50 Fun Facts About Phil Hartman

Which president did Phil Hartman play eating strangers' food at a McDonald's on Saturday Night Live?

Bill Clinton became his best-known impression, built on a wig, brightened eyebrows and a scratchy voice. When the two met in 1993, Hartman joked that he owed the president a few apologies.

Which washed-up Simpsons actor, voiced by Phil Hartman, hosts cheap infomercials and dubious educational films?

Troy McClure was Hartman's favourite part, and he used the voice to entertain the studio audience between takes of his own sitcom.

Which shady attorney did Phil Hartman voice from the Simpsons episode Bart Gets Hit by a Car onward?

Lionel Hutz was meant to be a one-off, but Hartman enjoyed the job so much that the staff kept inventing parts for him, and he ended up in 52 episodes.

Which Tim Burton comedy about a hunt for a stolen bicycle did Phil Hartman help to script?

Pee-wee's Big Adventure was Burton's first feature as a director, and its success changed Hartman's mind about giving up acting at 36.

What bronzed object did the Saturday Night Live cast and crew give Phil Hartman before his final show?

A stick of glue stood for his backstage nickname, the Glue, earned by holding sketches together and playing support in five or six parts a night.

Which Futurama character was written for Phil Hartman, who auditioned for the part a week before his death?

Zapp Brannigan was his for the asking, yet Hartman insisted on trying out anyway, and creator Matt Groening wrote that the audition blew the producers away.

Which future president did Phil Hartman become the first to play on Saturday Night Live, back in 1988?

Donald Trump was then a New York property developer, and Hartman played him five times by 1990, usually beside a castmate as his wife Ivana.

In which country was Phil Hartman born, before his family moved to the United States when he was ten?

Canada was home for his first ten years: he was born in Brantford, Ontario, the fourth of eight children, and his family lived in Maine and Connecticut before settling in Los Angeles.

What profession did Phil Hartman's thawed-out caveman Keyrock take up on Saturday Night Live?

Lawyer was the joke: Keyrock told juries the modern world baffled him, yet he chatted on a mobile phone, drove luxury cars and owned a home on Martha's Vineyard.

Which band's logo did Phil Hartman design during his first career as a graphic artist?

Crosby, Stills & Nash used his logo from the mid-1970s on, yet Hartman was never credited for it, which he said he found amusing rather than galling.

Phil Hartman's obsessively tidy Gene hosted a how-to show on Saturday Night Live as the Anal Retentive what?

Chef was Gene's trade, though little got cooked: he threw out vegetable peelings wrapped in paper towel, then foil, then a paper bag sealed with tape.

Which Rat Pack singer ranked beside a president as Phil Hartman's most famous Saturday Night Live impression?

Frank Sinatra got a sketch of his own in 1991, The Sinatra Group, in which Hartman's singer held court with guests including Chris Rock as rapper Luther Campbell.

Which president did Phil Hartman send up in his first Saturday Night Live season, reviving its political parody?

Ronald Reagan was the first of two sitting presidents Hartman played; Dana Carvey's George H. W. Bush joined the show's political sketches the following season.

Which TV personality did Phil Hartman play opposite Dana Carvey's Johnny Carson on Saturday Night Live?

Ed McMahon's chair was nearly Hartman's for real: Jay Leno offered him the sidekick job on The Tonight Show, but he chose to stay in sketch comedy.

Which horror icon did Phil Hartman play growling through songs beside Tonto and Tarzan on Saturday Night Live?

Frankenstein's monster moaned his way through We Are the World and Christmas carols, while his two partners sang the words in broken English.

Which Saturday Night Live writer created Phil Hartman's thawed-out caveman character?

Jack Handey stayed off screen in Deep Thoughts too: he read each one-liner himself after Hartman's voice announced the segment over soothing scenery.

Which castmate co-starred with Phil Hartman in Love Is a Dream, a 1988 short later re-aired as a tribute to each?

Jan Hooks played an ageing woman who slips into her imagination to sing and dance with a long-lost lover, played by Hartman.

Which 1992 running mate did Phil Hartman caricature on Saturday Night Live after a televised debate?

James Stockdale, Ross Perot's running mate, was a Medal of Honor recipient who spent over seven years as a prisoner of war; the sketch helped fix an image of him as slow-witted.

Which Mission: Impossible star did Phil Hartman play as the baffled host of a science show on Saturday Night Live?

Peter Graves really did host the PBS science series Discover, and Hartman's version read the script without understanding a word of the subject.

On which Saturday Night Live sketch did Phil Hartman play Beev, a regular's father named for his teeth?

Wayne's World gave Hartman two jobs: he played Beev, the father of Wayne's sidekick Garth, and voiced the Cable 10 public access introduction.

Which fake toy did Phil Hartman's voice advertise on Saturday Night Live with a string of alarming safety warnings?

Happy Fun Ball looked like a harmless rubber ball in the 1991 ad, which cast Dana Carvey and Mike Myers as delighted children before the ominous disclaimers took over.

Which Saturday Night Live cereal parody lifted Phil Hartman skyward on a towering pyramid of breakfast bowls?

Colon Blow spoofed high-fibre cereal ads: a voice tells Hartman he would need 30,000 bowls of his usual brand to match the fibre in a single bowl of it.

Which conservative pundit did Phil Hartman play in Saturday Night Live's send-ups of The McLaughlin Group?

Pat Buchanan was a regular on the real panel, whose host John McLaughlin had a loud, forceful delivery that Dana Carvey turned into one of his own impressions.

Phil Hartman's Russell Clark quizzed teen heart-throbs on Saturday Night Live as editor of which real magazine?

Sassy supplied the running gag: Clark worked the magazine's name into his reply to every guest, among them Mike Myers as a monosyllabic Joey Lawrence.

For which craft did Phil Hartman win his only Emmy, shared with the Saturday Night Live team in 1989?

Writing brought him the statuette, not the impressions he was famous for: his two Emmy nominations as a performer, in 1994 and 1998, both went unrewarded.

Which producer persuaded Phil Hartman to stay at Saturday Night Live when he planned to leave in 1991?

Lorne Michaels argued that staying would raise his profile, and the presidential impression Hartman began the following year did just that.

Which doomed ship did Phil Hartman say he felt he had escaped when he left Saturday Night Live?

Titanic was his verdict in a TV Guide interview that criticised the sketches of the mid-1990s, after most of the castmates he started with had gone.

Which director recommended Phil Hartman to Saturday Night Live after casting him in her film Jumpin' Jack Flash?

Penny Marshall was one of three people who put his name forward, and her film's credits list him under his original spelling, Phil E. Hartmann.

Which Los Angeles improv troupe did Phil Hartman join after climbing on stage on impulse during a show?

The Groundlings took him on while he was still a graphic designer, and he paid for his training by redesigning the troupe's logo and merchandise.

Which comedian's bow-tied man-child character did Phil Hartman help create at an improv theatre in the late 1970s?

Paul Reubens and Hartman turned the character into a midnight stage show that HBO filmed in 1981, with Hartman playing a gruff sea captain.

Which film star played Cowboy Curtis beside Phil Hartman's Captain Carl on a 1980s children's show?

Laurence Fishburne was one of the show's regular human visitors, alongside S. Epatha Merkerson as Reba the Mail Lady and John Paragon as the genie Jambi.

What job did Phil Hartman take with a rock band after dropping out of art college in 1969?

Roadie work once put him on stage beside a legend: he held a broken drum kit in place while Jimi Hendrix jammed a few feet away.

Which band's greatest-hits album History has cover art by Phil Hartman, whose brother managed the group?

America's sleeve notes credit him as Hartmann, his birth spelling; the artwork adds Big Ben and a double-decker bus as a nod to the group's origins in England.

Which pompous anchor did Phil Hartman play on NewsRadio, the NBC sitcom set at a New York news station?

Bill McNeal, Hartman joked, was simply himself with any ethics and character removed.

Which friend from Phil Hartman's improv days joined the cast of NewsRadio in his place after his death?

Jon Lovitz took the part out of friendship and played an old colleague of the late anchor; he has called Hartman the big brother he always wanted.

How did NewsRadio explain the absence of Phil Hartman's anchor in the first episode made after his death?

A heart attack was the cause given in the season premiere, in which his colleagues reminisce; it aired the day before what would have been Hartman's 50th birthday.

Which future podcast host played the station's handyman electrician alongside Phil Hartman on NewsRadio?

Joe Rogan became a close friend off screen too, and Hartman confided in him about the troubles in his marriage.

Which Frasier actor won the 1998 Emmy for which Phil Hartman was posthumously nominated for NewsRadio?

David Hyde Pierce took the supporting actor award for playing Niles Crane; critic Ken Tucker had praised the infinite variety Hartman found in his anchor's self-regard.

What are the call letters of the station where Phil Hartman's NewsRadio anchor reads the news?

WNYX is an all-news AM station whose eccentric billionaire owner, played by Stephen Root, enjoys micromanaging it despite running a vast corporate empire.

In which Studio Ghibli film's Disney dub did Phil Hartman voice Jiji, a young witch's talking black cat?

Kiki's Delivery Service was among his last roles: the Disney dub reached home video in 1998, the year he died, with Kirsten Dunst voicing the witch.

Which Joe Dante film about warring action figures was Phil Hartman's last in cinemas and is dedicated to him?

Small Soldiers reached American cinemas six weeks after his death; Dante remembered him as a dream to work with, someone nobody disliked.

In which 1990s Christmas comedy did Phil Hartman play Ted Maltin, the smug divorced neighbour next door?

Jingle All the Way was the last of his films released in his lifetime, and Hartman counted Ted among the weasels he most enjoyed playing.

Which comedian shared the screen with Phil Hartman in both Houseguest and the 1993 film Coneheads?

Sinbad played an impostor posing as a dentist to hide in the suburban home of Hartman's character in Houseguest, the first film to give Hartman a starring role.

Which CBS football pundit did Phil Hartman impersonate on Saturday Night Live and later echo on The Simpsons?

Jimmy the Greek sat beside Kevin Nealon's Brent Musburger in the show's NFL Today parody; on The Simpsons, Hartman voiced a lookalike tipster called Smooth Jimmy Apollo.

Which appliance did Phil Hartman voice with a Jack Nicholson impression in The Brave Little Toaster?

Air conditioner was one of two parts he took in the 1987 film: he also voiced a hanging lamp in a spare parts shop, in the style of Peter Lorre.

Which fast-talking salesman did Phil Hartman voice in the Simpsons episode Marge vs. the Monorail?

Lyle Lanley went to Hartman because, as Mike Reiss of the show's staff put it, he was always pretending to be a glad-handing salesman; Leonard Nimoy also guest-starred, as himself.

Which Simpsons character marries Phil Hartman's fading film star in an episode built to give him a starring role?

Selma Bouvier learns the wedding is a sham staged to revive his career; the showrunners, both Hartman fans, wanted an episode that gave him as much to do as possible.

Which ancient Chinese text guided Phil Hartman's choice to drop the second n from his surname legally?

I Ching numerology, as he read it, gave his birth spelling a destiny number of 8 and the shorter one a 3, the number of artistic fulfilment; he made it legal in 1992.

In which 1990s army comedy did Phil Hartman play Major Thorn, an officer with an old grudge?

Sgt. Bilko's villain blames the title character for a fixed boxing match that got him shipped off to Greenland, and arrives at the base bent on revenge.

In which 1986 cartoon did Phil Hartman voice both the young hero's father and his grumpy neighbour?

Dennis the Menace kept him for one season only: once Hartman had joined Saturday Night Live, impressionist Maurice LaMarche took over his parts.