What connects Woodstock, Illinois and Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania? We had no idea until recently. You may recall we visited Punxsutawney last December on our way to a nose work trial? Well, we had no idea the movie Groundhog Day was not filmed there. The movie was actually filmed in Illinois because Bill Murray demanded a filming location within five hours of his Chicago home. Since we were close by last weekend for my Summit Trial, we decided to investigate.
Like Punxsutawney, the town is in the middle of nowhere. It is a tiny little place with more of a “Mayberry” type of feeling. It is very busy and everything happens around the town square. We found a parking spot right away and started to check things out. Here in the square we found the Band Stand where the romantic dance took place, and behind it to the right is their version of Gobblers Knob.
The bar scene was filmed in the bottom of the Public house. We did some research on the movie production and it brought up some points we never thought about. Filming takes weeks if not months, but Groundhog Day has to be the same every day. If you start filming in snow, you need the same snow the next day. When it rains on a filming day, you need rain the next time you work on that scene. It makes filming such a movie quite difficult and it requires a lot of planning.
On the adjacent side of the square is the Pennysylvania Hotel, taunted as a fleabag hotel in the movie. It is normally the opera house in town.
Down a side street we found the movie theater from the film. It was called the Alpine Theater at the time.
We read online that everything from the movie is marked and easy to find, but we found it to be a real struggle. The Willie groundhog they call, “Woodstock Willie” is behind the theater in an out of the way location. We stumbled onto him by accident. Evidently, he does the same thing Punxsutawney Phil does on Groundhog Day, just in Woodstock. The sun was in a bad place for a photo, but we took one anyway.
There is also a stand with some info on the movie and the filming of the movie back in 1993.
We have to say, we learned a lot about the movie by visiting and researching Woodstock, IL. Honestly, we were not really impressed with Woodstock when we checked it out in person. Punxsutawney is much more fun and they have so much more “Groundhog” stuff going on. Woodstock is cute but it lacked the pizzazz we were expecting and locating the famous spots was difficult. We didn’t find everything we had hoped to find. Nevertheless, we think Groundhog Day is a fun and funny thing that happens every year, and we enjoy learning more about the actual place as well as the famous movie.
I’m joining my friends at Living Laughing and Barking in Our Backyard for their Nature Friday blog hop.
Woodstock is a beautiful town and we love the way you’re gazing up at Willie over his “Willie” door, Nelson☺
I was wondering who this Willie guy was and why he was there.
oh hoe great that this town really exists… it is like made for a movie… maybe a crime movie next time?
We think a few movies have been made there, but Groundhog Day was the big one.
What a cute town. You’re right, it does look a lot like a Mayberry kind of place. Looks like you guys had a fun time checking it out.
It’s always fun to find new places that have a story.
Even if it was disappointing I love all the places Mom takes you to. You have such a good Mommy.
We had expected it to be more like Punxsutawney, but it was more like a little town with Groundhog Day tucked in here and there. It is still fun to have seen it.
That was a ton of fun. I felt like I was right there with you and Mom and a photo op with Willie.
PUNXSUTAWNEY is a fun word to say. I’m glad I’m not from there though can you imagine saying
my name is Cecilia and I’m from PUNXSUTAWNEY
Hugs Cecilia
Saying it would be hard but then people would ask, “how do you spell that?” That would be the real killer. It is hard enough for Mom with GBGV’s because people want the full name so she says it and they just say, “what?” Nevertheless, we do really recommend a visit to Punxsutawney because it is a super fun town, full of groundhog stuff. We hope to get back there some day when we have some more time, but not around Groundhog day, that would be too much.
I love checking out places like that! And, yes, it does seem to have a “Mayberry” feel to it.
It looks more like Mayberry than Mayberry did when we went there last winter!
Well we enjoyed the visit to Woodstock and as always love to see you guys posing so handsomely beside points of interest.
Happy Nature Friday!
Thank you. It was interesting to learn about where and how the movie was made.
I love that movie! I did not know it wasn’t filmed in PA. This was so interesting, thanks, you two!
We didn’t know it was made there either until a few weeks ago. People, including us, just assume it was filmed where Phil lives.
Isn’t it fun to find small villages where big movies or shows were filmed? We do agree with you though, we found the town proper of Las Vegas(where Longmire was filmed) to be a bit boring…we bet Wyoming is a lot more fun!
Thanks for showing us around!
xoxo,
Rosy & Sunny
It is funny how they make one place pretend to be another. Wouldn’t it be easier to film stuff in the real place?
What a fun day exploring that town. There were some grand photo opportunities!
It was a bummer the place is so small and there are so many cars, but it was a fun place to stop in and visit.
That was very interesting, we didn’t know any of that about Groundhog Day. It was a pretty funny movie!
It was a surprise to us too when we heard about it, so we had to go and check it out since we were in the area. It was a funny film.
Wow, I had no idea. I guess if you know how to do “movie magic,” you can turn one small town into another for a short time, anyway.
Even though they chose Woodstock as the closest to the actual town where Phil is every year, they are really nothing alike in our opinion. Still it was fun to learn about the movie side and visit that town.