Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and it's just us. Cherry's not here, and this is stuff you should know. The Invincible Duo, The ambiguously Gay Duo. Yes, sir, you after right? That was pretty good. I love it when there's like an impression of an impression.
That's all I do. That's true, that's my specialty.
But you do it so well.
Yeah, that was that bit was obviously Phil, the great Phil Hartman, the late great Phil Hartman's Ed McMahon. And that was a that was something that in college and you know, my college years were generally the Phil Hartman years on SNL. My good friend Eddie and I you know Eddie, we for some reason that one really intercreered. And still to this day one of us will say something and the other will go here, yes.
Sir, yeah, I mean it's timeless for sure.
Yeah, really stuck with us.
I'm sure there's even people walking around doing that who have no idea who Ed McMahon is.
Yeah, probably there's at least two.
That's what I'm putting.
Money on you and someone else.
I know who Ed McMahon is. I'm a skully realized person.
I know.
I'm joking.
We're not talking about Ed McMahon though, not really. We're talking about the first guy you mentioned. You were doing an impression of Phil Hartman, who turns out to be a pretty great, complicated, tragic ultimately dude.
Yeah, you know, actor and comedian known best for his work on probably Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. And Dave helped us with this, and he wanted us to shout out a book by Mike Thomas called You Might Remember Me Colon The Life and Times of Phil Hartman with one N even though he was born with two n's on the name Hartman.
Right, Yeah, I thought that was pretty pretty crazy. He dropped the second end, Yeah, for his I guess stage name.
It looks like a typo. That would be my guess, the second end. Yeah, it just looks odd.
Well, maybe they pronounced it a little differently too, like Phil Hartman. Probably so so. When he was born in nineteen forty eight, when he was still named Phil Hartman. He was born in Brainford, Ontario, And that might sound familiar to hockey fans because that's where Wayne Gretzky's from but after Wayne Gretzky, I would say Phil Hartman's probably the second most famous person from Brantford, Ontario, and boy, I hope you're right. I'm totally not. There's gonna be
like Tawny Katayan or something'll be from Brainford, Ontario. Although she may still fall behind Phil Hartman.
She passed away too, I believe right.
I don't know. I stopped keeping up with her after she and David Coverdell broke up.
I think Wayne Gretzky's alive though.
Yes, he is alive and slapping.
That's right.
Phil was a middle kid, number four of eight, and as oftentimes with a middle child, especially in Phil's case, when you have an older brother who was like super athletic and handsome and a younger sister that needed special care because of a rare condition called Angelman syndrome. Phil it seems like felt like he needed to sort of just attract attention by goofing off and being the class clown, the family clown.
Yeah, that's what metal kids do. He had like jam Brady syndrome, but instead of wearing an afro wig, he became an actually funny person, right, Yeah, I guess one of the big things that happened to him was when he and his family moved to California when he was nine, nine eight something like that. He was around that age, and California like really suited his blood. I mean, he was born in Ontario. When you moved to like Malibu area, like,
you're that's a pretty good move. Typically, I love Toronto, and I'm not like throwing shade on Ontario in general, but you know, when you move out to southern California from there, it's a little different, you.
Know, Yeah, especially if it turns out you love surfing, sailing, and smoking weed or smoking grass at the time, I guess.
You would say kah, the three s's, yeah.
Because he Something that I learned yesterday was that Bill Hartman was a big pothead.
Yes, but the kind that the cops wouldn't search your car if you got pulled over, which is a lesson to all those potheads out there. You don't have to look like a pothead to be a pothead.
Yeah.
Yeah, he can look straight and make the cops laugh and they'll just say, go along your day, You're just a fun kid, exactly.
I'll just totally ignore that smell coming out of your car.
Yeah.
So yeah, he was really into southern California life. Apparently he was a great surfer by the time he was thirteen. This guy was just full of surprises.
Yeah.
And around this time, maybe even a little earlier, he started to get into comedy. He started doing he took the steps that every young comedian takes, and that's you start idolizing some different comedians. Stand up comedians in his were Bob new Heart, yeah and the other one. And Jonathan Winters, who even if you don't know who Jonathan Winters is, but you're a more more commendy fan. Yeah, he was the giant old baby that arrived in an egg at Morecamendi's tour stuff, I guess.
Yeah.
And Winners and new Heart actually they were sort of comedians comedians back then in that era, from like the nineteen fifties and into the sixties, and both of them were just incredible stand ups. Jonathan Winters was so funny, especially like with character work and stuff like that, which New Heart didn't do. So between the two of those
he got a pretty like well rounded comedy education. Memorizing those albums doing like I did as a kid, memorizing comedy albums, performing bits for friends and family, stuff like that, and especially on winter side, those impressions that Jonathan Winners would do, Phil Hartman would copy those and then come up with his own.
Yeah, and very quickly he excelled past even Jonathan Winners, like he was in rich little area by the time he was probably you know, mid teens.
Yeah, there's a great story day found. I think it was from the book that he and a bunch of friends went skiing at Mammoth Mountain outside of La And as the story goes, they were hanging around at the Hot Springs that night and Phil's friends said, hey, man, start, you know, doing some of your bits here for everybody and impressions. And this sounds like one of those stories has sort of, you know, grown over the years because they say over two hours Phil performed basically in front
of a hundred strangers. I'm not quite sure if I believe that part, because I've been to parties at ski resorts, hanging out at Hot Springs, and I'm sure he got a lot of jokes in, but I'm not sure if everyone just sit there for two hours and watch some guy.
Right, and then one of his friends announced ladies and Joe that was mister Phil Hartman, and someday he's going to be a big star. Remember this night.
Yeah, maybe it happened, but that's probably apocryphal. But I bet a version of that story happen where Phil was like the life of the party essentially, is my takeaway.
Yeah, from a pretty early age, right, So he's clearly funny,
he's really good at impressions. But his path to comedy, I guess was kind of circuitous because he, well his brother, he is older brother, the handsome athletic when you mentioned earlier John, John decided he wanted to try to get into acting, and I guess this was before Phil could even get a chance, and John went to Hollywood came back reporting that he was not okay with how ceed Hollywood was amoral, not anything like an Ontarian would would be okay with, and so he said, I'm not going
to do acting. And I think that kind of scared Phil a little bit, or at least guided him away from acting for a little while.
Yeah, it seems like it. John went into the music business and co founded a management company called Hartman and Goodman, and it seems like they had a real had their thumb on the pulse.
Thumb on the pulse. Sure you can do that, right, You could use your thumb for this.
They had their thumb on the pulse of that Laurel Canyon sort of country rock scene. Because they ended up managing the likes of Neil Young, America, Buffalo Springfield, the Eagles, Joni Mitchell, Jackson, Brown Mamas, and the Papas Wow kind of that whole scene they were management for.
That is a mellow roster man.
Probably a lot of grass being smoked, yes.
And Phil smoked a bunch of it too. He got brought on eventually. He went to art school for a little while, tried to go to the University of Hawaii, was turned down, And I'm sure he wanted to go to the University of Hawaii.
To serve That's exactly what I thought.
Yeah. So his older brother was like, hey, man, you're not doing anything. You got some art school under your belt, why don't you come and work for me as a roadie, because that's what people who go to art school end up doing almost invariably.
Yeah, he hooked him up with a little hippie rock band called Rock and Foo Foo Did you listen to any Rock and Foo.
I didn't. I looked up the band members though, Yeah, one of them was it was a child actor prior to Rock and Foo. He was on f Troop, Gun Smoke a bunch of other stuff, and then another one was the guitarist and a lot of the Monkeys' hits.
Oh that's cool. I listened to like three Rock and Foo songs and I liked it.
Okay. I saw a photo of the band and I was like, I'm not listening to that.
Well it was it's probably not your bag, baby.
It was that sort of you know, kind of that again, that Laurel Canyon sort of country rock thing.
I dug it. I thought it was pretty cool.
Hey, I love America, don't get me wrong. I think they're great.
But you're no communist.
Out of all of the lists of bands that you rattled off there, you know, I like that band the most.
Yeah, it's just not your bag. I get it. I'm not I'm not bagging on.
You, okay, bagging on it. I mean for it not being my bag.
Yeah, I mean you like craft work, for God's sakes and elevator music.
I like, I like most stuff, justs that you rattled up. Definitely no a no, Yeah, I'm virulently opposed to listening to Eagles.
They managed Sonny and Cherity. You probably like them the most.
They're fine. I don't remember what I said on our Sunny and Share episode, but I don't remember ever being
like super into their music. Yeah, Okay, I guess none of this really matters, because what we're really talking about is Phil Hartman and him making a ROADI yeah, he kind of started living the rock and roll lifestyle as a roadie for some of these bands, and because he had some art school and he was kind of a developing artist at the time, his brother was like, hey, why don't you do some of these album covers for some of the bands? And he did, and at least one of them was pretty good.
Yeah. He did two for Rock and Foo.
I think they only did two albums, so he dominated their album cover art.
Nice.
He did some for Crosby Stills and nash Or Sills and Nash I wrote that to you.
America.
He did one for your favorite band America.
YEP.
Did one for Poco that's probably the most noteworthy for their album Legend of This. It's a very minimalist artwork of a horse. And I wanted to mention it is all over the internet that he did the cover for Steely Dan's seminal album Asia, and he did not, but it's everywhere on the internet as fact, and it's apparently not true.
What a weird rumor, because that's just such an arcane fact about him that he ever designed any album covers, But then for a rumor to be about him making one that he didn't, that's really bizarre. But that's the Internet for you, right.
Yeah, And I'm pretty positive it wasn't him because other people saluted it out and dug up the actual artist. And so if you're about to email and say, dude, he did Asia, I think.
He did not.
No who the guy who actually did it was Phil Hartman with two ends, right, that's why people were confused.
I think. Yeah, good point.
So around this time, also Phil kicked off and by the way, we're on a first name basis with Phil Hartman, so we're just going to keep calling him felt. He kicked off what would become essentially his trademark for his love life, which was he would fall head over heels for a very very pretty girl and they would be hot and heavy for a while and then he would get married and then basically be like, this isn't working
out after a couple of years. And the first person he did that with when he was I think twenty one maybe twenty two, was a nineteen year old woman from Malibu named Gretchen Lewis, and she got pregnant pretty quickly while they started dating, but they didn't keep the kid, but they got married after all.
Yeah, they divorced in nineteen seventy two, so I guess either two years or a little under two years. And after that he got his first professional stage credit when he played Harold Hill and The music Man for the Santa Monica Theater Company, and Mike Thomas, the guy who wrote the biography, had a quote about from one of Phil's co stars in The Music Man that said Phil was a true artist. He didn't really march to the same drum as other people, although it was a part
of him that wanted to be perceived as normal. He went through life trying to find a character that he could present to the public that seemed normal and wholesome.
And that is also sort.
Of a repeated theme when you talk to friends and colleagues and family over the years, was that no one knew the real Phil. And I've known people like that. It's an interesting thing to sort of create personas rather than be yourself, and that seemed to kind of be the case with him.
Yeah, he was heavy into impression management basically everywhere in his entire life. Oh yeah, in all corners, right.
Yeah.
And also just one thing of his first acting credit playing Harold Hill, because he went on to play Lyle Landley or Lanley I can't remember which one, who was basically the Simpson's version of Harold Hill from The Music Man in the Monoail episode M written by Conan O'Brien man. Yeah, he was one of the better Simpson writers early on.
He was.
But on that thing about not seeing the real Phil, there was one friend who later said that there was a small room inside Phil that no one will ever get to. So just sort of kind of reinforcing that idea.
And the friends that I hear it stinks of feet. Should we take a break, I think it's time. Yeah, all right, We're gonna take a break.
And come back and talk about Phil's entry into the Groundlings right after this.
So, Chuck, we've surely talked about the Groundlings here there there's just no way we have n't. But just to refresh, they are a sketch and improv comedy troupe founded in LA who've basically launched the careers of tons and tons of Canadians and including a lot of people on Saturday Night Live. Apparently Saturday Night Live drafts heavily from the
Groundlings Second City and that's it. But some of the people from Saturday Night Live who were Groundlings, including some who were Groundlings with Phil Hartman, John Lovett's was one Cherry Oh, Terry Maya, Rudolph Christen Wigg, Will Ferrell, and the list just keeps going on.
To mention Forte.
He wasn't on Saturday Night Live though, That's why I didn't mention him. What was he?
Well, Forte was mcgruber, my man.
Oh, I didn't realize that was a Satay Night Live character, Sorry Will, Sorry.
And the Falconer.
I didn't realize he was on. Sorry A love I thought those were like standalone things.
No, he I mean, I just mentioned that because Forte is one of my all time favorite actors in SNL character members, cast members.
Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're both then.
No, he didn't insult me. I just love Forte.
He did.
He did the weirdest characters on that show kind of consistently, and I always just respected him for that.
Nice. Well, that's great. Was he the Last Man on Earth? Yeah?
Yeah, okay, he wastright too.
Yeah, he's wonderful. I like him a lot. I like him separately, I also like the last Man on Earth, so now that the two are joined, I really like him even more.
Yeah.
My only Will Forte experience was I think I've mentioned this before, but he was an attendee at a good friend's wedding and my friend sat me, sat emily and night at his table because he knew I was such a fan.
And I partied all night with wil Forte and he was the coolest, funnest dude.
Oh that's that's a great story.
Yeah, just a real sweetheart.
So yeah, so we're talking about the groundlings, right, Yeah, And this is I don't know, This story doesn't seem to be apocryphal. It seems to be actually true. It's just exactly how it played out is kind of under question. But there was a birthday party that a friend of Phil Hartman had. I guess a group of them went to a Groundling show and before the show, Phil Hartman just decided to get up on stage and start doing some of his act.
Couldn't that be true?
I don't, I mean somebody who's hungry for the stage.
I guess, yeah, I guess yeah, sure, right, And.
So for two hours he had one hundred strangers just totally enwrapped. The hot springs developed in the room. But no, apparently he definitely killed on stage. And the story is that the Groundlings came up to him after he got off stage, where like you're in, you want to be in? That seems to not be true. It seems to be that he went up to them afterwards, like, hey, what do you think about me getting an audition now? And they said sure, and he went an audition and they said you're in.
Yeah.
See that's the first part of the second part was the part that I don't believe, right, because I don't see how there's any way at an improv theater. I know a lot of people in those theaters over the years, and for someone just to jump up on stage and do a bit, I bet they would not have been like, you're wonderful, can you join? It would have been like, dude, don't ever do that again.
Right exactly, Like if they went up to him afterward, they probably would have said like please leave.
Yeah.
Yeah, So who knows, but it's a good story. I would love to eventually to do episodes on the Groundling. Second City in UCB is just like a little trifecta suite. Okay, great at any rate, no matter how it happened. Tracy Newman, who was the founding member of the Groundling, said that Phil Hartman walked into the Groundlings ready.
To go right, and that would also there was a similar quote I think from Lorne Michaels years later that said he basically was ready the moment he walked in this era live too.
Yeah.
It was just a very dedicated actor and one of the people who really looked up to him became one of his best friends of fellow Groundling John Lovetz, and he was saying that he would he called him the King of the Groundlings, which is pretty cool. But as his career went on, he became known as like the most reliable actor in any group, like he would stick to the to the sketch yea even if it was going badly, he would hang in there. He wouldn't bail on it. He would just keep going into the end.
And usually from the impression I have is that if he was in a sketch, if it would have gone badly otherwise if other people were in it, if he was in it, it probably wasn't going badly in the first place, which makes it easier to stick to.
Yeah, he just seemed kind of unflappable. Well, we'll talk about some messenal stuff in a bit, but yeah, well I'll to savor it for then. But one of his most popular Groundlings characters was Chick Hazard, who was the hard boiled detective like out of the film Noir, And that's a character that he would sort of reprise in different ways over the years.
He was a good He was just good.
With his mouth and good with words, and could just rattle off really complex, long strings of comedic dialogue like you know, pitch perfect without missing a beat, and just just very very skilled, like some people are funny and some people are super skilled, and he was one that was both.
Right. Yeah, well, put Chuck. I think we can end the podcast.
Thing, or we should talk about his second marriage okay.
Well, well, first though, we should say he was with the Groundlings for eleven years, and that is quite a while for being a member of a sketch comedy troupe, including one that doesn't it doesn't have a TV show or anything. It's like a live theater group. It's a long time. But I think that's kind of like an indicator of the dedication that he brought to acting. Comedy, Yeah, comedic acting, I'm not sure. Yeah.
I mean, he didn't sort of make it in the public eye until he was in his late thirties, and that's just a long time to hang in there. Yes, especially in comedy. It's not like late thirties as old. But if you haven't made it by that time as an actor or comedian or something, you're probably sort of wondering, like, well, should I tick up?
You know, surfing again.
Right to those stuff you should know. Listeners out there in your late thirties trying to break into acting still do not be discouraged by what Chuck just said. Just keep going, guys.
You'll start surfing. I mean I didn't get into my career until my late thirties and didn't get really success until my forties, so I'm living. I mean, you're younger than me, so you are just a pup.
No, that's not true. I was in my mid thirties when things started to pick up, for sure.
But I mean, it's funny that I said that, because we're good examples of like, hey, you never know it's coming around the corner.
Oh, that's absolutely true. Boy, I could tell you some stories of times when I thought this life is not going to work out for me.
Oh boy, you with me both man, So we said.
That he got He split up with his first wife, Kretchen in nineteen seventy two. He did the bachelor thing for about another decade, and he ran into a woman named Lisa Jarvis. I'm not sure how they met or even necessarily when, but I know in nineteen eighty two they got married, ten years after his last divorce, and it basically followed the same pattern as his first marriage. He just like, it just was like fireworks and then it cooled off and then he lost interest.
Yeah, their marriage only lasted a few years. They divorced in nineteen eighty five, the same year that he ended up having some of his first big successes, and that was because five years prior.
A guy walks.
Into the Groundlings in nineteen eighty named Paul Rubens with a character named pee Wee Herman under his arm or under his belt.
Yeah, have you seen the documentary yet?
Still have not since you asked me yesterday.
I know, I thought maybe you would have gone and watched it last night or something, But okay.
It's so close to being on my TV. He had no idea.
It's really good. But so there's a lot about him developing the pee wee Herman character Paul Rubins at the Groundlings with a lot of help from other Groundlings. Apparently they show some of the early stuff on this documentary. He was much more like obnoxious. He threw tootsie rolls at the crowd, he would insult the crowd.
Wow.
And then even after he kind of started to get pee wee like developed, those early stage shows were full of like sexual innuindow and stuff that a little kid wouldn't pick up on but adults would find funny. But there weren't little kids at these shows anyway, so it didn't matter right right. But one of the people, my point was, that really helped develop it was Phil Hartman, And I think even up to the first season of
pee Wee's Playhouse. He played Captain Carl. His character was he played a character on Peewee's Playhouse for the first season.
Yeah, the surly boat, Captain, Captain Carl. There were other Groundlings around as well, either you know, in the show with him or writing for him, and Phil was one of the writers as well, and they were selling out every night. They ended up at the Groundlings. They ended up moving to the Roxy Theater, which was a little bit bigger the which we talked about in our Sunset Boulevard episode. Yeah, and or if it hasn't come out yet, we will talk about it on that episode.
Yeah.
And then in nineteen eighty there was a producer named Paula Kaufman who said she wanted to create a kid show for adults. Saw Peewee at the Groundlings and was like, this is it.
This is the show.
Yeah again this documentary so like this particular part when they're developing the TV show is yeah, it's just not so amazing, right.
I can't wait.
So Phil was there when Paul Rubins did an HBO special. It was essentially one one, I guess an HBO version of the stage show that it started out as that caught the attention of other people in Hollywood, and they said, hey, how about a movie, and they did Pee Wee's Big Adventure together. Phil Hartman was a co writer on that, and that was nineteen eighty five, and so things are finally starting to pick up in ways that Phil Hartman had been hoping. Like he'd been writing scripts, he'd been
auditioning for TV shows. Now all of a sudden he had a hit movie writing credit under his belt, so he's thinking, okay, things are about to take off, which explains why in nineteen eighty five, when Louren Michaels came to him and said, hey, do you want to audition for Saturday Night Live? He said, now, I'm good, I'm going to pass on that.
Yeah, this was Lorne Michael's return to SNL. He very famously had an absence from the show and the show kind of did not farewell without Lorne Michaels a creator.
You weren't some of the Tim Kazerinski years.
I mean no, some of that stuff is okay, but just as a general success, the show was kind of going downhill. Yeah, but I did I get your joke? First of all Tim Katzerinsky. He was funny though I like that.
Oh no, he was. He was like perfect for the characters he played, like on Police Academy. I can't remember his Yeah, he was crazy, the same guy.
I forgot about that.
Yep.
But Lauren came back to save this, saved the show. In eighty five eighty six, he again, like you said, asked Phil to come aboard. He said no because he was, you know, he thought he could make it as an actor, you know, in just regular comedies. And John Lovitz joined instead, and then John Lovett's got him another audition in eighty for the eighty six eighty seven season.
He went in.
He had already met Lorna a couple of times. One when he met Lauren Michaels.
I believe that the.
I think when when Rubens hosted SNL for the first time, Yes, is when he first met Lauren. But then he was also had a small part in Three Amigos, which Lauren produced. And then if you ever have a chance, just sit down on YouTube and watch the Phil Hartman audition for SNL.
He did that chick Hazard character. First, he did one of the fake commercials, and that's where you can tell just how skilledy is because it's one of those fast talking commercials where he's talking like this about a product, but it's not you know, he's not reading Q cards. It's just in his brain and memorize and he just it's flawless. And you hear something that you just never hear in an SNL audition, which is people laughing. They're
very famous for just sort of sitting there stonefaced. Yeah, even if you're doing well and you hear people laughing in the background.
Right, Yeah, that is very telling for sure. So there's one part of his audition real where he does an impression of a German comedian doing impressions of famous people.
It was so good.
He said the most fa the funniest man in Germany, Gunter Johann, Right, Yeah, And so Guter does impressions of like Jack Nicholson, John Wayne, Jack Benny, but they're all speaking German, and it's just like a spot on impression of John Wayne, Yeah, speaking German, and he's doing a German an impression of a German comedian doing these impressions. It's just amazing. He goes right into it. Yeah, it really does show off his talent. Plus it's also hilarious too.
Yeah.
You know a lot of times when you talk about people being funny, it loses its funniness.
Yeah, so just go watch it. Yeah, agreed, totally agree. He was hired with Pretty Rockstar cast on all new members Jan Hook, Stana Carvey, Victoria Jackson.
And Kevin nealon Man.
What a dream team.
Yeah, pretty good, and that really kind of helped bring the show back.
And how I mean, to me, that's like the Golden Age. I think it destroys the seventies. The seventies was cool and like amazing and you know, really energetic, but the eighties were just like pro okay to me. Okay, So it could be just that's the one I grew up with. Who knows, But.
I mean there is that theory that whatever age you were in high school I think is your favorite, the way you think is the best SNL cast.
Okay, well I might subscribe to that theory.
No, I love I love that era.
So let's back up a second, because you said that he met Lauren. Phil Hartman met Lauren Michaels when Paul Rubens pee Wee hosted Saturday Night Live in nineteen eighty five, and the reason that he was there was because Paul Rubins brought Phil Hartman along in another collaborator from the Groundlings, John Parragon, as his his writers to work with the Saturday Night Live writers to make good sketches for pee Wee Herman for that episode. Right, so pee Wee or
Paul introduced Phil to Lauren. Lauren comes to call in the next year and the year after that, and eventually Phil says, Hey, Paul, I've got to go. I finally got my break. I'm going on a Saturday Night Live. And Paul was not happy about that. If you've seen the documentary, which I know you haven't, I watched it real quick, just now, okay, so you know, then they covered this in the documentary. Apparently it's not a very
well known or it's kind of a forgotten story. But they had a falling out and they didn't really talk or ever reconcile for the rest of Phil Hartman's life because Paul was and there's really no other way to put it, very very jealous. He felt spurred, jilted, spurned, jilted, spurred to action, and he was also yeah, very jealous because he had tried out for Saturday Night Live and did not get picked up, and I can't remember who
got the spot instead of him. And then yeah, and then Phil Hartman left Pee Wee's Playhouse two goes Saturday Night Live. So Paul was kind of a not the most forgiving person from what I can tell from the documentary, So he just held that grudge for the rest of Phil Hartman's life.
Yeah. Man, that's sad.
It is sad, for sure.
I hate hearing that.
I might pause that part or skip over it when I watch the documentary to.
Okay, it's at one twenty three thirty six is when it starts.
Shall we take our final break? Yeah, all right, let's take another break.
And we'll talk about a meeting in nineteen eighty five that would change the course of Phil Hartman's life right after this, all right, As promised, a meeting in nineteen eighty five would change the course of Phil Artman's life. And that is when Phil met a woman named Brinn
Amdahl at a party. She was a tall, beautiful blonde from Minnesota but moved to la to be a model or an actress or both, and previous to meeting him in the late seventies and early eighties, she had an alcohol problem, she had a cocaine problem, but had gotten sober, to her credit, and was looking for a good dude to hook up with. And when she met Phil, he was this is sort of right before pee Wee's big adventure came out and he got the offer to you know,
be on SNL. So he was at a pretty low point auditioning and his coming out of that second marriage, and so he was like, all right, this beautiful woman loves me and then maybe validates me in a certain way.
And so they got together.
They did and it was just like all the other ones, except this one was like when it burned red hot, that could also be really bad too. Yeah, it wasn't just like two people super into each other. Also, two people who like couldn't couldn't like just just clashed a lot, right, So they were get in really big fights and then they would make up, and they would get in another fight and then they would make up. And despite this early on, they still ended up getting married and went
on to have two kids, Sean and Bergen. I think Sean was the oldest and he was the boy and Bergen was their little girl. And from all accounts, like Brynn was a really good mom and really loved Phil Hartman. But there was a huge issue in that she was an aspiring actress and she wanted to I think she wanted Phil to help her career more than he was comfortable helping it. Yeah, and I totally get this. He was not the kind to like be like, hey, can
you get my wife on your show? Or you know, have you seen my wife actually's great, why don't you give her a shot? He just would not do something like that, right, So that then and there caused some pretty serious static between the two. And then on top of that, after they got together, his career actually started taking off. So in addition to him not helping her, she was like living in his shadow. So that was a big source of conflict between the two.
Yeah, for sure.
So he's got this marriage that starts, you know, that's you know, rocky, like his other relationships had been, but it has staying power more than the others. He was thirty seven when SNL started, right kind of when they got together, and his nickname on SNL was the Glue. You kind of talked earlier about how he was always sort of looked at as a stabilizing force in the Groundlings and SNL and his nickname was the Glue because he was just perfect basically whenever he performed. We got
to talk about some of his best characters. Phil Donahue was one of my favorites. When he did Phil ed McMahon. Of course, the aforementioned Ed McMahon was one of my favorites. I really, for some reason loved the Frankenstein Tonto Tarzan Vin that he and Kevin Neilan and John Lobbittz did.
And then they did Little Drummer Boy.
It was so silly, but I loved it.
It's pretty good.
He was Frankenstein, right, Yeah, he was Frankenstein. I think Lovevitz was Tanto when Neilan was Tarzan.
If you haven't seen it, look it up.
But basically the whole point is none of them speak English, and so they would do like Christmas songs and Frankens.
I would just go.
And Luvitz did Tanto, and you know, looking back, it was probably a fairly racist depiction of a Native American.
Yeah, and then you said Neilan was Tarzan.
And I don't even know what Tarzan did, probably just like jungle grunting.
It was very good. I mean like basically we used to sit here for the rest of the episode and talk about Phil Hartman's sketches because each one was better than the last. Like unfrozen caveman lawyer. Yeah, first of all, what a what like just an exceptional idea to start with, but he's he just pulls it off so perfectly, this smarmy lawyer who's an unfrozen caveman who went to law school and became a smarmy I guess a personal injury lawyer.
Yeah, I think so.
And again, like we can talk it out and it will kill any funniness to it. Just go watch that one. Go look up Colon Blow the Saturday Live commercial.
Yeah, class it is.
And uh then Ronald Reagan mastermind? Did you watch that one?
Yeah, yeah, I remember. I didn't rewatch it, but I remembered it.
I rewatched it and I remembered it. It came out around the time the Iran Contra affair scandal broke, and at the time Ronald Reagan was like, I don't know anything, Like I didn't I didn't know who knows who knew,
Like I didn't know this was going on. So they make fun of him and his public persona just kind of being this doddering old man who does doesn't really have his finger on the pulse of his own administration to this when people aren't and it's just him and his staff him just like barking orders and being totally super sharp and being the mastermind behind everything it's in like the his just turning public Reagan on and off and then turning that private like aggressive Reagan on and off.
It's just I mean, like.
You really see, like this guy was amazing, like like one of a kind. Basically I can't think of anybody who could do the stuff that he did. But before him or since.
Yeah, for sure, absolutely well said he would go on to do another president very famously in ninety two when Bill Clinton won the presidency and he had a just a dead on Clinton impersonation, just not only the voice, but just his sort of the smarmy kind of Bill Clinton thing and the ego. Like they lampooned him very very well, very effectively.
Yeah, there's one where he was jogging into a McDonald's while he was running for president, doing like a campaign stop, and he's like, you know, about to kiss a baby, and he looks the baby and says to the mom like, Hey, are you gonna eat the rest of those French fries? And it just goes from there. Oh my god, it's perfect.
So one of the things about Saturday Night Live that I learned, even as a young viewer, if you were on beyond a certain number of years, it starts to have a certain kind of look like it kind of shows the world like you are perfect for Saturday Night Live, but for some reason it's not clicking outside of that. So you just hang in there as long as you can at Saturday Night Live. And what's astounding and nuts
is that that happened to Phil Hartman. He was there through a couple of cast changes, like big time, huge cast changes where it went from like Kevin Ewan and Jan Hooks to Chris Farley and David Spade and Chris Rock too at the same time as well. I think Sarah Silverman came in around that time too, So like he was in for a huge transition. He straddled two big transitions of Saturday Night Live. And that's just like with the Groundlings, this is a really long time to
be a member of Live. And I think he felt overlooked because a lot of his colleagues were starting to get their own movies and he was not.
Yeah, I mean he was on for eight seasons. Over those eight seasons he did, he was in more sketches than any other cast member. When he retired from SNL, they gave him on the show. They gave him a little statue of an Elmer's glue, like a fixed to a trophy kind of thing mm hm, because of his nickname the Glue. But yeah, he definitely was getting side parts in these movies, like he was in So I Married an Axe Murderer. He was in Cone Heads, but he wasn't the star. And by the time he was
Rock and Sandler and those guys came along. In Farley, he was in his forties and he was kind of playing the straight man roles, like the old man of the family. One you know, sort of obvious example is the Matt Foley, you know, living in a van down by the river, the motivational Speaker sketch. Phil Hartman was the dad, and you know, no one remembers that because everyone remembers Chris Farley. Quick aside, that sketch was created and written by Bob Odenkirk.
Oh I forgot. He wrote for Sarah Live too.
Yeah, and the reason I know that is because I watch Kevin. I followed Kevin Nelon on Instagram and he does this. I don't know if he releases them as a podcast, I'm gonna have to look. But he does these hikes through one of the you know canyons there in LA in the Hollywood Hills, and he interviews people on these hikes. And he was interviewing Bob Odenkirk and they were talking about that sketch.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it's cool.
It is a great sketch, but you can kind of see how, like Phil Hartman's Super Pro really contained and perfect delivery and style, it doesn't jibe well unless he's just playing it straight to somebody like Farley just going berserk, right, you know, totally. So yeah, he finally he left. He left on great terms. He just killed Sarah Night Live. He became a legend on Saturday Night Live, and he
went on to still have a pretty great career. He went on to do four seasons of News Radio, which is one of its great underrated office comedies, along with working the one that Fred Savage was into Jerversey. That one no, it was good and Just Shoot Me is the other underrated office comedy of all time. I think from the nineties at least. But he was on four episodes of news Radio, had a great character for seasons.
Yeah for what I say, episodes.
Yeah, seasons for sure, had a great character Bill McNeil, and he just basically picked up a second part of his career. And then also simultaneously he was doing The Simpsons too, which is where a lot of people fell in love with Phil Hartman.
Yeah, just a little show called The Simpsons. He was asked in nineteen ninety to do some voiceover work for that show, and he said, yeah, I'll do it, but just one time, because he apparently had a pretty bad experience doing voiceover for animation for the Dennis the Menace animated show. I remember that, but he said I'll do it just once. But then, of course that didn't last because he was great on it, and he started working with the writers, started developing characters, and for eight seasons
he voiced some of the most iconic characters. Of course, the great Troy McClure and lineal Lot's attorney at law are the two sort of most notable because you know they would come on as their little side bits here and there, but Troy McClure actually ended up getting a pretty major storyline when he hooked up with Which one was it.
I think Patty.
I don't remember one of Marge's two sisters. I couldn't remember if it was Patty or.
Selma. Yeah, that's right, but it was one of them.
Yeah, they fell in love, and that's from One of my favorite lines from Troy McClure was after they went out on a date, he sees her the next day and his famous line was you may remember me from whatever like acting role that he was in, and in this case, he said, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from certain dates like last night.
Yeah, he was well known for that. You may remember me from such educational films as The Decapitation of Larry leadfoot Man or Here Comes the Metric System.
Yeah. He was great.
Yeah, and like he had one episode where he was big, but the rest of the time it was just, like you said, a little side thing. And he still created a legendary character times two and as a matter of fact, when he died, The Simpsons are like Lionel Hutts and Troy mccluar will never appear on The Simpsons again. They just couldn't. No one else could do it. Yeah, So speaking of him dying, this is gonna go long because
this is kind of an involved story. But he, like I said, he and Brynn had a lot of tension. Apparently phil Harmon had an anxious, avoidant attachment style. When she wanted to talk, when she was confrontational, he would basically get in a sailboat and sail off to Catalina Island alone. I take it, but he was just he would withdraw. You couldn't get to him. That was the way that he dealt with it. And she did not like that. I think it made her feel very lonely.
And then again she was living in a shadow. He wasn't helping her career. They had two kids, and again she was a really really good mom by all accounts. She also had some former demons that she had conquered, including an alcohol addiction and an addiction to cocaine. And she was clean when she and Phil met, and she stayed clean for a while, but she got back on the cocaine train after she did coke with Andy Dick at a news radio party Christmas party in nineteen ninety seven.
Yeah, I mean, we don't know if that's the first time she started back again. But as the story goes, he offered her cocaine. He said that he didn't know that she had had a drug problem before, did not
know that apparently she had been clean. And John Lovetts for many, many years was very public about blaming Andy Dick, you know, for her falling off the wagon, and it led to a crazy story where in two thousand and seven, John lovettzs assaulted Andy Dick at the laugh Factory and like got into a I mean, I was gonna say a fist fight, but it doesn't sound like it was punchy, but more John Lovett's, at least as the way he tells it, ramming Andy Dick's head back into the bar
like repeatedly and said I would have kept doing it too, but the bartender stepped in.
I'm frenchie. Yeah. He apparently he took over for Phil Hartman after Phil Hartman died on news radio, and one of the first days he said to Andy Dick, I wouldn't be here if you hadn't a given cocaine to Brent so he blamed Andy Dick for the death of Bryn and Phil. So Andy Dick didn't like that. Later on he said he saw they saw each other at a restaurant and he said, I put the Phil Hartman
hex on you. You're the next to die. And then the next time they saw each other is when John Lovettz beat up Andy Dick, which I mean had no idea about that, did you.
No, I didn't know that story until today or yesterday or whenever you send it over, which is just one of those crazy stories, but very sadly. It was May twenty seventh, and you know, we should say Brent. At this point, she was upset about Phil's.
You know, smoking too much weed.
She was had an anxiety problem, she was suffering through some depression. She got on antidepressants, started drinking again. Not sure who started the cocaine thing, maybe Andy Dick, but she got back into cocaine and was in a pretty
bad state of mind. And on May twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight, she had gone out for drinks at an Italian restaurant and wanted to go to another bar, but her friend didn't want to, so she called up her old drug and buddy from the seventies and early eighties got named Doug, and Doug was clean now, but said,
why don't you come over to my house. She had some more drinks over there and was basically complaining about her marriage, about Phil smoking too much pot and then not getting along and you know, being just at loose ends. At one in the morning, He's like, you know, you need to go home. You need to go home to your husband.
So she did. I don't think she had much of a choice. Doug was like, you gotta leave, and I guess when she got home. Shortly after that, she and Phil got into an argument. Phil went off to bed, managed to fall asleep, and remember bren is on Doloft, has been drinking for hours now and is on cocaine. And she went and got one of their guns, thirty eight special, and walked up to Phil while he was sleeping and shot him three times, once in the head. And I never saw if he woke up or if
he even knew it happened. Hopefully not, and he just died while he was asleep. That would be what I would hope. But he died instantly because he was shot three times at close range.
Yeah, So About an hour after that, she called up her friend Doug, who she was just with. She was super drunk at this point. Doug said, you needed to sleep this off. Didn't tell him at that point when it happened, And about twenty minutes later, she shows up back at Doug's house saying that she'd killed Phil and he doesn't believe her. And then apparently, as the story goes, while she was there, the gun fell out of her
purse and he was like, what is going on? He helps her sober up over the course of a couple of hours, drives her back over at about six in the morning to their house and he sees Phil dead and he calls the cops and at that point Brn locks herself in the bedroom with Phil's body, and that's where she was when the cops arrived.
Yeah, both of their kids were in the house at the time. I think. Yeah, Sean, the oldest, woke up and Doug was like, let's get you out of here, and took Sean outside to the police. But the whole time Bergen's sleeping to like her mom just murdered her dad, and then it just gets worse.
Actually, Yeah, so she is barricaded in the room with Phil.
The cops are there.
She's making phone calls to friends and family saying, you know, confessing basically to what she had done. And finally, her last call was to her sister Kathy. She said, take care of my children. Just let them know how much I love them. She got a second gun and laid down on the bed next to Phil and shot herself and killed herself.
Yeah, and became one of the most hated people in America, if not the world, almost overnight. I remember eating her guts when I heard about this. Me too, as an older person, I have a little more empathy for just the amount of loneliness and then also being on antidepressants, cocaine and alcohol definitely is not a good combination, especially when you have guns in the house. But yeah, I've changed my approach to her a little bit, and I
was kind of happy to read that. At the at the funeral, Phil's brother John was asking the people in attendance, like, please try to find it in your heart to forgive for this, Like this was this was a horrible thing, but it's not like she was evil. She was a loving, a loving wife and a loving mother, and like, let's try to remember her.
For that, Yeah, for sure, and especially at the funeral to have the guts to say something like that was pretty stand up thing to do.
I think.
Yeah, a good like life lesson there. Phil was he was going to come back to news radio. It's not like he was done with the show. He was going to come back for season five. But like you mentioned, John Lobvitz took over. The first episode of season five dealt with the death of the character. It's called Bill
moves On. Yeah, very emotional episode. And I think you already mentioned that they you know, The Simpsons, was like, we're never ever going to get someone to do Troy McClure Lionel Huts again.
Yeah, it's true. And then he finally got his star on the Walk of Fame in twenty fourteen.
Yeah, and we should mention Bryn's sister Kathy respected her wishes and she's who raised the kids.
Yeah, along with her husband.
Yeap, So good for her. Yeah for them. That's Phil Hartman. One of the sad outcomes of all this, Chuck, I think, is when you search Phil Hartman, just Phil Hartman, most of what comes up on the first couple pages of search engines is about the murder. Yeah, yeah, not like look at all the hilarious stuff he did. So maybe look up Phil Hartman SNL videos and just go from there totally. And that's all we have to say about Phil Hartman for now. So I guess Chuck, it's time for listener mail.
This is from Katie Josiah, a six month old baby.
Oh wow, and Chris, this is amazing, guys.
My wife and I were just listening to the William A. Mitchell story from a few weeks ago. We heard that Bill was the inventor of tang. My wife is from Georgia, but I'm from the Midwest, so we always like to talk about things we grew up with, different foods and traditions, restaurants, etc. And how they were similar or sometimes very different. Well, I found out that I consumed tang in a very unique way. Apparently hot no.
I thought he was going to say, right up the nose.
When I was young, in the winter months in Ohio, my dad would warm up the kettle and mix tang and boiling water was a warm drink that we can have whenever we played out in the snow, and my sister and I loved it, and he called it hot tang, and I just thought all tang was consumed hot, which is pretty funny. I've actually never drank cold or even room temperature tang. Hope all is well with you and yours with love from North Georgia, Katie, Josiah six months old and Chris.
I would try that, especially with like a cinnamon stick.
Yeah, it sounds like a you ever have, like theraflu or something when you're sick, man hot or hot Toddy.
I love the taste of theraflu so much. I would drink it once in a while when I'm not sick.
It really puts you to sleep, man, it really does, if you get the good stuff. I too love theraflu.
The warning on the box about your liver is it scares me, so I only do it once in a while.
Yeah.
I mean we should get them on as a sponsor, man.
We should. We should drink it on the podcast once in a while.
Yeah.
But I bet tang Hot Tang is pretty similar and a.
Bit a little whiskey in there. I would be pretty good.
Yeah. Well, don't get Katie started this, or at least it's only six months old.
No, the Katie is the wife.
Oh okay, Well, who is six months old?
What was it? Josiah?
Oh? Okay, I thought Katie's last name was Josiah. I see there was a comment in there that I wasn't aware of.
Yeah, Chris wrote the letter right, he married Katie.
Okay, and they had Josiah six months ago.
Okay, gotcha. Well, I guess I should just say congratulations to Katie and John.
Yeah.
Yeah, for Josiah and everything else.
There you go. Yeah, and thank you also for sending the email. That was a great one. Hot tang sounds wonderful. We'll go try it. And if you want to be like Katie, Josiah and Chris, who I may have just called John, I'm not sure, you can send us an email too. At stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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