Remembering Phil Hartman

Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of Phil Hartman’s death, so lets talk about one of most underrated comedic personalities of that 90’s era which is absolutely full of legends.

That decade had some of the best comedian’s to ever do it, including(in no order) Farley, Rock, Sandler, Wallace, Stewart, Shandling, Carvey, McDonald, Murphy, *Deep breath* Ferrell, Myers, Spade, Fallon, Lovitz, Morgan, Parnell, Silverman etc etc etc. Hartman was right up there with basically all of them as far as his impact in that comedic renaissance. He did a ton of amazing TV roles, most notably in SNL, “NewsRadio”, and “The Simpsons”.

 

He was right at the top of his game when, on May 28th, 1998, he was killed by his wife Brynn Omdahl in a murder-suicide. She struggled with drugs and alcohol for the previous few years, and had been in and out of rehab. She had recently relapsed, which supposedly fueled the incident. Reminder for anyone struggling with drugs or alcohol to reach out to somebody, for both yourself and others.

Now to the happier stuff! I’d go through his TV roles, but since I’m a big time movie boy, lets remember some of his best and funniest movie roles.

 

“Jingle all the way” is one of the best/worst Christmas movies ever and Phil Hartman as the horny neighbor made it that much better. Dude just wanted to taste Arnie’s wife’s cookies. Ted is also the perfect horny dickhead neighbor name.

 

Exceptionally good at the dickhead neighbor, this role may have been in the same universe as “Jingle all the way” for all we know. I really wish the Commando Elite fried is ass when he tried to narc out the Gorgonites.

 

A relatively iconic kids movie, he did a pretty good job in what is a strange role. Hey Phil, can you do an impersonation of Jack Nicholson? You’ll be playing an air conditioner btw. Also, “What are you gonna do, suck me to death?”. Ok buddy, don’t threaten me with a good time. Pretty coincidental that he exploded within seconds of saying that line.

He has a few other roles that mean different things to different people, but those are my favorite three movies of his. He sometimes gets forgotten because of the talent that was around when he was, and I think if he was around today he would have been involved a lot more movie/tv dad roles in both live action and especially voice roles.
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