NED RYERSON IN GROUNDHOG DAY
HOW THE ONE-NOTE-JOKE INSURANCE SALESMAN BECAME PURE JOY
NED RYERSON ISN’T just annoying. He’s superannoying. An avalanche of annoying. Ned Ryerson is the human equivalent of a child kicking your economy seat from behind throughout the duration of an eight-hour flight. Ned Ryerson is the insurance salesman and old schoolmate from hell — tormenting Bill Murray’s Phil Connors in Groundhog Day with an unholy combination of unironic cheer and unconscious unctuousness. Yet every single second of his four minutes and 25 seconds of screentime (and yes, we checked) is a delight.
The first encounter sets the template: Ned sees Phil in the street, buttonholes him for a quick catch-up and establishes his INCREDIBLY ANNOYING credentials (silly voice, inability to take a hint, total disregard for personal space). He also tries to flog him life insurance. He even has his own catchphrase: “BING!”
By the time they meet again, fate has conspired to condemn Phil to relive the same day over and over and over again. So, naturally an unsettled Phil has no time for Ned’s shenanigans and tries to ditch him immediately. Third time round, a now-fully-freaked-out Phil pushes him away, then scarpers. The fourth? Well, that’s when Phil flat-out floors Ned with a single punch, actor Stephen Tobolowsky expertly pivoting 180 degrees to camera for the reaction shot. The fifth time, Phil turns the tables by holding Ned close. So close, in fact, that it sends Ned running for cover; a reminder that even a seemingly perfect movie like Groundhog Day wasn’t above a problematic gay panic joke.
The sixth time that Phil, now fully at the end of the Kübler-ross scale and entirely at ease with his situation and who he is, meets Ned is at the end of the movie, when it’s revealed that he’s bought the full platter of life insurance options. The beauty of Groundhog Day is that Phil not only changes himself, but enriches everyone else’s lives at the same time. Ned deserves a happy ending, too.
That Ned continues to make such an impact is down to the man who plays him. Tobolowsky, just like Ned, sells the hell out of the limited tools he’s given, going toe-to-toe with Murray and creating a character that became his calling card. “I got lost in Reykjavík, had no money, no way to get back to the hotel,” he tells Empire.
“A security guard came up to me and goes, ‘Ned! Ned Ryerson?’, and he got me home.”
Tobolowsky remembers well his first meeting with Murray, just before they shot their first scene in Woodstock, Illinois. “He said, ‘How are you going to play this part?’” recalls the actor. At which point Tobolowsky ran through his repertoire of zany noises. “And Bill said, ‘Okay, that’s funny.’” Forty-five minutes later, Murray grabbed Tobolowsky, ran to a nearby bakery and bought their entire stock of Danish pastries to hand out to the townsfolk. Even back then, Ned Ryerson’s joy was infectious. BING!