An unofficial Groundhog Day musical is taking off on TikTok

Punxsutawney Phil gave us the declaration of a short winter. Now, his fans are giving us a musical about the lore-filled rodent.

TikTok content creators are fixating on a Groundhog Day musical (not to be confused with the official 2016 Groundhog Day musical) days after the Pennsylvania-based holiday. The songs are written from Punxsutawney Phil and his wife Phyllis’ point of view and focus on their relationship dynamic.

There’s only been one Punxsutawney Phil for the last 138 years, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club insists on its website. He gets his staying power by sipping on the “elixir of life,” provided to him by the club. But they don’t extend the same courtesy to his wife — “so she will not live forever like Phil,” the club’s website said.

Now, 23-year-old singer-songwriter Oliver Richman has garnered millions of views on TikTok for writing a song titled “The Ballad of Phil and Phyllis,” that explores the groundhog couple and the presumably complicated relationship dynamic that comes with only one of them getting fame and apparent miracle immortality juice.

Richman’s Saturday post was part of a self-imposed daily songwriting challenge.

“I started writing during the pandemic as a way to process my feelings, and it opened up so much for me as an artist and a human,” Richman, who lives in New York, told The Inquirer. “So many of my songwriting heroes have talked about writing a song every day. I started writing in 2020 greatly inspired by Jacob Ryan Smith’s song a day challenge. Songwriting has helped me discover so much about myself, so I figured that sharing a little more and hiding a little less couldn’t be a bad thing.”

In the video, Richman sings from the perspective of Phil: “You can have the fame, Phyllis. I’d give up all the fame. You can have the overbearing stares, the noisy crowds, the holy shadow, and the shame ... Nothing’s supposed to live forever, Phyllis. The burrows we made will eventually fade and I’ll be left to sing the same old song.”

He said the song was inspired by Groundhog Day and a quick Google into the holiday’s history.

“I was tickled and amazed when I found out the average age of groundhogs is 2 to 6 years, but Punxsutawney Phil is 138 years old,” he said. “I learned about the elixir and his wife Phyllis, and was inspired the following day to write about it.”

Quickly, the video picked up steam, inspiring dozens of duet videos with other creators adding to the plot. As of Wednesday, Richman’s original post had been viewed more than 4 million times. He says the overnight success has been overwhelming.

“My friends and family started texting me screenshots of people’s duets and responses,” he said. “People who are my absolute heroes started inventing new worlds around the history of Phil and Phyllis. And I cry at everything I see — this is just something out of my wildest dreams.”

In a matter of days, Richman’s concept snowballed into a crowdsourced production comprising multiple duets, new songs, a Playbill mock-up, and even tongue-in-cheek “auditions” for the role of Phyllis.

Influencer and comedian Elyse Myers duetted with Richman’s video on Tuesday, mimicking a dialogue between the groundhogs full of sweeping harmonies between her and Richman.

Several commenters have likened the concept to The Last Five Years, an off-Broadway musical composed by Jason Robert Brown fan about a couple’s tense relationship as one of them becomes successful. Myers’ video — filled with zingers like “I can’t [hold you] Phil, I’m a groundhog” — has been watched 3 million times. There have also been comparisons to late composer Stephen Sondheim and his musical, Sunday in the Park With George.

These are all huge compliments for Richman, who describes himself as an “incredibly huge” fan of Brown’s.

“Sondheim, Pasek and Paul, Howard Ashman, and Stephen Schwartz are also my musical theater songwriting heroes,” he said. “I grew up listening to Stevie Wonder, whose music is timeless and means everything to me. I’m in love with the way MARO, Fatai, and Lizzy McAlpine tell stories. And of course, I owe everything to my mom and dad, who would sing to me every day as a kid.”

Inspired by Richman’s song, songwriter and educator Brett Boles also debuted an original tune called “His Shadow” to be sung by Phyllis.

“Maybe they should give me the job. ‘Cause Phyllis can make predictions too and more often than not, they come true,” the song goes. “I love him but he’s just a crude guesstimator (it’s true. An Inquirer report showed Phil is only right about 30% of the time). He’s wrong but they keep him alive ... Phyllis will never be more than a footnote forgotten in history books, and when he looks he’ll never see that his shadow is me.”

“It’s a blast for me,” Boles told The Inquirer. “I was tagged and messaged so many times in and about Oliver’s original video that I had to duet it. It’s so in my wheelhouse and a ton of fun.”

Boles said he’d love to write more Groundhog Day content if it’s what the people want.

“I wasn’t expecting it to get around as much as it has, but I’m happy it has,” he said.

It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first Groundhog Day musical. In 2016 a musical adaptation of Groundhog Day, the movie starring Bill Murray, premiered in London. The storyline focuses on a TV weatherman who finds himself stuck repeating the same day over and over.

It’s also not the first time a musical has been written on TikTok. In 2020, a musical version of the Disney-Pixar film, Ratatouille, rose from similar crowdsourcing origins on the platform. Organizers raised $2 million at a charity benefit where the full production was streamed online. More than 350,000 people watched.

“One of the reasons I started posting on TikTok was because of the Ratatouille musical,” Richman said. “I was just so amazed and inspired by the ways the internet can bring people together. I desperately wanted to be part of that community.”

As for if a Groundhog Day TikTok musical could go in the same direction, Richman could barely process the excitement from the possibility.

“The fact that that’s even a question is absolutely bonkers to me,” he said. “Who knows?”