July 1, 2025 • 54 mins
Sadly, Phil Hartman may be best remembered for being murdered in his sleep by his wife. This episode covers that, but mostly aims to stoke the memories of the legendary talent's life and work.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
That's all I do. That's true, that's my specialty.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
But you do it so well.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
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.
(00:57):
And still to this day one of us will say
something and the other will go here, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Sir, yeah, I mean it's timeless for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, really stuck with us.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm sure there's even people walking around doing that who
have no idea who Ed McMahon is.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, probably there's at least two.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
That's what I'm putting.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Money on you and someone else.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I know who Ed McMahon is. I'm a skully realized person.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I know.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I'm joking.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Right, Yeah, I thought that was pretty pretty crazy. He
dropped the second end, Yeah, for his I guess stage name.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
It looks like a typo. That would be my guess,
the second end. Yeah, it just looks odd.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
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
(02:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
She passed away too, I believe right.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I don't know. I stopped keeping up with her after
she and David Coverdell broke up.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think Wayne Gretzky's alive though.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yes, he is alive and slapping.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
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
(03:18):
just attract attention by goofing off and being the class clown,
the family clown.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
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,
(03:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Know, Yeah, especially if it turns out you love surfing, sailing,
and smoking weed or smoking grass at the time, I guess.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
You would say kah, the three s's, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Because he Something that I learned yesterday was that Bill
Hartman was a big pothead.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I'll just totally ignore that smell coming out of your car.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
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
(05:13):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
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
(05:45):
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
(06:05):
up with his own.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
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
(06:36):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
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
(07:35):
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
(07:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Thumb on the pulse. Sure you can do that, right,
You could use your thumb for this.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That is a mellow roster man.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Probably a lot of grass being smoked, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
To serve That's exactly what I thought.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, he hooked him up with a little hippie rock
band called Rock and Foo Foo Did you listen to
any Rock and Foo.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Oh that's cool. I listened to like three Rock and
Foo songs and I liked it.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Okay. I saw a photo of the band and I
was like, I'm not listening to that.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Well it was it's probably not your bag, baby.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
It was that sort of you know, kind of that again,
that Laurel Canyon sort of country rock thing.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I dug it. I thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Hey, I love America, don't get me wrong. I think
they're great.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
But you're no communist.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Out of all of the lists of bands that you
rattled off there, you know, I like that band the most.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, it's just not your bag. I get it. I'm
not I'm not bagging on.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
You, okay, bagging on it. I mean for it not
being my bag.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, I mean you like craft work, for God's sakes
and elevator music.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I like, I like most stuff, justs that you rattled up.
Definitely no a no, Yeah, I'm virulently opposed to listening
to Eagles.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
They managed Sonny and Cherity. You probably like them the most.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
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
(10:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah. He did two for Rock and Foo.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I think they only did two albums, so he dominated
their album cover art.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
He did some for Crosby Stills and nash Or Sills
and Nash I wrote that to you.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
America.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
He did one for your favorite band America.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
YEP.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
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
(11:37):
it's everywhere on the internet as fact, and it's apparently
not true.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
He did not.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
No who the guy who actually did it was Phil
Hartman with two ends, right, that's why people were confused.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think. Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
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
(12:34):
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,
(12:57):
but they got married after all.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
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
(13:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
And that is also sort.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
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.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, he was heavy into impression management basically everywhere in
his entire life. Oh yeah, in all corners, right.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
He was.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And come back and talk about Phil's entry into the
Groundlings right after this.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
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
(15:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
To mention Forte.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
He wasn't on Saturday Night Live though, That's why I
didn't mention him. What was he?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well, Forte was mcgruber, my man.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Oh, I didn't realize that was a Satay Night Live character,
Sorry Will, Sorry.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And the Falconer.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I didn't realize he was on. Sorry A love I
thought those were like standalone things.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
No, he I mean, I just mentioned that because Forte
is one of my all time favorite actors in SNL
character members, cast members.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're both then.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
No, he didn't insult me. I just love Forte.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
He did.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
He did the weirdest characters on that show kind of consistently,
and I always just respected him for that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Nice. Well, that's great. Was he the Last Man on Earth? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, okay, he wastright too.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
And I partied all night with wil Forte and he
was the coolest, funnest dude.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Oh that's that's a great story.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah, just a real sweetheart.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
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
(17:22):
just decided to get up on stage and start doing
some of his act.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Couldn't that be true?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I don't, I mean somebody who's hungry for the stage.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I guess, yeah, I guess yeah, sure, right, And.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
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?
(17:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Right exactly, Like if they went up to him afterward,
they probably would have said like please leave.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
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
(19:25):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
He was a good He was just good.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Right. Yeah, well, put Chuck. I think we can end
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Thing, or we should talk about his second marriage okay.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
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,
(20:56):
comedic acting, I'm not sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
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?
Speaker 3 (21:16):
You know, surfing again.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
No, that's not true. I was in my mid thirties
when things started to pick up, for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Oh boy, you with me both man, So we said.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
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.
(22:26):
He just like, it just was like fireworks and then
it cooled off and then he lost interest.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
A guy walks.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Into the Groundlings in nineteen eighty named Paul Rubens with
a character named pee Wee Herman under his arm or
under his belt.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, have you seen the documentary yet?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Still have not since you asked me yesterday.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I know, I thought maybe you would have gone and
watched it last night or something, But okay.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
It's so close to being on my TV. He had
no idea.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
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
(23:30):
at the crowd, he would insult the crowd.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
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,
(23:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
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,
(24:29):
we will talk about it on that episode.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
This is the show.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
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,
(25:17):
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
(25:40):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You weren't some of the Tim Kazerinski years.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
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.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
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
(26:46):
for the eighty six eighty seven season.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
He went in.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
He had already met Lorna a couple of times. One
when he met Lauren Michaels.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I believe that the.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
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
(27:18):
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
(27:38):
very famous for just sort of sitting there stonefaced. Yeah,
even if you're doing well and you hear people laughing
in the background.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
It was so good.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
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
(28:19):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
You know a lot of times when you talk about
people being funny, it loses its funniness.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
And Kevin nealon Man.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
What a dream team.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, pretty good, and that really kind of helped bring
the show back.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Okay, well I might subscribe to that theory.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
No, I love I love that era.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
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
(29:45):
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.
(30:07):
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
(30:29):
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
(30:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah. Man, that's sad.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It is sad, for sure.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I hate hearing that.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I might pause that part or skip over it when
I watch the documentary to.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Okay, it's at one twenty three thirty six is when
it starts.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Shall we take our final break? Yeah, all right, let's
take another break.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
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
(31:57):
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,
(32:21):
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
(32:43):
loves me and then maybe validates me in a certain way.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
And so they got together.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
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
(33:09):
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.
(33:31):
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
(33:53):
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
(34:14):
a big source of conflict between the two.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
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
(34:38):
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.
(35:00):
I really, for some reason loved the Frankenstein Tonto Tarzan
Vin that he and Kevin Neilan and John Lobbittz did.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And then they did Little Drummer Boy.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
It was so silly, but I loved it.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
He was Frankenstein, right, Yeah, he was Frankenstein. I think
Lovevitz was Tanto when Neilan was Tarzan.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
If you haven't seen it, look it up.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
But basically the whole point is none of them speak English,
and so they would do like Christmas songs and Frankens.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I would just go.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And Luvitz did Tanto, and you know, looking back, it
was probably a fairly racist depiction of a Native American.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, and then you said Neilan was Tarzan.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And I don't even know what Tarzan did, probably just
like jungle grunting.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
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
(36:06):
smarmy lawyer who's an unfrozen caveman who went to law
school and became a smarmy I guess a personal injury lawyer.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Yeah, class it is.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
And uh then Ronald Reagan mastermind? Did you watch that one?
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, yeah, I remember. I didn't rewatch it, but I
remembered it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
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
(36:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
It's just I mean, like.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
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
(38:11):
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
(38:32):
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
(38:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
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
(39:27):
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
(39:50):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh I forgot. He wrote for Sarah Live too.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
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
(40:48):
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
(41:08):
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.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah for what I say, episodes.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
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
(41:58):
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
(42:20):
and there, but Troy McClure actually ended up getting a
pretty major storyline when he hooked up with Which one
was it.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I think Patty.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I don't remember one of Marge's two sisters. I couldn't
remember if it was Patty or.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Selma. Yeah, that's right, but it was one of them.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
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.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
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.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah. He was great.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
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
(43:31):
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
(43:53):
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
(44:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
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,
(44:53):
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
(45:16):
like repeatedly and said I would have kept doing it too,
but the bartender stepped in.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
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
(45:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
You know, smoking too much weed.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
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
(46:37):
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.
(46:59):
At one in the morning, He's like, you know, you
need to go home. You need to go home to
your husband.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
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
(47:27):
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
(47:48):
three times at close range.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
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,
(48:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Actually, Yeah, so she is barricaded in the room with Phil.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
The cops are there.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
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.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
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
(49:34):
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,
(49:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
I think.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
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,
(50:32):
we're never ever going to get someone to do Troy
McClure Lionel Huts again.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah, it's true. And then he finally got his star
on the Walk of Fame in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, and we should mention Bryn's sister Kathy respected her
wishes and she's who raised the kids.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
Yeah, along with her husband.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
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
(51:13):
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.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
This is from Katie Josiah, a six month old baby.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Oh wow, and Chris, this is amazing, guys.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
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.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
I thought he was going to say, right up the nose.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
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
(52:16):
old and Chris.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
I would try that, especially with like a cinnamon stick.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, it sounds like a you ever have, like theraflu
or something when you're sick, man hot or hot Toddy.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
I love the taste of theraflu so much. I would
drink it once in a while when I'm not sick.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
It really puts you to sleep, man, it really does,
if you get the good stuff. I too love theraflu.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
The warning on the box about your liver is it
scares me, so I only do it once in a while.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
I mean we should get them on as a sponsor, man.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
We should. We should drink it on the podcast once
in a while.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
But I bet tang Hot Tang is pretty similar and a.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Bit a little whiskey in there. I would be pretty good.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Yeah. Well, don't get Katie started this, or at least
it's only six months old.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
No, the Katie is the wife.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Oh okay, Well, who is six months old?
Speaker 3 (53:02):
What was it? Josiah?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Oh? Okay, I thought Katie's last name was Josiah. I
see there was a comment in there that I wasn't
aware of.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Yeah, Chris wrote the letter right, he married Katie.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
Okay, and they had Josiah six months ago.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Okay, gotcha. Well, I guess I should just say congratulations
to Katie and John.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Yeah, for Josiah and everything else.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
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.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
That's all I do. That's true, that's my specialty.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
But you do it so well.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
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.
(00:57):
And still to this day one of us will say
something and the other will go here, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Sir, yeah, I mean it's timeless for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, really stuck with us.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm sure there's even people walking around doing that who
have no idea who Ed McMahon is.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, probably there's at least two.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
That's what I'm putting.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Money on you and someone else.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I know who Ed McMahon is. I'm a skully realized person.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I know.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I'm joking.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
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.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Right, Yeah, I thought that was pretty pretty crazy. He
dropped the second end, Yeah, for his I guess stage name.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
It looks like a typo. That would be my guess,
the second end. Yeah, it just looks odd.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
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
(02:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
She passed away too, I believe right.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I don't know. I stopped keeping up with her after
she and David Coverdell broke up.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think Wayne Gretzky's alive though.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yes, he is alive and slapping.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
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
(03:18):
just attract attention by goofing off and being the class clown,
the family clown.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
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,
(03:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Know, Yeah, especially if it turns out you love surfing, sailing,
and smoking weed or smoking grass at the time, I guess.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
You would say kah, the three s's, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Because he Something that I learned yesterday was that Bill
Hartman was a big pothead.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I'll just totally ignore that smell coming out of your car.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
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
(05:13):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
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
(05:45):
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
(06:05):
up with his own.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
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
(06:36):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
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
(07:35):
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
(07:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Thumb on the pulse. Sure you can do that, right,
You could use your thumb for this.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
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.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That is a mellow roster man.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Probably a lot of grass being smoked, yes.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
To serve That's exactly what I thought.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah, he hooked him up with a little hippie rock
band called Rock and Foo Foo Did you listen to
any Rock and Foo.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
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.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Oh that's cool. I listened to like three Rock and
Foo songs and I liked it.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Okay. I saw a photo of the band and I
was like, I'm not listening to that.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Well it was it's probably not your bag, baby.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
It was that sort of you know, kind of that again,
that Laurel Canyon sort of country rock thing.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
I dug it. I thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Hey, I love America, don't get me wrong. I think
they're great.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
But you're no communist.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Out of all of the lists of bands that you
rattled off there, you know, I like that band the most.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, it's just not your bag. I get it. I'm
not I'm not bagging on.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
You, okay, bagging on it. I mean for it not
being my bag.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Yeah, I mean you like craft work, for God's sakes
and elevator music.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I like, I like most stuff, justs that you rattled up.
Definitely no a no, Yeah, I'm virulently opposed to listening
to Eagles.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
They managed Sonny and Cherity. You probably like them the most.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
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
(10:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah. He did two for Rock and Foo.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I think they only did two albums, so he dominated
their album cover art.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
He did some for Crosby Stills and nash Or Sills
and Nash I wrote that to you.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
America.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
He did one for your favorite band America.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
YEP.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
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
(11:37):
it's everywhere on the internet as fact, and it's apparently
not true.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
He did not.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
No who the guy who actually did it was Phil
Hartman with two ends, right, that's why people were confused.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I think. Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
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
(12:34):
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,
(12:57):
but they got married after all.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
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
(13:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
And that is also sort.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
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.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, he was heavy into impression management basically everywhere in
his entire life. Oh yeah, in all corners, right.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
He was.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
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.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
And come back and talk about Phil's entry into the
Groundlings right after this.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
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
(15:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
To mention Forte.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
He wasn't on Saturday Night Live though, That's why I
didn't mention him. What was he?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well, Forte was mcgruber, my man.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Oh, I didn't realize that was a Satay Night Live character,
Sorry Will, Sorry.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
And the Falconer.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I didn't realize he was on. Sorry A love I
thought those were like standalone things.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
No, he I mean, I just mentioned that because Forte
is one of my all time favorite actors in SNL
character members, cast members.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're both then.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
No, he didn't insult me. I just love Forte.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
He did.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
He did the weirdest characters on that show kind of consistently,
and I always just respected him for that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Nice. Well, that's great. Was he the Last Man on Earth? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, okay, he wastright too.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
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.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
And I partied all night with wil Forte and he
was the coolest, funnest dude.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Oh that's that's a great story.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah, just a real sweetheart.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
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
(17:22):
just decided to get up on stage and start doing
some of his act.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Couldn't that be true?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I don't, I mean somebody who's hungry for the stage.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I guess, yeah, I guess yeah, sure, right, And.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
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?
(17:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Right exactly, Like if they went up to him afterward,
they probably would have said like please leave.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
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.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
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
(19:25):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
He was a good He was just good.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Right. Yeah, well, put Chuck. I think we can end
the podcast.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Thing, or we should talk about his second marriage okay.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
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,
(20:56):
comedic acting, I'm not sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
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?
Speaker 3 (21:16):
You know, surfing again.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
No, that's not true. I was in my mid thirties
when things started to pick up, for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Oh boy, you with me both man, So we said.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
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.
(22:26):
He just like, it just was like fireworks and then
it cooled off and then he lost interest.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
A guy walks.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Into the Groundlings in nineteen eighty named Paul Rubens with
a character named pee Wee Herman under his arm or
under his belt.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Yeah, have you seen the documentary yet?
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Still have not since you asked me yesterday.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I know, I thought maybe you would have gone and
watched it last night or something, But okay.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
It's so close to being on my TV. He had
no idea.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
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
(23:30):
at the crowd, he would insult the crowd.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
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,
(23:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
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,
(24:29):
we will talk about it on that episode.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
This is the show.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I can't wait.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
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,
(25:17):
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
(25:40):
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.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You weren't some of the Tim Kazerinski years.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
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.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I forgot about that.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
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
(26:46):
for the eighty six eighty seven season.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
He went in.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
He had already met Lorna a couple of times. One
when he met Lauren Michaels.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I believe that the.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
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
(27:18):
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
(27:38):
very famous for just sort of sitting there stonefaced. Yeah,
even if you're doing well and you hear people laughing
in the background.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
It was so good.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
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
(28:19):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
You know a lot of times when you talk about
people being funny, it loses its funniness.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
And Kevin nealon Man.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
What a dream team.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah, pretty good, and that really kind of helped bring
the show back.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
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.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Okay, well I might subscribe to that theory.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
No, I love I love that era.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
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
(29:45):
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.
(30:07):
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
(30:29):
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
(30:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah. Man, that's sad.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It is sad, for sure.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
I hate hearing that.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I might pause that part or skip over it when
I watch the documentary to.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Okay, it's at one twenty three thirty six is when
it starts.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Shall we take our final break? Yeah, all right, let's
take another break.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
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
(31:57):
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,
(32:21):
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
(32:43):
loves me and then maybe validates me in a certain way.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
And so they got together.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
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
(33:09):
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.
(33:31):
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
(33:53):
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
(34:14):
a big source of conflict between the two.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
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
(34:38):
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.
(35:00):
I really, for some reason loved the Frankenstein Tonto Tarzan
Vin that he and Kevin Neilan and John Lobbittz did.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And then they did Little Drummer Boy.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
It was so silly, but I loved it.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
He was Frankenstein, right, Yeah, he was Frankenstein. I think
Lovevitz was Tanto when Neilan was Tarzan.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
If you haven't seen it, look it up.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
But basically the whole point is none of them speak English,
and so they would do like Christmas songs and Frankens.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I would just go.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And Luvitz did Tanto, and you know, looking back, it
was probably a fairly racist depiction of a Native American.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, and then you said Neilan was Tarzan.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
And I don't even know what Tarzan did, probably just
like jungle grunting.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
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
(36:06):
smarmy lawyer who's an unfrozen caveman who went to law
school and became a smarmy I guess a personal injury lawyer.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Yeah, class it is.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
And uh then Ronald Reagan mastermind? Did you watch that one?
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, yeah, I remember. I didn't rewatch it, but I
remembered it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
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
(36:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
It's just I mean, like.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
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
(38:11):
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
(38:32):
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
(38:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
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
(39:27):
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
(39:50):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Oh I forgot. He wrote for Sarah Live too.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
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.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
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
(40:48):
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
(41:08):
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.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah for what I say, episodes.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
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
(41:58):
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
(42:20):
and there, but Troy McClure actually ended up getting a
pretty major storyline when he hooked up with Which one
was it.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I think Patty.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I don't remember one of Marge's two sisters. I couldn't
remember if it was Patty or.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Selma. Yeah, that's right, but it was one of them.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
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.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
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.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Yeah. He was great.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
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
(43:31):
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
(43:53):
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
(44:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
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,
(44:53):
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
(45:16):
like repeatedly and said I would have kept doing it too,
but the bartender stepped in.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
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
(45:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
You know, smoking too much weed.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
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
(46:37):
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.
(46:59):
At one in the morning, He's like, you know, you
need to go home. You need to go home to
your husband.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
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
(47:27):
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
(47:48):
three times at close range.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
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,
(48:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (48:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Actually, Yeah, so she is barricaded in the room with Phil.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
The cops are there.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
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.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
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
(49:34):
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,
(49:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
I think.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
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,
(50:32):
we're never ever going to get someone to do Troy
McClure Lionel Huts again.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah, it's true. And then he finally got his star
on the Walk of Fame in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, and we should mention Bryn's sister Kathy respected her
wishes and she's who raised the kids.
Speaker 3 (50:49):
Yeah, along with her husband.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
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
(51:13):
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.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
This is from Katie Josiah, a six month old baby.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
Oh wow, and Chris, this is amazing, guys.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
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.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
I thought he was going to say, right up the nose.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
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
(52:16):
old and Chris.
Speaker 2 (52:17):
I would try that, especially with like a cinnamon stick.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, it sounds like a you ever have, like theraflu
or something when you're sick, man hot or hot Toddy.
Speaker 2 (52:27):
I love the taste of theraflu so much. I would
drink it once in a while when I'm not sick.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
It really puts you to sleep, man, it really does,
if you get the good stuff. I too love theraflu.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
The warning on the box about your liver is it
scares me, so I only do it once in a while.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
I mean we should get them on as a sponsor, man.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
We should. We should drink it on the podcast once
in a while.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
But I bet tang Hot Tang is pretty similar and a.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Bit a little whiskey in there. I would be pretty good.
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Yeah. Well, don't get Katie started this, or at least
it's only six months old.
Speaker 3 (52:57):
No, the Katie is the wife.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Oh okay, Well, who is six months old?
Speaker 3 (53:02):
What was it? Josiah?
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Oh? Okay, I thought Katie's last name was Josiah. I
see there was a comment in there that I wasn't
aware of.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Yeah, Chris wrote the letter right, he married Katie.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
Okay, and they had Josiah six months ago.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Okay, gotcha. Well, I guess I should just say congratulations
to Katie and John.
Speaker 3 (53:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Yeah, for Josiah and everything else.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
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.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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