“Too early for flapjacks?”

The movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray is indisputably one of the most famous films of the 1990s. Despite this, there are still many unanswered questions about the film, such as, just how many times did Phil relive the same day?

This may be a silly question to ponder, but it is a very intriguing one when you look at the film as a whole. It is shown early on that the hostel at which Phil is staying doesn’t have any hot water left for him to take a shower. This means that for the entire time he spends repeating the same day, he is unable to enjoy the comfort of warm water. Phil is also only ever able to watch one movie in the town’s cinema. On top of all this, Phil is never able to leave the town or travel at all due to a terrible blizzard that blows in the day he’s there. But how long is this period of time?  

By the end of the film, Phil has seemingly mastered a great number of skills such as card throwing, piano, ice carving, French poetry, and who knows what else. As Malcolm Gladwell states in his book “Outliers,” it takes someone 10,000 hours to master a task. This means that, at the very least, Phil has spent a whopping 40,000 hours just learning how to do some of the things he does in the film. This number does not take into account the amount of time he spends just fooling around with his new-found, time-altering curse. Fortunately, thanks to Simon Gallaghar at WhatCulture.com, we don’t have to do all the minute mathematics needed to figure out how long Phil was stuck in this sticky situation. After extensive research into the length of specific days shown in the film, plus the hours Phil hypothetically spent mastering everything, Simon concluded that Phill repeated the same day 12,395 times. That calculates out to almost 34 years. 

Although this number is widely agreed upon by both fans of the movie and cast members alike, there is an alternative date given to us by an original draft of the script. In this draft, Phil concedes to his love interest, Rita, that he spent 10,000 years repeating the same day before finally being freed from his curse. Whether this number is hyperbole or not, I know one thing for certain: We can all be glad when we wake up tomorrow morning and our calendars have switched over to Feb. 3.

By Caleb Schaber