Groundhog Day: Bill Murray's Phil May Have Been Stuck Way Longer Than You Think

Widely considered to be one of the best comedy movies of all time, "Groundhog Day's" story of weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) struggling to break free from living the same 24-hour period over and over again made the film an instant classic. But no matter how many times you might've watched Connors talk about how he's been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned, just how many times does he actually relive Groundhog Day? Well, according to iconic supporting actor Stephen Tobolowsky, Phil was stuck in that nightmare longer than any human would normally live — give or take a few thousand years.

During an appearance on the "Go Fact Yourself" podcast, Tobolowsky, aka "Ned! Ned Ryerson!" recalled how he was lucky enough to be told by the movie's director just how long Phil was stuck in Punxsutawney for. "I have word from Harold Ramis as to how long it was," Tobolowsky revealed. "He said, 'Stephen, I'm a practicing Buddhist, and we believe that it takes 10,000 years to perfect a human soul, and the story of 'Groundhog Day' is the story of the perfection of the human soul. That's how long Phil Connors has been in town – 10,000 years."

Now, while we don't doubt Tobolowsky is telling the truth, another detail shared years earlier by the late director suggests that Phil might have been stuck in a shorter, albeit still equally soul-destroying time loop.

Admittedly, while the unconfirmed and supernatural time out on "Groundhog Day" sounds like torture, it certainly does make sense considering how much of a terrible person Phil Connors really is. Perhaps his sentence wasn't quite that long, though. In fact, there was another occasion where Harold Ramis spoke about Phil's punishment that disputes Stephen Tobolowsky's story.

On the film's own DVD commentary, Ramis reveals that when it came down to it, "We figure the day had been repeating for about 10 years." However, Ramis also revealed that 10,000 was a number that was in an earlier draft of the story penned by Danny Rubin. "In Danny's original script, believe it or not, Danny had him living the same day over and over again for 10,000 years, which is actually kind of a convenient Buddhist catchphrase," Ramis explained. "Everything seems to take 10,000 years in Buddhism."

By the sounds of things, Tobolowsky was right, even though Connors' stretch stuck in Punxsutawney may have ultimately been shrunk down a little. Perhaps there's a sweet spot in between those two possibilities. According to What Culture, if you include Phil's variety of activities, from ice-sculpting to learning piano, saving falling children, and learning the Heimlich maneuver in between seeing films "hundreds of times," Phil was stuck reliving the same Groundhog Day for 33 years and 350 days, leading to this inevitable clarification to be argued over, and over, and over, and ... well, you get the idea.

Are you a fan of Murray's time-looping comedy? Here are more films like "Groundhog Day" that you absolutely need to watch.