From: radioacti...@gmail.com   
      
   Do any of y'all happen to know why the producers and/or director of "Groundhog   
   Day" didn't shoot the film in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.   
   The town you see in the film is actually Woodstock, Illinois, a small burg a   
   few hours from Chicago or St. Louis.   
      
   Why go to all the trouble (AND expense) of building a set there to mimic   
   Baldknobber's Hill--or whatever it's properly called--rather than just   
   cajoling the town fathers of Punxsutawney into allowing them to shoot there?    
   Sure, that also-small town was    
   ALREADY "on the map" nationally thanks to their celebrated February 2nd   
   schtick each late winter, so maybe the locals figured they always had their   
   OWN fame and thus didn't WANT a bunch of Hollywood types invading the town for   
   a few weeks.  Or maybe they    
   were demanding too much money?  (But even if so, the producers should have   
   kept upping the money until they finally relented.)   
      
   And yeah, I realize this was a FANTASY film--and nowadays in retrospect,   
   perhaps the most enduring fantasy film in Hollywood history with the exception   
   of "The Wizard of Oz"!--so you might say, who cares about authenticity for a   
   fantasy?   
      
   Well, I happen to care (though I realize I'm perhaps a minority of one on this   
   thoroughly inconsequential question.)  And THAT'S because t's a REAL town   
   known for one thing--maintaining a sillly tradition rooted in Middle Ages   
   German folklore--so fantasy    
   or not, the whole shebang should have been shot right there in western   
   Pennsylvania, NOT central Illinois.   
      
   Anyone know the backstory here as to how this locale question ended up being   
   settled so wrong-headedly?  (Thanks in advance...oh, and you might check   
   Merriam-Webster's if you doubt me, but groundhogs and woodchucks aren't merely   
   SIMILAR critters, but    
   rather two different names for the same species.)   
      
   BRYAN STYBLE/Florida   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)