Groundhog Day

FADE IN:

HIBERNATING GROUNDHOGS

A family of groundhogs is nestled together in their burrow

sleeping off the end of a long winter.

ROLL CREDITS AND THEME MUSIC

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. A FOREST CLEARING - EARLY MORNING

The crust of an old snowfall still covers the frozen ground,

and the bare, icy branches of the trees glisten dully in the

early morning light.

CUT TO:

INT. TV STUDIO - SAME TIME

PHIL CONNORS is standing in front of a blank green wall

gesticulating animatedly at some invisible images on the wall,

talking a mile a minute (MOS) . He looks completely crazy as he

points at nothing and winks to an unseen audience.

CUT TO:

EXT. WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA - SAME TIME

CREDITS CONTINUE as we streak across the winter landscape,

flying over fields and farms, small towns and hamlets, railroad

lines and interstates, coalyards and factories, until we cross

the Allegheny River and follow it to the southwest.

CUT TO:

INT. TV STUDIO - SAME TIME

Phil continues pointing out features on the blank wall , but

from a new angle we can see that he ' s looking at a monitor out

of the corner of his eye which shows the chromakey insert he's

pointing to -- a national weather map.

CUT TO:

EXT. NEAR PITTSBURGH - SAME TIME

The country towns turn to suburbs, traffic on the roads gets

heavier and finally we see the skyline of Pittsburgh and the

confluence of the Allegheny with the Monongahela and the Ohio.

-2-

We zoom into a tall building in the downtown area and

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. PHIL CONNORS' OFFICE - MORNING

We don't see anyone at first but the office itself speaks

volumes about it's inhabitant-- team pictures of the Steelers

from the Franco Harris-Terry Bradshaw glory years, a framed

memorial portrait of Roberto Clemente, a local Emmy award

statue, an erasable weather map and mountains of personal junk

on the desk, ^windowsill, and every other available surface.

As the CREDITS END, we notice a sleeping figure on the small

sofa, buried deep under a pile of coats and a stolen airline

blanket.

GIL HAWLEY, Executive Producer of the Action News, sticks his

head in the door.

HAWLEY:

Christ, what a pit. Phil"

The sleeping figure rouses himself and looks out at Hawley.

It's Phil, the .Channel 9 Action News weatherman.

PHIL:

(SLEEPY)

What?

HAWLEY:

It's February first, Phil. You

know what tomorrow is?

Phil sits up and.thinks hard. He's in his mid-thirties, smart,

rugged-looking, perhaps a little too full of himself, but

clearly a guy with a lot of personality.

PHIL:

(catching on)

Oh, no! Not again.

He jumps up and exits the office with Hawley right behind him.

PHIL:

Forget it! I'm not going.

INT. CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS

Hawley pursues Phil through the office suite of the Channel 9

Action News, from the look of it a typical, big city, local

news operation. A logo on the wall identifies the station as

WPGH - Pittsburgh.

Phil ducks into the studio.

-3-

INT. STUDIO - CONTINUOUS

Hawley follows him in and catches up with him at the weather

corner of the Action News set. Phil starts putting weather

stats up on a chart.

PHIL:

Get away from me. I'm working.

HAWLEY:

So what's the outlook? We gonna

get that blizzard?

Phil shakes his head and points to the chart which is headed

"Phil's Phorecast" with a cute caricature of himself drawn next

to the title.

PHIL:

No way. All that moisture coming

up from the Gulf is going to miss

us completely and take a dump on

Harrisburg.

HAWLEY:

(with authority)

Good, 'cause you're going up to

Punxsutawney to cover the

groundhog story tomorrow morning

and I want you back here in time

to do the five.

PHIL:

Jesus, Gil, give me a break, will

you! I covered the goddamn

groundhog last year and the year

before that.

HAWLEY:

And you'll do it :next year and

the year after, too. When I

worked in San Diego, I covered

the swallows coming back to

Capistrano for ten years in a

row.

PHIL:

You should've killed the guy who

made you do that.

HAWLEY:

I wanted to do it.

PHIL:

Then you should've killed

yourself. I don't want to get

stuck with the groundhog for the

rest of my life.

-4-

HAWLEY:

It's a cute story. He comes out,

he looks around, he wrinkles up

his little nose, he sniffs around

a little, he sees his shadow, he

d oesn't see his shadow-- it's

nice. People like it.

PHIL:

Many people are morons.

HAWLEY:

Just do it.

PHIL:

What'11 you give me?

Hawley looks across the studio and sees RITA HANSON enter, a

very attractive segment producer in her late twenties.

HAWLEY:

(to Phil)

I'll give you Rita.

(calls her over)

Rita, could you come here for a

second? I got a little job for

you.

Rita is relatively new to the station, but very competent,

personable, humorous, self-assured and very pretty-- in short,

a genuine princess, though Phil is too self-absorbed at this

point to realize it.

PHIL:

(TEASING)

You can't send Rita out on a

story like this. She's just a

cub, a pup, still wet behind the

ears. Look at her. Her ears are

sopping wet. This needs a

Woodward or a Bernstein. It's a

big story. People need to know.

RITA:

(INTRIGUED)

What's the story?

HAWLEY:

The Punxsutawney Groundhog

Festival.

RITA:

Gil, if it's all right with you

I ' d rather follow-up on the

nurses' strike.

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