton conducted interviews with Woodstock residents and former production crew from the film Groundhog Day.