Usual John sends in this puzzler, which appeared on February 2: “Does “outie” have some meaning other than a convex navel?”
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It’s terminology from the TV show “Severance”. Employees who have undergone the severance procedure have two different consciousnesses/personalities/memories, one while they are at work in the basement, and one while out in the world as their formerly entire selves. These are called respectively their “innies” and “outies”.
In the show, the “outies” are the halves that are outside of work all the time. But the groundhog works outside (one day a year!) and specifically gets scared for his job. So he’s saying that he’d like to be able to erase all memory of going outside the burrow, getting lifted up by a mayor, and potentially seeing his shadow. But he says so through a pop-culture reference, which gives those in the know a sense of “ah, I get it!” layered with a sense of “oh but that’s backwards!”
Usual John, The groundhog wants to stay inside, and not have to brave the elements. He wishes he could separate his consciousness into two distinct selves. The “innie” groundhog would stay inside, cozy at home. The “outie” groundhog would go out and work, deal with the elements, and whatever other unpleasantness he wishes to avoid. He would still do the work, but would be able to escape the awareness of it in his current state.
It’s sort of the opposite of the show Severance, where the “innie” identity is the worker, and the “outie” worker is the person during the non-work hours.
I saw the movie “Groundhog Day” and I think he is right to be not particularly eager to make an appearance, get kidnapped by Bill Murray, and end up driving a car.
I think it’d be funny if the groundhog and Bill Murry’s character were the only two who were experiencing the same day over and over and over again…. Bill Murry’s Phil Conners gained… redemption…? Escape…? by … what…? … finally seducing Andie MacDowell’s Rita Hanson in a not entirely creepy way…? … What did Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog do to escape? Or is he still trapped?
Boise Ed: Good question. When I look at it again next week to see if the broken commenting is fixed, I’ll see about that if nobody else has by then. I don’t know anything about how that gets enabled/disabled. All I did was disable blocks in comments, honest!
I hate it when a system gets so complex that it’s opaque like this.
It’s because the “Additional CSS” dropped out of the custom panel. I’ll look for the bits we had there. Another snippet was to fix up the block quote appearance.
I know “site comments” thread may be difficult to find or to navigate. But we recently had tech comments in a thread appropriate to them, as it was a post specificall about them — https://cidu.info/2025/02/11/comments-may-be-fixed/ .
I’m going to put a summary of these three last comments under there. I hope further discussion of the numbering and bl;ockquotes issue can go there, and not here, in the “Outie” thread. Thanks!
El Cucui: Everyone in Groundhog Day, except for Bill Murray’s character, experienced the day as happening only once. They didn’t know all the answers on Jeopardy like he did. The piano teacher gave him only one lesson, as far as she knew. She’s quite proud of “her student” after only one lesson.
But he only kidnapped the groundhog on one of those days so the groundhog is fine. Just like he didn’t stay dead after he killed himself every day for a while.
@Mark in Boston: How would anybody… except maybe the groundhog… know whether the groundhog was also stuck in the timeloop?
I thought that I saw a YouTube video recently with a clickbait title along the lines of “Which movie did the timeloop best?”… but I couldn’t find it so instead here’s this gem-of-a-short:
Comics I Don't Understand 
It’s terminology from the TV show “Severance”. Employees who have undergone the severance procedure have two different consciousnesses/personalities/memories, one while they are at work in the basement, and one while out in the world as their formerly entire selves. These are called respectively their “innies” and “outies”.
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Mitch4, that seems helpful but incomplete. What does the groundhog mean and why is it funny?
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It’s the kind of silly thoughts you think when you lie in bed unable to hibernate.
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In the show, the “outies” are the halves that are outside of work all the time. But the groundhog works outside (one day a year!) and specifically gets scared for his job. So he’s saying that he’d like to be able to erase all memory of going outside the burrow, getting lifted up by a mayor, and potentially seeing his shadow. But he says so through a pop-culture reference, which gives those in the know a sense of “ah, I get it!” layered with a sense of “oh but that’s backwards!”
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Usual John, The groundhog wants to stay inside, and not have to brave the elements. He wishes he could separate his consciousness into two distinct selves. The “innie” groundhog would stay inside, cozy at home. The “outie” groundhog would go out and work, deal with the elements, and whatever other unpleasantness he wishes to avoid. He would still do the work, but would be able to escape the awareness of it in his current state.
It’s sort of the opposite of the show Severance, where the “innie” identity is the worker, and the “outie” worker is the person during the non-work hours.
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I saw the movie “Groundhog Day” and I think he is right to be not particularly eager to make an appearance, get kidnapped by Bill Murray, and end up driving a car.
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I think it’d be funny if the groundhog and Bill Murry’s character were the only two who were experiencing the same day over and over and over again…. Bill Murry’s Phil Conners gained… redemption…? Escape…? by … what…? … finally seducing Andie MacDowell’s Rita Hanson in a not entirely creepy way…? … What did Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog do to escape? Or is he still trapped?
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And here’s a tangent on that note: https://youtu.be/G6Mb8czEoZg?si=YCXhVFNOsW62iP6b
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What happened to numbering the comments here? The numbers were useful when replying to someone with multiple comments.
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Boise Ed: Good question. When I look at it again next week to see if the broken commenting is fixed, I’ll see about that if nobody else has by then. I don’t know anything about how that gets enabled/disabled. All I did was disable blocks in comments, honest!
I hate it when a system gets so complex that it’s opaque like this.
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It’s because the “Additional CSS” dropped out of the custom panel. I’ll look for the bits we had there. Another snippet was to fix up the block quote appearance.
I know “site comments” thread may be difficult to find or to navigate. But we recently had tech comments in a thread appropriate to them, as it was a post specificall about them — https://cidu.info/2025/02/11/comments-may-be-fixed/ .
I’m going to put a summary of these three last comments under there. I hope further discussion of the numbering and bl;ockquotes issue can go there, and not here, in the “Outie” thread. Thanks!
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El Cucui: Everyone in Groundhog Day, except for Bill Murray’s character, experienced the day as happening only once. They didn’t know all the answers on Jeopardy like he did. The piano teacher gave him only one lesson, as far as she knew. She’s quite proud of “her student” after only one lesson.
But he only kidnapped the groundhog on one of those days so the groundhog is fine. Just like he didn’t stay dead after he killed himself every day for a while.
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The addition of a death ending one iteration and triggering a reset to an “awakening” event was the special plot key to the TV series “Russian Doll”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Doll_(TV_series)
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It was also a similar plot gimmick for a Tom Cruise movie – “Edge of Tomorrow”
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Also the 2020 feature Palm Springs
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9484998
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@Mark in Boston: How would anybody… except maybe the groundhog… know whether the groundhog was also stuck in the timeloop?
I thought that I saw a YouTube video recently with a clickbait title along the lines of “Which movie did the timeloop best?”… but I couldn’t find it so instead here’s this gem-of-a-short:
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In reply to El Cucui.
El Cucui, that was really fun!
I’ll admit to being a NCIS watcher, and after seeing Brian Dietzen in this clip I think the TV show is not using him to his potential.
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