It's the 20th Anniversary of the Death of Phil Hartman, the GOAT of SNL
As a general rule, celebrity deaths fall into one of three categories for me personally:
A) Celebrity did themselves in with drugs and booze (ie Amy Winehouse).
Sadness Level: Minimal
B) Celebrity led a long, happy life and their talent was recognized always (ie Don Rickles).
Sadness Level: Moderate
C) Celebrity tragically died young with much more great work still ahead of them (ie John Candy).
Sadness Level: Maximum
Needless to say, C) is the rarest of them all. So rare in fact, I can probably count on my fingers the number of celebrity deaths that truly saddened me without using my thumbs. I liked Prince for longer than a lot of Stoolies have been alive. But I’d die before you’d catch me showing up outside of Paisley Park tying purple stuffed animals to the fence or whatever his fans were doing. But on the short list of celebrity deaths that really got to me was Phil Hartman. To the point I’m shocked that it’s been 20 years. Shocked.
This is not something I’m saying just on this occasion. Or said after his insane wife killed him. I was saying this when he was still alive and two decades have done nothing to change my mind. Phil Hartman is the best SNL cast member ever. EVER. Sticking strictly with their performances on the show and not their post-SNL careers, he was the GOAT of that show and he remains so.
I do not say that lightly. I’ve seen them all. From Bill Murray to Eddie Murphy to Chris Farley to Will Farrell and everyone in between. I’ve heard Dennis Miller say that everything Dana Carvey ever did on the show simply crushed and I do not doubt it. He’s one of my Top 5 for sure. But nobody has ever been able to do all the things Hartman could. The impressions like Sinatra, Clinton and this classic Reagan skit:
He was just a fucking razor. Add the characters like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. And the moments where he was the straight man, like the single best sketch in the show’s history, Matt Foley:
The versatility it takes to carry a show with impressions, sketch acting and being the Glue Guy is incredibly rare. And he pulled it off every single week for years.
As far as his non-SNL work goes, he was the co-inventor of the Pee Wee Herman character, but went on Howard Stern to confirm that Paul Reubens and he had a deal that they would split all the money it made 50/50, but Reubens screwed him out of all of it. He was on NewsRadio, a good show with terrible ratings that lasted four seasons, but he was only alive for the first three. But mainly you might recognize him from such Simpsons characters as Attorney Lionel Hutz of I Can’t Believe It’s a Lawfirm! and actor Troy McClure:
But is talent and his career were cut short in the most tragic sort of domestic violence possible. And as you revisit his work, it just makes you sadder that the rest of us have missed out on 20 more years of it. RIP.