Brynn and Phil Hartman

0:00 Hi, I'm Tina, and I'm rich. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage. It's that some days you'll feel like killing your wife. And some days you'll feel like killing your husband. Welcome to love, Mary Kill. All right, boys, stop in here for a second. I'm a little parked from the jog. Oh sir, we've only been jogging for three blocks. Besides, Missus Clint asked us not to let you into any more fast food places. Well, I just want to mingle with the American people, talk with some real folks. Maybe get a diet coke or something.

0:45 Fine, but please don't tell missus Clinton. Jim, let me tell you something. There's gonna be a whole bunch of things we don't tell Missus Clinton. Fast food is the least of our worries. Okay, buddy clean? Oh my god? Hey, hey, how you know? Nice to meet you. How are you? Oh? That's an adorable day. What's your name? Swatheart? Her name is Shakira. Shakira. That means African princess, doesn't it. Why? Yes, well, she certainly is beautiful enough to be a princess. So you're gonna finish these fries.

1:27 No, well, if you're not gonna hate him, those are good. What's your care? You take good care of your mom. That was the late great Phil Hartman on one of his many sketches from Saturday Night Live. That's a classic one. I love it. Growing up, I was a big fan of pop culture and Saturday Night Live. It's a huge part of that. Yeah, same for me. I mean, I loved Saturday Night Live and I'm old enough to have been around, like in the very early years of Saturday Night Live. Too crazy that it's the fiftieth year of Saturday Night Live. Yeah, it really is. We'll talk about it a little bit more at the end about Saturday Night Live and you know the impact it had on us growing up. But this is an episode that I've been wanting to do for a long time.

2:11 So thank you to me for recommending this episode. I'm excited about it too, because you know, like we all know who Phil Hartman is, but I don't really know much about him or his story really. I mean, obviously I know what happened to him, but I don't really know his background. I don't really know a lot about him other than he seemed like such a. Great guy, I and he was. And I hope everyone enjoys this episode because we are going to talk a lot about Phil's background and how he became a comedian. But before we get into that, I brought you a snack. Oh goodie. So Phil was from Canada, and as you know earlier, I tried to make Median snack Nanaimo bars n A n A. I m oh, if you're a Canadian, you know you know them and you love them. I think we might have possibly made them. We did okay, but I wanted to make them again because they're awesome. They're deliciously but it was one of the worst baking disasters of my life. I'm not sure what happened, but when I went to cut into them, all the cream filling oozed out. It's kind of like a browdie layer and then there's this cream filling and then you top it with like chocolate and the.

3:23 Cream filling it's supposed to be pretty thick and like that. I think that might have been one of the things that I did wrong, is I made one and a half times the filling because there's super filling in my opinion, and I don't think there was enough confection or sugar in it, so it just oozed all over the place. So I did. I do have a backup snack that isn't nearly as exciting that I brought you some of my favorite potato chips. They're a limited addition. You can only get them this time of year. I'm not kidding, I know, I believe from the Great Lakes Potato Chip Company. They're made in Traverse City, Michigan, kettle cooked purple potato chips with sea salt. I'm just laughing because I remember I came home the other day and there was two huge boxes in our garage.

4:08 I need to know that it's one of these huge boxes doing in our garage. Well, I really, they're really great and they sell out really quickly. And I thought I was buying like the single syrup, but no, I was buying the. Two giant crates. Well there's one left, so but they're great and our costco sells them. I haven't seen them yet, but if you see them at your costco, definitely give them a try. Or you can order them from the Great Lakes Potato Chip Company like I did. And then I brought you some red grapes. But they look really purple, so we're having it's a tribute to Mariah Carey, who sometimes only eats purple food What you never heard that?

4:54 I did not know that. No, yeah, I don't think she usually eats potato chips. I think it's like plums and actually. Enjoy purple foods. So I'll look forward to this then, okay, all right, we'll be right back. You just did a whole little comedy routine there, like eating your chip and crunching your chip, and to get like ten minutes to eat that snack. Well, I was going to enjoy it. It was really good and I'm actually pretty hungry, so oh are you? Yeah? Those are really good. Though, I do like those a lot. I don't think I like them quite as much as you do. But I think you like them anywhere because you in order to box.

5:34 I love that they're very like salty and the they're really unique. Yeah, they're really good. I like them. I wish I could send you all a box. I feel really bad, but most people probably won't be able to get them. But yeah, they're interesting. What do you rate them out of time? I'm going to give them a ton out of ten. Really, that surprises me. Rich really loves a laze potato chip. You like them, kind of a. Classic laze kind of guy. But these are. They're kind of a in between. Yeah. I like thicker tip. They're a little bit thicker, but they're not super thick. And what about the grapes. I don't know, they're they're grapes. They're good eat out of time. I promise we eat healthy and we exercise, right, right, right, it's not all just about snacks, solid time.

6:16 Grapes are very healthy. Before we start talking about Phil Hartman, I did want to mention that we are working on some merch and we've had a lot of people ask us about merch and we are working on it. We'll talk about it at the end. We don't have the shop quite ready yet, but it should be in a couple of weeks, within a week or two. Yeah. And it's a cute design. It's not the one that we did last year was just our logo. This one is a little cuter. Yeah, I think you'll like it. In nineteen ninety eight, Phil Hartman had everything a person could want. His career was flourishing. He was a regular cast member on successful television programs, News Radio and The Simpsons, and his career as a movie star was taking off. He had just started and Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger and had another film in the Pipeline, Joe Dante's animated Small Soldiers. His success had made him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He was making fifty thousand dollars per episode of News Radio in its fourth season, and frequently did lucrative voice work for commercials, which sometimes paid up to seven figures. He owned a spacious home in the San Fernando Valley, an extensive collection of luxury cars, sailboats, a Harley Davidson, and even a plane. He had two children, who by all accounts, he absolutely adored, and he was married to a beautiful ex model, Brynn. But of course, there is always more going on behind the scenes. In May of nineteen ninety eight, Phil's life would come to an unexpected and shockingly violent end, which left Hollywood and

7:47 the world stunned and devastated at the loss of such a great talent. Ron Douglas was a stunt coordinator and a family friend of Phil and Bryn Hartman. Brynn was especially close to Ron, who she affected actionally nicknamed Ronald McDonald, Ron was briefly a romantic partner of hers, though by all accounts their relationship was now completely platonic. On the evening of May twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight, Bynn bring up Ron looking to hang out. She agreed to meet him at his place in Studio City, just north of Hollywood. Brenn arrived at ten fifteen pm and stayed for two and a half hours. It was mostly an unremarkable night. Brenn told Ron about a screenplay she was working on.

8:30 They played around on Ron's piano, and Ron listened as Brynn complained about some of her husband's last attractive qualities. According to her, he was always out sailing with his good friend Britt marn Or smoking weed in his office. Over the course of these two and a half hours, Brenn drank three beers. Now you said that Brynn had a romantic relationship with Ron at some point. Was that before she was married to Phil Or did she have an affair with him after she was married. I believe it was prior to her marriage. Ok. When Bryn got into her car at twelve forty five, a m. Ron told her to call when she got home. Brynn didn't call within the next hour, but Ron was a laid back guy and wasn't particularly concerned. She probably just forgot and fell asleep, he thought, and went to bed, but he didn't get to sleep for very long. He was jarred awake by the phone ringing, ringing at the entirely unreasonable hour of three twenty five a m. It was Brynn sounding off again about her husband. Phil isn't home.

9:30 She said. He left a note, I'm going out for the night. I'll be back Phil, Love you. Brynn wanted to come back to Ron's place. She insisted she didn't want to be alone. Ron, well aware of the fact that Bryn was responsible for the well being of her two children, told her not to leave her home. It was too late and they needed somebody in the house with them. He hung up and tried to get back to sleep, but he would not be sleeping any more that night. Twenty minutes later, Ron's door bell rang over and over or somebody was pounding on his front door as if they were trying to break it down. When he answered his door, equal parts annoyed and confused, he found Brynn in her pajamas, barefoot and obviously inebriated. Before he could get a word in, Bren exclaimed, don't yell at me. Phil yells at me all the time. Ron ushered Bryn inside, where she collapsed onto the floor crying.

10:23 She screamed nonsense, or at least ron thought it had to be nonsense, because what she said couldn't be real. She said that she had just killed her husband. She said that she had just killed Phil Hartman. Philip Edward Hartman with two ends was born in Brantford, Ontario, a Canadian city just outside of Toronto, on September twenty fourth, nineteen forty eight. His parents, Doris, a beautician and artist, and Rupert, a delivery driver and salesman, were very traditional and very Catholic. Phil certainly loved his parents and continued to love them through his entire life, but he had a complicated relationship with them, and he found affection especially difficult to come by in his childhood, likely in part because his parents had eight children to raise. Phil or Fippy, as his family called him, was the fourth born. He weighed only five pounds at birth. They were a wild bunch and always found ways to entertain each other. Phil's sister described him as a scamp growing up. Once his older brother shot him in the eye with a red Rider BB gun, but lucky for Phil, his eye wasn't shot.

11:31 Out red gun. Among the eight Hartman children was Sarah, who had angel Man syndrome, a rare genetic disorder marked by delayed development, intellectual disability, problems with motor skills and balance, frequent seizures, and a severe speech impediment, along with hyperactivity and frequent nonspecific smiling and laughter. Sarah's care demanded a disproportionate amount of time from her parents, who were ill equipped to deal with such a situation. Phil vied for his exhausted mother's attention, but she didn't have much to offer him. Doris suffered a mental breakdown after five years of caring for Sarah. She was later placed in a facility that could better meet her needs. Phil reportedly felt a lot of guilt about Sarah and thought he was responsible for her condition. When Phil was ten, his family emigrated from Canada to the United States. They first settled in Maine, living in a small cottage without running water or electricity.

12:28 Then they moved to Connecticut, before eventually heading to Anaheim, California. Rupert got a job working as a salesman for Whirlpool. The Hartman's lived within walking distance of Disneyland. Back then, entry was cheap and often free, so Phil would take his younger brother Paul regularly, which likely inspired Phil's art. Even as a child, he was a talented artist. He could draw anything. A school friend said. That would be so fun to live right next to Disneyland. Yeah. Phil attended Westchester High School in Los Angeles and quickly embraced the California beach bum lifestyle. He took up surfing, smoking cigarettes, and other substances. After school, Phil and his friends raced to the beach. He said quote surfers always looked down on jocks because they were stupid enough to stay after school while we were at the beach. He also dabbled in theater, playing the role of Lil Abner.

13:23 Phil was voted class clown in the yearbook due to his talent and impersonation. He often entertained his friends with impressions of well known pop culture figures like JFK. Lyndon Johnson, Jonathan Winners, Bob Newhart, and John Wayne. This talent would prove to be quite profitable for him. Later in life. Phil listened to comedy albums in his bedroom at night and absorbed the performer's cadence and timing, honing his own sense of humor until it became second nature. Phil's friend Ettore Barrardinelli said quote, he could have gone out with anybody, and he was a good looking guy, but it was his personality. He was mister personality, and he was entertaining.

14:03 He could hold court any time he wanted. People were drawn to him. Phil kind of hung out with the people that were going places. I don't know if i'd call them ambitious. They were just people who kind of had their act together, and they dressed nicer, you know. But Phil could transcend any group unquote. Another friend of Phil's, Wink Roberts, said quote, he could never walk into a room and be happy if he couldn't make people laugh. Unquote. I am changing our son's name to Wink Wink. That's a good name. Good name. Even in high school, Phil fell in love quickly, but his romances were fleeting, and his love interests often felt as if he was always in performance mode. They were left feeling that they never truly got to know Phil.

14:46 In reality, Phil was darker and more introspective than the persona he showed to the world, but he rarely allowed his mask to slip. He enjoyed the chase and falling in love more than he liked being in a monogamous relationship. He was known to have a wandering eye when he was in a committed relationship. Phil and his good friend Kathy tried dating. She got to know him better than most, she said, quote. Phil always liked getting outside of himself. He'd always get into a role and I'd lose the Phil that I knew. That was always very interesting for me because I knew him at a different level where we talked and talked and talked. I kind of knew his heart and knew who he was, which I don't think a lot of people did. He would tell me whatever he was thinking, his insecurities, his fears, his ambitions.

15:33 He was deep and he was very serious unquote. Upon graduating high school in nineteen sixty six, Phil enrolled as an art student at Santa Monica City College. Phil's real dream, however, was to break into the entertainment industry. In nineteen ninety one, he said quote. As a senior in high school, I made the conscious choice to become an art major instead of pursuing acting. It was largely because my brother John had attempted to be an act and I was exposed to the slimy underbelly of Hollywood life. It was important to me to make a living because I wanted independence. I didn't want to get into a career that involved a lot of effort for no return period. After four semesters in art school, Phil found himself drawn to other careers and lifestyles. He was, after all, a hippie baby boomer, and it was nineteen sixty nine. Why on earth would he spend his time at school when he could instead spend months living in the mountains doing nothing but skiing.

16:31 And so that's what he did. And once he finished with that, he took a gig as a roadie for a psychedelic rock band that his brother, John Hartman managed. The band called themselves the Rock and Foo. Phil enjoyed the rock and roll lifestyle. In a letter to a friend, Phil bragged quote, I bawl the playboy bunny. I won't give you the details in the mail, but pal, it was beyond your imagination. Unquote. Phil was still in his surfboy era. He and John rented a cottage in Malibu on the beach back then Malibu was still affordable. Phil made an unlikely friend in neighbor Larry Hagman from I Dream of Genie and Dallas Fame. Phil and Larry would sit in his hot tub, smoke pot and ponder life.

17:13 An important thing to know about Phil was that despite living a rock and roll or celebrity lifestyle, often surrounded by drugs, he was very measured and disciplined. Throughout his life. People around him would snort coke or drop acid, but Phil would stick to weed, which just made him more laid back and affable. In nineteen seventy, Phil married Gretchen Lewis. He was twenty one and she was twenty. It'd only known each other for about a year. Gretchen worked at an upscale clothing boutique and lived with her father, An, a fluent dentist, before moving in with Phil. They lived a simple life but struggle to support themselves. Gretchen gently encouraged Phil to broaden his horizons and do more than be a weed smoking, rody surfer. She is likely the reason that Phil enrolled in college, this time at California State University at Northridge. Again, he studied graphic design, but dropped out by spring. Gretchen said quote, he wanted to be a comedian. It was his passion. We had a lot of friends because he was so funny. People wanted to be around him, and they always wanted him to perform. There was no question that Gretchen and Phil loved each other, but the way they expressed their love differed drastically. Gretchen increasingly thought that Phil was too emotionally removed and found herself attracted to other men. She had had two abortions during their relationship, and that might have played a part in their disintegrating marriage.

18:38 They am a Cley divorced in March nineteen seventy two. They both agreed that they were too young and too poor to make marriage work, but they remained friends for the remainder of Phil's life. Phil went on to become a prolific and successful graphic designer, working as the in house album artist for his brother John's music management company H and G short for Hartman and Goodman. Phil designed an album cover for the rock and Fu now good friends of his but also worked on album covers for much larger, high profile clients, including Crosby, Stills and Nash, Poco, and Steely Dan. Ultimately, he designed over forty album covers, as well as the familiar Crosby, Stills Nash interwoven logo.

19:20 I had no idea of about that amazing. That really is wild. I had no idea. Phil told the Las Vegas Son in nineteen ninety eight that Rusty Young wanted him to draw a horse for the cover. Quote. I think my most famous was Poco's legend. I drew the image maybe twenty times until I came up with a cover that I'm very proud of. Are you familiar with that cover? Not off the top of my head? Now, I'll have to look it up. And we took a little break so I could show you some of those album covers. What do you think? I mean, it's really amazing, like very cool, like very today like graphic design. A lot of it is, like you know, cutting and pasting designs, but it was very much illustrations that he obviously drew, and very int and elaborate.

20:01 When you're a big album cover art guy, so you kind of, yeah, very. Talented Yeah, that's really cool. I had no idea. The job paid relatively well. Phil was able to buy a little house in Sherman Oaks. His work at H and G allowed Phil to express himself artistically, but it was also deadline dependent, lonely, and required long hours. Extroverted, Phil Hartman needed a way to cut loose. In nineteen seventy five, Phil went to a friend's birthday party at a small theater in West Hollywood to see The Groundlings, the legendary Los Angeles based improv sketch comedy group founded in nineteen seventy two. Before the show even started, laughter could be heard coming from the audience. Members of the ground Links peaked through the stage curtain and saw an audience member on stage cracking jokes and doing impressions. He had everyone in stitches. The man, of course, was Phil Hartman.

20:53 That's really funny. Later Phil auditioned for and was accepted into the ground Links, but it would be a year until he got to perform. Competition was steep, and there were over ninety members. Steep members wow. In nineteen ninety five, Phil told CNN quote, I was working twelve hours a day at a drawing board all by myself, and I was going Nutso I just started getting up on stage and talking, and I loved it. I did it for ten years just for the fun of it. Phil used the Groundlings to workshop new voices and characters. He found it therapeutic to work through some of the anger and resentment he carried from his childhood. In nineteen ninety one, Phil told Stanley Moss in an interview in The Paris Review, quote, I noticed in the beginning that a lot of my characters had a tremendous amount of rage. I had never had any therapeutic experience, but it was all welling up and coming out of me because I was in an environment where it was okay to do that. There's something about rage. We all have it, but too many of us don't have a healthful way to express it. Former Groundlings are a who's who of Hollywood elite and Saturday Night Live royalty, including Old Farrell, John Lovetz, Christen Wigg, Jimmy Fallon, Lisa Kudro, Mindy Keeling, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, and Conan O'Brien. There were a few former Groundlings who may surprise you, Tyra Banks, JJ Abrams and Marishka Hargatea that is a little surprising.

22:17 Phil Hartman was a natural fit and quickly became a leader in the group. Saturday Night Live creator Lauren Michaels was known to attend Groundling shows searching for bright, young talent. When he attended a show during Phil's tenure, Lauren tapped John Lovitz to come to New York to audition for SNL. Not philled. To everyone's surprise, even John's. The Groundlings led to bit parts and commercials, voice over work, and television shows for Phil over the next several years, but his first ever television appearance was in the late nineteen seventies on the dating game That's Number three. Has actually designed the covers for over twenty five best selling record albums. He has appeared on over one hundred radio cammercials, and they say he makes the best avocado sandwich in the world. Please welcome Phillip Hartman, Well.

23:08 Bachelor number three. What road signs should I heed while dating you? And why slippery when wet? No? No, no, they'd got the wrong idea. I like to swim? And sometimes are you real athletic? Very athletic? So you're real versatile yes and filt something like a Greek god. What's your number again? Bachelor number three? That's three boy, so funny looking up this clip, there were a lot of different celebrities that had appeared on the Dating Game over the years, like Steve Martin and George Foreman. Just a it's so you had a little entertainment. Just go to YouTube and look them up because it's it's pretty funny.

23:53 And Steve Martin was actually pretty hot when he was really Yeah. Phil won the bachelorette's heart, but she later stood him up. While with the Groundlings, Phil met two friends who would help shape his career, John Lovett's and Paul Rubins, who you may know is pee Wee Herman. Paul developed his pee Wee character alongside Phil, and the two staged a weekly midnight show at the Roxy Theater called The Pee Wee Herman Show. It became a huge hit, ticket sold out every night. Phil played Captain Carl in the show. The role is ultimately what propelled him to fame. Oh Peewee, did you want to think of all the things that are wrong with women?

24:34 What? While I live on land for one thing, and they're all soft jellyfish. Yeah, just like a jelly bitchok. And what are women like more than anything else in the world? Charge accounts. I was thinking of flowers. They even smell like flowers. Flowers going land too, That's right. I never thought women love women. Women women dame same women, women. That's funny. Some Groundings members accused Phil of becoming less of a team player and more competitive as the years went on. But it was a very competitive environment and there were a lot of talented people vying for precious stage time.

25:25 I'm sure that's very typical for a comedy group like that. It is, and you really had to fight to get your material on stage. Phil was talented at playing a smorgas board of characters, but some people thought he was limited in his range, and while he was talented at sketch comedy, he lacked a unique or interesting perspective that might manifest to leading man roles. Most use the Groundlings as a springboard to be discovered by Saturday Night Live or Hollywood producers. There was no money in the Groundlings, but Phil stayed because he really wanted to make it big and thought it was the best shot at getting noticed. After several years with the True PBN teaching classes there. One of his students was future SNL castmate Julia Sweeney.

26:09 She said quote, I was in love with him immediately. He was sort of like carry Grant to me. I think every girl was in love with him, and every guy was in awe of him and wished that they could be his friend. While he was in the Groundlings, Phil had a spiritual awakening. Parting ways with the Catholic religion that he'd been raised with. He became obsessed with the e Ching or Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese book which taught a form of divination. It's not unlike astrology, but instead of reading the stars, Phil would read the numbers around him. He would throw multiple coins onto a surface, the head or the tales they landed on, each represented different numbers, and the sum would supposedly foretell the future. Each letter in a person's name represented a number, and the total numerological value of a person's name was tied to their fate. And Phil Hartman added up to a destiny number of eight, not bad but not the ideal number for a budding artist.

27:07 If he dropped the second N from his last name, his destiny number became a three, a preferable number symbolic of artistic enlightenment, and so Phil took the stage name Phil Hartman with only one en, and later filed paperwork to change it legally. It's really interesting reasoning for changing your name, but apparently it worked. Phil met his second wife, Lisa Strain, at a bar in nineteen eighty one. Lisa worked as an assistant to a realtor and as a waitress. She was very much a creature of the eighties, immersed in punk rock, with a wardrobe to match leather, rubber, spandex, and stilettos. She was a self confessed handful and a free spirit. She was a counterculture artist, specializing in sculptures made out of wood and neon. After their first date, Phil threw an itching, read the numbers and liked what they told him. Own the marrying maiden, they both fell head over heels. Phil called her his soulmate. He proposed several times before Lisa finally accepted. They were married in December nineteen eighty two. Phil was thirty two and Lisa was twenty three. When Phil grew frustrated and considered giving up on his Hollywood dreams, Lisa wouldn't hear of it.

28:21 She stood by him, providing both financial and emotional support, and convinced him that he had what it took to succeed. Over the next few years, their incompatibilities became apparent. Phil found Lisa needy with a sexual appetite that he simply couldn't keep up with. He told a friend, quote, Lisa wants to have sex eight ten times a day. I need breaks. I like to watch television. I enjoy the Jeffersons unquote. That's really funny that he would bring the Jeffersons into that conversation. Lisa found Phil emotionally distant, jealous, moody, boring, and incapable of actually discussing their marital issues. Quote. He was very boring to live with. He was brilliantly funny, but he didn't want to do anything or go anywhere.

29:07 His idea of a great night out was to go to hagendhass and get an ice cream and then drive up to Ventura Boulevard and look at old cars in a lot. I was thrilled. Thrilled unquote. Phil's fear of confrontation ultimately led to the end of their marriage. Little issues piled up over time, and with them, so did resentment. They divorced in nineteen eighty four. Like Phil's first marriage to Gretchen, it lasted about two years. Phil entered into the lowest point of his life. After their divorce was final. There was an attempt at reconciliation. Lisa dating someone new, was cheating on her boyfriend with her ex husband. Quote. I really missed Phil. I was still really in love with him. Unquote. He loved her too, but they couldn't make it work. Their second breakup was ugly, which caused a rift that took several years to heal. Phil was a born entertainer, but he also had a a keen mind, an artistic spirit, and a broad range of interests. He enjoyed creating art and consumed a variety of books and music.

30:08 If he hadn't become a performer, he likely would have started a syndicated comic strip. In addition to his artistic pursuits, he earned his pilot's license and loved spending his free time on the water, whether sailing or surfing. Because he was forced to be on all the time, he often retreated to fill his creative battery, which made him a challenging partner. I obviously didn't know Phil Hartman personally either, but I can imagine it would be difficult to be married to someone like that who is kind of always sort of wearing a mask in some ways and always kind of performing in a lot of ways. I watched a lot of clips of Phil Hartman, and he really I think he was a very sweet and kind person, but I don't think he knew how to be a partner. And like you said, he was always on.

30:53 He always had you know, he was good at impersonations, doing the voices, but also I think impersonating you know, like a functioning, you know, person in a relationship too. Yeah. After Phil's relationship with Lisa fizzled, his third wife entered the picture We'll be back after a break. Phil met Brinn on a blind daid in nineteen eighty six. Bren was born Vicky Joe Amdahl on April eleventh, nineteen fifty eight, one of four children in the tiny town of Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Her father, Don was an engineer, and Connie owned a small retail business. We don't know much about Vicky's early years, but her brother said that they had an idyllic childhood. Her high school principal called her average, an ordinary girl.

31:48 Well, every girl wants to hear. I'm pretty sure my high school principle would say the same thing. She dropped out to marry a young man named Doug Tworfen, who worked as a telephone operator. They later divorced. Vicki worked as a swimsuit model in Minneapolis, hopped around the country a bit until inevitably she decided her new home was going to be Los Angeles, where she would pursue a career on the big screen. She first changed her name to Brindon, but later shortened it to Brynn Brenn. Like many Hollywood denizens of the seventies and eighties, liked cocaine a lot, and her excessive consumption of it was doing disastrous things to her life and career.

32:29 She returned to Minnesota and attended rehab at the Hazelden Center for a while. When she returned to La clean and sober, she began going to AA meetings. She liked to go to the meetings around Hollywood to see which celebrities showed up. Phil Hartman met Brynn during this period of sobriety, he was depressed after his second divorse and very vulnerable. He enjoyed the attention from a beautiful swimsuit model. Have you seen pictures of Brynn? Do you know what she looks? Not since it happened, I don't recall. I mean she was stunning. She was very tall and statuesque. She was very beautiful. His friends noted that Brinn seemed quite a bit different from Phil's previous romantic partners. The women that had come before Brynn were, according to Phil's friend and former Groundling member Victoria Bell, fun and silly.

33:18 That wasn't Brynn, who struck many as just the opposite, weird and artificial. But the only opinion that really mattered was Phil's, and he liked her. He liked her enough to keep crawling back to her even after their multudinous fights and breakups. It was an on again, off again relationship if there ever was one. Phil's friend Mike Thomas said of Phil and Brinn's relationship, quote, as with Lisa, as with Gretchen, it becomes very intense, very fast. But as the months go by, the cracks begin to show, and Phil does what he did with his last two relationships, he begins to withdraw emotionally. They began this pattern of fighting and making up and fighting and making up that would mark their relationship from there on out. They had this pattern of fighting all the time, and Brinn was very fiery and she liked to fight, and Phil was more passive and he tended to retreat and he didn't engage in the fighting kind of like you.

34:19 Yea so familiar. Yeah, well some people really like feed off of that kind of like that kind of fighting, and other people, like Phil and myself, yeah, tend to like just shy away from it. Yeah, like if in the middle of a fight, he would just go to bed and he would want to go to sleep. And she was like, I, you know, we're not done fighting. We're not done fighting, which is very much like and we don't really fight very much, but you have done that before. What I want to like, you know, talk it into the ground and you're like, I'm going yeah, And so I can relate to this a little bit. Brinn was stunning, but insecure. She was always having little procedures on to feel younger and more beautiful, some encouraged by her husband, who had himself gone under the knife for an eyelid surgery. Fryn really wanted to make it as an actress. She had had a few minor roles over the years, but she knew her window of opportunity was rapidly closing in youth obsessed Hollywood. Phil reached a new level of fame with the success of the major studio release of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, which he co wrote with Paul Rubens and Michael Varhall. Did you see Pee's Big Advice?

35:31 I was never a big Pee Wee Herman fan. I know you were a little more into that than I was, but I like the humor didn't really connect with me. Yeah. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. I really enjoyed it. I didn't even honestly know Phil Hartman was part of Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Yeah. The film was directed by a first time director named Tim Burton. I've heard of him. Phil went on to star in this Saturday morning television series Pee Wee's Playhouse, alongside Paul, where he reprised his role as Captain Carl. After the release of Big Adventure, Paul Rubins became a major star and was asked to host Saturday Night Live. Because of pee Wee's unique character, pee Wee would be hosting, not Paul. In an unprecedented move, Paul wanted to bring his own writers to the show to assist in the writing of the sketches. Phil and John paragon tagged alot to New York. This time, Phil got Lauren Michael's attention. He was impressed with Phil's easygoing yet professional work ethic and was asked to audition for the show. Phil's pale John Lovett sparred with him and revived old ground link sketches for his audition. He nailed the audition and even got a rare laugh from Lauren.

36:43 Is that like getting a handshake from Paul Hollywood on The Great British Baking Show? Yeah? And if it was like a thing with Carson too, Like if you could make Johnny Carson laugh, that was a big deal. He was offered the job. Surprisingly, Phil balked he wasn't sure if he wanted to uproot his life in Lahil was also privately a vain man. He was approaching his thirty eighth birthday and would be the oldest cast member by far. But of course Phil joined SNL. It would have been lunacy for him to turn down the opportunity. Phil was forced to quit pee Wee's playhouse. Sadly, Paul and Phil had a falling out after Phil suggested that Paul should branch out and focus lust on the character of pee Wee, warning him that he might get stuck playing the character for the rest of his life.

37:27 Paul was offended and her by the comment, and they never spoke again. That's too bad. Yeah, their relationship had been souring for years. There may have been some jealousy and ego issues there. Paul had auditioned for a spot on SNL years earlier, but he was passed over for Gilbert Gottfried, and Phil had a three percent stake in pee Wee's earnings that he never saw. Oh that's not cool. I think most people would have sued pee Wee for that loss of revenue, but Phil was just like, oh, it's just not worth it. And they were like really close friends. And Paul Rubins I think after he died a few years ago, like people were like, you know, saying that he was a genius and he was such a great guy, and I'm sure he was, but he was also very difficult to work with at times.

38:13 SNL had narrowly avoided cancelation after a disastrous season eleven. Lauren Michaels had fired almost the entire cast and had to rebuild from the ground up. Because Phil was a strong writer and performer, he was a perfect fit. Phil joined the likes of Kevin Neelan, Dennis Miller, Nora Dunn, Victoria Jackson, Jan Hooks, and Dana Carvey for the twelfth season in the fall of nineteen eighty six. That was quite a cast, really, it was. It was great and it really did bring them back to greatness. Yeah. I mean there's been a lot of great casts over the years, but I think like those names are a lot of them, you know, were pretty big and went on to do a lot of other things. Absolutely, Phil and Brinn broke up before he moved to New York, but they soon got back together and she moved in with him. The new cast was an hit. They quite literally saved the show from cancelation. Phil was nicknamed the Glue by his SNL castmates. He played stock or supporting characters during his years at SNL. He never had a popular runaway character like Dana Carvey's church lady, but he was stalwart and dependable and wasn't afraid to let someone else get the laughs. Jan Hooks, Phil's work wife, said that they were the Clydesdales while other castmates were the show ponies. Lauren Michaels told People magazine, quote, he kind of held the show together. He also had a gravitas that ensured a sketch would always stick the landing, even if the premise was paper thin and nobody quite knew what they were doing. Unquote, Lauren said Phil quote had

39:44 done more work that's touched greatness than probably anybody else who's ever been here. Unquote. He was always the adult in the room and took the job seriously. He kept his scripts and binders highlighted and tagged with sticky notes. No one else in the cast was quot so professional, a trait Phil took with him for the remainder of his career. Phil saw his cast mates get their turn in the spotlight one by one, and he waited patiently for his moment, but he became frustrated as they left for opportunities in Hollywood, as Dana Carvey and Mike Myers did when they made Wayne's World. So Phil really wanted like a church lady type character. You remember church Lady? Oh yeah, I mean that was a great sketch drain. But if you asked Carvey to say, isn't that special? One word time, he probably really hated it.

40:32 In a way, it was I think probably a mixed blessing that he was able to play a multitude of characters. He was really versatile. He could do a lot of different. Things exactly, and that allowed him to be in a lot more sketches. Yeah, for sure. When Phil told his friend Cassandra Peterson, also known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and former Groundling, that he was planning to propose to Brinn, she was horrified. Oh god, no, she exclaimed out loud. Before she could stop herself, Phil in a rare moment of fury, kicked her out of his office. Cassandra was correctly identifying a trend, of course, that Phil was once again rushing into a relationship, and even worse, this time doing so with a woman who she thought of as a phony. But Phil had his reasons for marriage, which Cassandra was not privy to.

41:19 Brinn was two months pregnant and while Phil had left Catholicism behind. He certainly wasn't going to have a child out of wedlock. I feel like I need to defend Brynn here a little bit. Some people thought she was odd and off putting and maybe a little weird, but other people said that she was lovely and funny and a very sweet and kind person. Yeah. I think that's true of a lot of people that you know. Some people view you one way, other people view you another way, and it's just not necessarily consistent exactly. Yeah. Brin and Phil were married on November twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven, in a small ceremony in New York. He was thirty nine, she was twenty nine. Sean Edward Hartman was born seven months later. In June nineteen eighty eight, Phil's second wife, Lisa, who he had since repaired things with and become friends with, sent a simple note to the Hartman's congratulating them on the birth of their son.

42:13 Brinn mailed her a four page diatribe threatening Lisa, telling her to stay away from Phil and Sean or she would kill her and rip her eyes out. Oh, I just doing that. She was a kind person. Yeah, that's a boy. This was disturbing to Lisa, understandably, so who called Phil to ask him about it. It made more sense once Phil informed her that he and Brinn had just had a difficult conversation. Brinn had leveled the question to Phil. Were he and Brin's soulmates? This is an easy question to answer for most people. If your spouse asks you this question, the correct answer is yes, yes, absolutely.

42:53 Phil had opted for the incorrect answer. He told Brynn that actually he and Lisa were soulmates. Oh boy, oh boy. Lisa handled the situation well, all things considered, simply saying that quote, not only do you have your head up your ass, your wife is a scary creature unquote, Phil advised her not to send any more notes to his home. He and Lisa didn't talk again for two years. Wait, I have a question for you. Yes, I actually don't believe in soulmates. What so? Well, it's okay to say I don't believe in soulmates, but it would be worse to say, oh, well, my old boy, Yeah. I mean, I love you to death, but I don't.

43:33 I think a lot of people can be your soulmates. Brinn was also jealous of Phil's SNL castmates. She felt some were getting too close to him, including Jan Hooks, who played Hillary to Phil's Bill Clinton. Brinn drafted a threatening missive to Jan and other cast members, but never actually sent them. Phil said that the letter that Brynn sent to Lisa the one you know, I'll scratch your hands out or whatever. He said, like you should have seen the original. I guess it was even worse. Oh boy. Over the next few years, Phil became megawatt famous. He found his niche by playing larger than life, buffoonish characters. In nineteen ninety, Phil joined the cast of The Simpsons, where he was featured in fifty two episodes. It was one job that brought him pure joy. He gave voice to washed up D list actor Troy McClure, ambulance chasing attorney Lionel Huts, and many others.

44:29 You I've never seen before. You. Who are you? I saw You're chasing bird's ambulance. Huts is the name, mister Simpson. Lionel Hat's attorney at law. Here's my card. It turns into a sponge when you put it in water. Ooh, classy. I'd like to talk to you about bringing legal action against the fiend. Who did this to your boy? Well, who did this to my boy? Is my boss? And besides, doctor says just a bump on a hand of broken tone, nothing cheeriot doctors. Doctors are idiots. There's no telling what kind of permanent injuries he might have. You might have to wait on hand and foot for the rest of his natural life. That's the downside. Now here's the good part. You can jing jing jing cash in on this tragedy. Hi, I'm actor Troy McClure. You might remember me from such driver's ed films as Alice's Adventures through the Windshield Glass and the Decapitation of Larry Leadfoot. For the next sixty minutes, we'll be seeing actual film of car crash victims. Here's an appealing fellow. In fact, they're appealing him off the sidewalk.

45:39 It's funny because they don't know him. His voice was just so recognizable. After his death, the characters were retired in Phil's honor. On SNL, he portrayed the unfrozen caveman lawyer, the anal retentive chef, and he became the go to cast member to portray politicians and other strong jawed well quaffed masculine characters, along with pop culture icons including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, and Frank Sinatra. I loved his portrayal of Frank Sinatra in particular. You know, I don't remember that one. It was just really it was really good. By Phil's fourth season on SNL, exhausted from the grueling schedule, often working late into the night, he stepped back from writing and focused solely on performing.

46:26 He said that he worked between sixty and seventy hours during his time on SNL when he was writing. Wow, that's a lot. I think today less performers do both roles. I think a lot of them just do you know their performing and the writers. I think Andy Samberg recently said, did you hear this? No, he was a prominent cast member too. He had to quit because he just couldn't take the hours. Any oh, I couldn't imagine. Yeah. As the years ticked by, Phil became the patriarch of SNL, he welcomed the new younger cast me Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, David Spade, and Chris Farley among them. They all looked up to him, especially Chris Farley. They shared a special bond Chris's mother, Mary Anne said, quote, he kept an eagle eye on Chris, which was good, and Chris listened to him, which was even better. Unquote.

47:18 Brin swung by thirty Rock often. During this time, she became friends with some of the cast members and writers. Julia Sweeney cast member, and Christine Xander writer, especially became great friends with Brynn. Sweeney, looking back on that period, described Bryn's appearance in blunt terms, she had a kind of high end call girl look. She also she also characterized Phil less favorably than most, wondering how much Phil loved Brynn as a person versus how much she loved how people looked at him when Brynn was on his arm, quote, he needed to be with a knockout. Some of Phil's friends began to dislike Brynn. During one visitor, sett on the laps of many of the guys, stuck her tongue in their ears and kissed them. On other visits, they fought loudly in Phil's dressing room. Often she had temper tantrums and ended up throwing things at Phil. In February eighth, nineteen ninety two, Phil and Brynn welcomed their second child, a daughter, Bergan Anka Hartman. Phil was walking on air after her birth. He was so smitten with his new daughter.

48:26 There was a live show that night, and Bergan's birth was announced at the end of the night during the curtain call. According to Nancy Cartwright, also known as Bart Simpson, Phil enjoyed fatherhood. The two would often chat about being parents, and he would gush about his children. Brynn was having an internal crisis. She had always value to her appearance and her social life, and the work of parenting two young children was interfering with that. She started to feel as though she had no identity outside of wife and mother. She had moved to Los Angeles to be famous, to pursue a life and the public eye. The public eye wasn't on her, it was on Phil. She was a supporting character. Phil was the protagonist, and that drove her crazy.

49:08 At least. O'Hara Hartman, Phil's niece, thinks so quote she always wanted to be an actress, and I think she was jealous that Phil was. Do you remember, you know how the opening montage of SNL and they say the cast members and there's like a picture of them I think it was in Phil's like last few years. There was a picture of him sitting at a table at a restaurant or a diner and there is a blonde woman sitting next to him, and you can't see the blonde woman's face at all. Okay, that woman was Brent, and i'll show you the clip later. She has long, dangly earrings on and they're bobbing back and forth. And the reason the earrings are bobbing back and forth is she kept trying to look at the camera and it was ever filling. Was like, Brin, we don't want to see her face, We just need to see the back of her head. And she really wanted to be in the shot.

49:58 Oh interesting. Grinn's jealousy, mixed with frustration over Phil's physical and emotional absence, led to an ever increasing frequency in their fighting. Many in the cast and crew on SNL were all too aware of the issues in the Hartman's marriage. Whether in person or over the phone, there was always serious discord in their relationship. Chris Rock said, quote, Phil had a weird marriage. He was always going through some shit with it, and I never liked to spend time with them as a couple. While Phil was in the middle of filming the nineteen ninety four comedy Greedy with Ed Begley Junior. One night he had made plans to meet at for dinner. On the night they were supposed to meet, Phil called Ed, Ed, can I talk to you?

50:41 Of course you're okay? No, I'm not okay. Do I remember right? Do you have a guest room above your garage? Do you have a friend. No, it's for me Brennan and I. It's bad. It's very bad. We've split up and I can't stay there in the house. Come over, buddy, We'll go there right when we're done with work. I'll give you a key. Do you Rememberry there was a Ed Begley Junior like reality show. I used to be obsessed with that. Yeah, and I do remember. Like I think his office was and he had a bike, like an exercise bike, and he would like, Yeah, he would make toast by peddling his bike. Phil didn't end up going over to Ed's house. He never got an answer as to why, nor did he ask Ed didn't want to pry, but he assumed that Phil and Brynn had worked out their problems. Meanwhile, Phil's second wife, Lisa, became a sounding board for Phil's complaints about Brn. Phil had since apologized for the nasty note that Brynn had sent and his own idiotic behavior.

51:37 He told Lisa all about the violent episodes when Brin's temper flared and she started to throw things. Phil complained about Brin's facelifts and boob jobs and ever increasing appetite for plastic surgeries, though there are complainting sources about just how upset Phil was about that. When Lisa heard that there was a gun in the house, she was shocked. She warned Phil and no one certain terms that Brynn should not have access to a gun. Phil brushed Lisa's warning off, saying that nothing's ever going to happen. In fact, Phil and Brynn both owned guns. Brenn had a Charter Arms thirty eight caliber, a tiny, easily concealed revolver that she'd had since living in Minnesota. Phil owned several guns over the course of his life. His most recent purchase was a Smith and Wesson thirty eight, a revolver similar to Brin's. He'd never been in a situation where he had to use a gun, but he said they made him feel safer, especially since he was a celebrity and a post manson murders world. In reality, Phil probably thought of them more as toys. He was always tinkering with his boats and cars, and saw guns more as a neat little curio than a tool of death. Brynn, through Phil's connections, landed an occasional role. She delivered one line in Rob Reiner's nineteen ninety four film North. This was bound to be a great foothold for her had been on a legendary run, pumping out several nineteen eighties masterpieces, including This Is Spinal Tap, stand By Me, The Princess Bride,

53:08 When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and a few good Men. This was like a pretty incredible run. It's like the whole nineteen eighties, like every film right there. Few expected the reception of North to be as chilly as it was. The film tanked both critically and financially, making only twelve million dollars after it cost forty million dollars to produce. Oh today, it still has a reputation for being one of the worst Hollywood movies ever made. Brynn failed to land any more acting jobs. The Stink of North's failure was a factor, but to be frank, Brinn was not a particularly talented actress. She was just another person in Los Angeles who lacked star power, but she was married to a guy who was really making it.

53:52 Instead of being happy for her husband and enjoying the fruits of his labor, she was angry, jealous, and frustrated. She wanted to be as she kind of sounds like Lucy Ricardo. Okay, steal ball, Yeah, yeah. I love Lucy. He always wanted to be a star. Oh, I guess I've for I guess I had forgotten about the theme of that show, But now I remember. Phil left SNL in nineteen ninety four after eight years. He was getting less screen time and felt like he was being pushed out by the younger cast members. He'd appeared in one hundred and fifty three shows, a record that has since been broken. Do you know who broke that record? I'm gonna guess Keenan Thompson.

54:32 Yes, I don't know the exact number of episodes that he's been in, but he's been in over fifteen hundred sketches and he's been on the show for over twenty years. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. At Phil's final show, he was presented with a bottle of clearwood glue secured to a small pedestal as a parting gift. He was very touched, as were you apparently, also. We'll be back after a break. Phil began making a huge amount of money doing voiceover work. His largest single paycheck was one point two million dollars for his work with McDonald's. That is a pretty good paycheck.

55:16 He bought a mansion in Encino and began amassing a collection of boats. He also purchased a plane, a single prop TB two hundred Tobago XL, which I'm told is a very nice plane. Now free of SNL's long hours and heavy workload, and with millions of dollars in his pockets, he had more time to spend with Brinn and the kids, at least in theory. While he wasn't an absent father, he wasn't around anywhere near as much as Brynn would have liked. She was lonely. Phil was always out surfing or flying his plane, which he described as a way to get away from it all. When Phil was at home, he retreated, needing time alone. Brynn considered divorced. During this time, a lawyer friend talked her out of it. He told her to wait until the marriage was ten years old.

56:02 This would supposedly ensure a more substantial settlement. That does not seem like the best reason to stay in a marriage to me. I do think she really loved Phil. Post SNL, Phil was trying to make an eponymous pilot, but it was proving more challenging than he had anticipated. After NBC passed on The Phil Show, he decided to take a role on a promising new show, News Radio, created by Phil Simms, who had written for Letterman and The Larry Sanders Show. One of your all time favorite shows, right. You're thinking of the Gary Shandling. Oh, that's the one that I really loved. But the Larry Sanders Show was also really great. Gotcha? Phil played arrogant, bombastic newscaster Bill McNeil.

56:46 There's really nothing they can do but the fact that we're snowed in, So why don't we just sit down and wait patiently? Sorry, my friend, I don't play that game. Please don't make a scene. We're not in New York. We're not You're kidding, And I almost mistook the museum of yarn for the Guggenheim. Have you ever heard the expression that when life gives you lemons, you should just make lemonade? Great? I knew it four days in the Midwest, and you've already reverted right back to. What you were Now. This is who I am, though I'm a polite, reasonable, friendly person. You're like one of those trained police attack dogs they set loose in the wild and it goes all soft and gets eaten by a deer or something. What Have you ever heard the expression, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade and then toss it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you asked for in the first place.

57:40 I just I wish you could be here long enough to get the full Midwestern experience. Maybe another time that would be great. I think I think a good hunting accident would really open up your mind. It was such a great show. It's a really good show. I love Dave Foley too, so he wasn't the lead, but Phil got the best laughs each episode by delivering devastatingly witty one liners and insults. At forty seven, Phil was ready to have a more predictable schedule. Again, Phil found himself as the elder statesman of the cast. He served as therapist, financial advisor, and dad to some of the younger cast members, who he adored. He said, quote, not since Taxi has there been a show with so many performers capable of just waltzing out there and swatting one out of the park. There's a lot of affection between the cast members too, which is another thing you can't take for granted. Everyone seems to genuinely like and respect each other, so it's a very pleasant work environment.

58:37 After working on ultra competitive SNL for many years, he enjoyed working together with an ensemble cast. Brinn began to suspect Phil was having an affair. He always pulled away whenever she initiated sex, a problem he had also had with his second wife, Lisa. He made no secret of his attraction to other women. According to Steve Small, Phil's friend and lawyer who had handled his previous two divorces, Phil once mentioned that Brynn was mad at him for an offhand comment. A female neighbor had stopped by to chit chat. After she left, Phil turned to Brynn and said, wow, she has great looking tits. Steve Small was astounded why on earth would Phil say that? Indeed, why on earth would Phil say that? Phil began taking regular weekend trips to Catalina with his friend Britt Maren Brynn hired a private investigator to follow them. She suspected that they were either seeing women on Catalina or maybe sleeping with each other.

59:38 That would have explained why he seemed so uninterested in her. The PI trailed them all weekend, took photos and so on, but he found no evidence of any infidelity on Phil's part, neither with women nor with men. Phil's brother John said he never had an affair on Conan O'Brien. Phil once said quote, I'm up to my elbows in a midlife crisis. Let's be honest. I can't cheat on my wife. She's psychic. If I look at another woman, she comes home and says, who's Laura? I go, I didn't get a name. She's a Sagittarius, you know, so I buy toys. Unquote snl alum Julia Sweeney said quote, I think eventually Phil didn't care as much. He wasn't looking at her anymore. It happens in any marriage. You're not going, oh my god anymore, And along with other things, that was a really painful thing for her. He wasn't as excited to be with her as he had been, and I just felt so sad. Also, I thought, God, Phil doesn't even see that Brinn is also one of those girls who is also pretty interesting.

1:00:40 You'd think he's got a gold mine because he married her for her looks, and not even so much for her looks, but for how the world looked at him when he was with her, and when that wears off, because it wears off. If it were me, i'd go, oh my god, and I accidentally also married an interesting person. But I don't think he could see that. Unquote, at this point, you might be saying to yourself, these two don't seem very compatible, so why are they staying together. There were a multitude of potential reasons. There were financial ones. Brynn was trying to stick around until ten years went by so she could potentially get more of their joint holdings. Phil had already been divorced twice, but both of the previous times he was comparably quite poor. This time he had a lot more to lose. They had kids, which is a complicating factor in divorce proceedings. They were both vain, divorce would be tabloid fodder, and they wanted to keep up appearances. Divorce would be admitting to failure. This would be Brynn's second and Phil's third, and while Phil was no longer a practicing Catholic, perhaps he still felt guilty about that. Both adored their kids and both wanted a place in their lives. The Hartman's employed a nanny, but Brynn was Shan and Bergen's primary caregiver. By all accounts, she was a fantastic mother. Friends described her as payatient, loving and engaged. She volunteered at their schools and was very sweet with them. Phil loved being a dad, but much like being a husband, he was a dad when it fit into his schedule. His work, hobbies, and downtime

1:02:13 came first. Do you know if they had a prenup. I don't know, But Phil had already been divorced twice and he was starting to become you know, he had more assets, so I would guess they probably did. Yeah, I would think, because she kind of wanted to wait for ten years. That tells me that maybe there was something in the prenup. Look after seven years, you get this much after ten. Years, right, Yeah, that would make sense. I think our prenup was like you said, like after seventy five years. Yes, we should note a few things about Bryn's addiction. She did not just recklessly decide one day that she was going to get drunk and snort cocaine. Again. Brinn was privileged and had access to resources that not every recovering attict does. But even in her position, it's not easy to shake addiction. It had a firm grasp on her, and she was insecure, depressed, anxious, frustrated, and bored living in Fill's shadow. She yearned to feel better, but her partner was frequently absent, both physically and emotionally, and failed to support her. She was often invisible to Fill.

1:03:18 He was providing for her financially, but he didn't realize her needs were greater. When someone relapses, it's usually because they are driven to it by the conditions they're living in. For many, drugs serve as a way to escape their reality. All is to say that Brynn relapsed. Her sister Kathy Wright, said that in nineteen ninety seven, Brinn spoke with her on the phone. She had mentioned that she slipped, and Kathy knew what that meant. Brinn started slow for she started drinking again, just one drink here or there socially, but one drink soon became two or more. Then Brynn fell off the wagon completely and began steadily using cocaine again. On Mother's Day in nineteen ninety seven, this became apparent to fill. Bryn vanished without a trace. She returned the next morning, Hi is a Kite. Phil told her that she needed to go to rehab, and so she did.

1:04:08 Gren briefly stayed at the Sierra Tucson Treatment Center in Arizona, but she was not able to maintain her sobriety. The following period was the worst of Phil and Brinn's relationship. Bren's hostility towards Phil became outwardly visible to everybody in their lives. He started sleeping on his boat, and he would show up to work with scratches on his face. Joe Rogan, Phil's news radio castmate, was there to witness Phil and Brin's tenuous relationship in person. Here he is on his podcast talking about them. I tried to get him to divorce that lady. A bunch of times. I was working with him, yeah, because they would fight, like crazy fights where he would just disappear for a couple he would leave the house. And he was telling me he wanted to get divorced, but he did want the lawyers to take a third because.

1:04:54 It's like I was, I just care, how about just half? No? No, no, it's two thirds. So the lawyer takes a This is what he was telling me. It's like, I go, just give her half. You're always going to make money. Just get out, be free, just be you know. And he was terrified of that. He was terrified of leaving. They hated each other. They loved each other, and they hated each other. You know, it's one of those deals. Like she would insult him publicly. It was it was rough man, and you know, I was just saying, like you're a great guy, Like you don't need to be going through this. Yeah, like you need to get divorced and have you know, share custody your kids and try to set an example and just not you can't do this.

1:05:35 Like the fighting was so bad, it was and he hated it. He didn't want to be married to her. He was he was stuck. I wish that Phil had listened to Joe Rogan. However you feel about Joe Rogan. He was close friends with Phil Hartman, and I watched a lot of clips of Joe and he you can tell, really cared for Phil, and a lot of the clips he got really emotional and he was he was crying. Yeah, I'm sure that's true. Julia Sweeney said that Phil and Brinn's already rocky communication was made worse by their dependency on their substances of choice. Quote. She was definitely high energy, and this is without doing coke. She kind of had a nervous, brimming edge to her and Phil was like, hey man, it's all gonna be fine.

1:06:21 And then when they got frustrated with each other, Phil would smoke pot and she would do cocaine. So just imagine and to quote. On New Year's Eve nineteen ninety seven, there was a particularly dramatic incident at the Hartman's New Year's Eve bash. Andy Dick, notorious creep and Predator, was among the attendees. As a fellow cast member of News Radio, Andy was publicly known for his substance abuse issues. Sometime during the party, Brand and Andy slipped into the bathroom together. They locked the door behind them. They proceeded to snort lines of cocaine. When other partygoers banged down the door and screamed begging Brenda come out, she did not acknowledge them. Andy Dick has been characterized as a bad influence on Brinn, but when prompted to look back on that night, he says, quote, she is somebody that that night wanted to get high.

1:07:10 I don't know anything about her past. I don't know any of that end quote. Andy was hardly an evil mastermind luring her back to coke. She was likely already using, but he was a catalyst and what eventually culminated in Brn's mental breakdown. Yeah. I get the feeling that Andy Dick is a bad influence on probably pretty much anybody he hangs out with. Yeah, there's Reddit threads about Andy and people that have had negative experiences with him in and around Los Angeles, and I think he's been homeless here and there. Yeah, he's definitely struggled with substance abuse and just horrible behavior and violence and aggression. And I have to say, though on news radio, though he was super funny, he is very funny. He's very talented. It's really sad.

1:07:59 Yeah. Phil's friend Steve Small said quote Phil had made it very clear that if she started using drugs again that he would end the relationship. She had to get amped up to get his attention, and when she got amped up, he would simply go to sleep. He would withdraw, and in the morning he'd wake up and everything would be fine. In April, Brynn began to take Zoloft, prescribed by her psychiatrist, doctor Arthur Cireski. Zoloft, an ssri, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, is typically used to treat clinical depression, anxiety, and or OCD. In Brynn's case, she was prescribed Zoloft for symptoms of depression. It's unknown if Seroski knew that Brynn was using cocaine and drinking alcohol. Likely he did not know. SSRIs can have side effects of varying degree depending on the neurochemistry of the person taking them. They should definitely not be used with hard drugs and alcohol. SSRIs can interact with drugs and unforeseen ways, sometimes amplifying their effects. Brin took Zoloft for a week, but stopped due to the side effects, including intense nausea and insomnia, both of which are relatively common for people first starting to take SSRIs. In early May nineteen ninety eight, Brynn tried to get into rehab once again. This time she wanted to go to Promises.

1:09:21 The luxury rehab facility in Malibu, California, favored by celebrities and the wealthy. Promises only loosely meets the definition of a recovery program that follows what is called the Malibu model. Patients can leave the facility for meetings or haircuts. There are no limits on visitors and no peer groups. Most rehab facilities, by contrast, are very strict about visitors and mandate you stay for a minimum of twenty eight days and emphasize peer groups as a key part of recovery. But Brynn couldn't get into Promises. They were filled to the brim with celebrity clientele. Phil's father had died a month earlier, and he was dealing with his grief, caring for his mother, and making a movie, so he may not have been as tuned into Brynn's needs as he could have been. As usual. A month after Brynn quit taking Zola for the first time. She again complained to doctor Sarowski about depression. He recommended that she try a half dose. In the final days of his life, Feeling introspective and prescient, while talking to his friend Cassandra Peterson, Phil said quote, if I die tomorrow, I would know that I have had a better life than anyone could have ever dreamed of having. It has so far outweighed my expectations. I've got a beautiful wife, two beautiful children, and I'm the luckiest man alive.

1:10:41 Oh that makes me very sad to hear that. And now we're back where we started. The evening of Wednesday, May twenty seventh, nineteen ninety eight, Phil, as was often the case, wasn't home. He was out at the Van Nuys Airport playing with his plane. Wrinn left the children in the care of the nanny, then went out for drinks with her friend Christine Xander, a writer on Third Rock from the Sun, at Buca di Beppo. Brynn drank two cosmopolitans and half of a beer. She didn't eat anything. The women gossiped for two hours before Christine called it a night. Brynn was just getting started, She called Ron Douglas to see if he wanted to hang out. Brynn arrived at ten fifteen PM and had a few more beers.

1:11:23 She left at twelve forty five. At some point during Bryn's night out, Phil had returned home and sent the nanny on her way. Neighbors report that Brynn made it home sometime around one am. They heard yelling from inside of the house and one word repeated over and over again. It was a woman's voice, sorry, sorry, sorry. Sometime between the hours of one am and three AM, Brynn snorted cocaine, likely had more to drink, and made a very reckless choice. While under the influence, She retrieved Phil's Smith and Wesson revolver from the lock box, aimed it, cocked it, and tragically shot Phil three times while he slept in their bed.

1:12:05 The bullets ripped through his neck, chest and skull. Death was instant. Phil probably didn't even feel it. Brynn panicked as adrenaline course through her body and forced her out of her drug induced mania shoelss. Devastated and confused, Bryn drove back to Ron Douglas's house and practically broke his door down at four a m. Shouting that she had just killed her husband. Ron thought that Bryn must be delusional, or perhaps she was using the word kill in some sort of metaphorical way. He didn't think that Brynn could kill anybody, much less her husband. Before Ron could question Bryn further, she passed out on the floor, overwhelmed by the amount of drugs in her body. He shook her awake and tried to keep her that way, concerned that she would choke on her vomit if she remained unconscious, a wise choice, as Brynn did vomit quite a lot.

1:12:56 She spent the next two hours emptying her stomach in the bathroom while Ron brought her mugs of hot tea to sober her up. Brynn, slightly sobered, went to her purse. Fumbling, not completely in control of her fine motor skills, she spilled the contents, including a smith and Wesson pistol, out onto the floor. They both stared at the gun. Brynn shouted, see, I told you I killed Phil. Ron snatched up the weapon. He understood that Brynn was in no condition to handle firearms. He still didn't let himself believe her words, but his concern was growing. After she had sobered up slightly, around six a m. Brynn drove home, while Ron followed closely right behind her. He dreaded what he might find in the Hartman's house. She drove with the reckless abandon you might expect from somebody who's just murdered their spouse. Traffic lights and lanes were not acknowledged. Using her cell phone, Brynn called her friend Judy. Brynn said, I just killed Phil.

1:13:56 Judy asked, where are you. Brynn said, I don't know, I don't know. My life is over. Ron parked down the street then met Brynn, who let him inside the house through the garage door. He followed her to the primary bedroom, where Phil was, indeed, as Brynn had been telling him dead. Brynn again yelled, oh my god, he's dead. I told you. I did. I told you I did. I killed him. I killed him. I don't know why. Unsure of what to do, Ron used the home phone and dialed nine one one. Meanwhile, Brynn locked herself in the bedroom with Phil's dead body and started calling people. She dialed her neighbors Steve and Marcy, who lived three doors down. I killed Phil. Then her sister, Kathy, Phil is dead. Kathy asked what happened. Brynn said, I don't know. I'm sick. I don't remember. Tell the children I love them. When Kathy asked whether Brynn had called nine one one, Brynn just started screaming and crying. Kathy did a good job keeping it together. She asked whether there was anyone else in the house that she could talk to. She needed to make sure that Sean and Bergen were okay. Brynn just said, I gotta go. Kathy's heart sank when she heard the deafening dial tone as Brynn ended the call, The police department called Brynn's home line.

1:15:13 Shortly after. The officer asked, is there someone who's been shot there? Brinn answered yes. How many people are inside the house, Brynn just said, help me. The officer said, ma'am, how many people are inside the house right now? Brynn answered, I don't know. I don't know why the police just didn't go to their house. Yeah, that's really weird. So he called nine one. One, and Ron called nine one one. I think he called from the house phone. Mm hmmm. Yeah, it was nine. Yeah, he definitely called from the house phone, So it just doesn't make any sense why they didn't just come. Yeah, that's very odd. Ron knocked on Brin's locked bedroom door. He tried to reason with her to get her to let him inside, but she didn't answer him. Frustrated and anxious, he wished he could just leave the chaotic scene. But he knew he couldn't just leave the house. He was a witness to a crime, and he had already called the police, and he needed to protect the kids who were in the house too. He couldn't leave them there with Brynn in her current unhinged state. Plus, the doors were all locked and Brynn was the only one with the key. He couldn't even leave if he wanted to.

1:16:17 Ron retrieved Brinn and Phil's son Sean from his room. He asked him if he knew a way out of the house. Sean pointed Ron to a hiding spot where they kept the key for the back door. Ron took the key, used it to unlock the door, and helped Sean out of the house just as police had arrived at about six am. Sean was now in the custody of the police. Ron told the officers that Bergen was still inside, then handed them the smith and wesson which Brinn used to kill Phil. It's kind of weird like their house. The locks were like. And I think Brinn had locked all the doors. Yeah, and they must be locked with the key. Yeah, that's unusual. Back in the bedroom, Brynn was on the phone with Kathy again. She kept repeating, over and over, take care of my children. Five officers entered the home and situated themselves outside of the primary bedroom, not entirely sure what awaited them or if Bynn was a threat, they called her name. That was her cue. Time was up.

1:17:18 She knew that she couldn't go to jail, and she couldn't go on living with what she had done. She ended her conversation with Kathy, hung up, went to the lock box and retrieved her own gun, the Charter Arms thirty eight caliber. She sat down on the bed right next to Phil, stuck the barrel into her mouth, and pulled the trigger. The officers heard a single gun shot from inside the bedroom. They didn't realize that Brynn had another gun. The officers cleared the rest of the house, They found Bergen and rushed her outside for their own safety. They assumed that Brynn was hostile. They shouted from outside. Los Angeles Police Department come out with their hands up. After no reaction, the officers charged into the primary bedroom, where they were met with the shocking sight of Phil forty nine and Brynn forty, both dead, lying on top of each other. The toxicology report later revealed that Brin Hartman had cocaine in her system, as well as zoloft and the blood alcohol level of point one two.

1:18:17 Soon, the Encino house was swarmed with reporters and television cameras, all seeking confirmation of the terrible news. What happened? Was Phil Hartman dead? Why? How? The same happened at the coroner's office, which received an avalanche of calls looking for the juicy details. The first to receive confirmation of the couple's death was not the press or even family, but the people who shut up after Brynn called them, Brynn's friend Judy, and their neighbors Steve and Marcy. The next to hear were the Hartman's closest immediate relatives, John Hartman. Phil's brother, rushed over to take care of the kids. That morning, there was supposed to be a table read for The Simpsons. The showrunner, Mike Scully, found out about Phil's death moments before the red was about to start. Solemnly, he announced the news.

1:19:02 Everybody in the room thought it was a joke at first. Uncomfortable light chuckles and looks of confusion gave way to frozen looks of horror as it became clear that Scully was not joking. The news spread quickly after that. Everybody in Phil and Brinne's immediate circle, family, friends, co workers. They were all just devastated. Ed Beggley Junior, after hearing about the incident, immediately disposed of his shotgun. He decided he could no longer live with a gun in his home. He took it to the nearest police station and handed it over to them, saying he no longer wanted it. John Hartman had the hardest job of any one in Phil and Brynne's lives. He was the one who had to break the news to Seawan and Burke and who were both confused by the events that had taken place in their home hours earlier. The kids reacted how you would expect any kid to react to the news that mommy and daddy are dead. Later that day, Sean, having thought more about what had happened, put the puzzle pieces together.

1:19:56 He said, I think mommy did it to his uncle John. But why? Why had Brinn done it? Even though she'd been behaving more radically than usual, This was not like her. Gregomdahl, Brynn's brother blamed the zoloft and filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Pfiser and doctor Sarowsky for aggressively marketing it to her. Weiser settled the lawsuit for one hundred thousand dollars, most likely in an effort to avoid bad press. Had it gone to court, it's very likely that Pfiser would have won. While Zoloft may have interacted with the cocaine and the alcohol in some negative way, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that it was the main contributing factor in any sort of psychotic break. The amount of zolof found in Brin's body was very low. Studies showed that alcohol and cocaine, on the other hand, when both ingested at once, mix in the body and they create a new chemical coca ethylene, which causes an even more extreme psychoactive effect. Alcohol and cocaine, and resentment and frustration and jealousy are what made Brynn pull that trigger. The press did not respect the Hartmann family's privacy. They waited in the dryways of all involved. This made John especially very angry.

1:21:11 Quote this awful, ugly idea they have a right to know is absurd. I do not want to see Bergen and Shawn one day go seeking the heritage of this, the legacy of this, and find my mom crying, my brother hating their mother on TV and all that stuff. End quote. Both families retreated to a hotel in an attempt to avoid the cameras. Remind me how old Bergan and Shawn were at this point, six. And nine, So they were very young. Yeah. On June third, organized by Lorraine Newman, the former Groundlings and other friends of Phil's, including Paul Rubins, Lauren Michaels, and Steve Martin, gathered at the Groundlings Theater to honor Phil. The funeral for the Hartmans was held on June fourth at Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery, famous for celebrity burials.

1:21:57 Brinn and Phil were both cremated. The funeral opened and closed with acoustic performances. By Graham Nash of Crosbie, Stills and Nash. The presiding friar, kept hammering a point home. Both Phil and Byne were at peace in heaven, he said. Many in the crowd stirred they weren't sure that both of them were in heaven. Their ashes were scattered in the Santa Catalina Islands, a favorite vacation spot of the Hartman's. Close friends of Phil's were given small amounts of his remains to be scattered at a place of their discretion. Phil was scattered under the Golden Gate Bridge on a Malibu beach and a top California mountains. Greg Almdahl said quote, I've lost a sister that was such a wonderful person and a brother in law who was wonderful. It's like getting punched in the gut because I knew my sister would never murder any one. It's such a hard thing to face. Later, at another memorial, John Hartman implored people to give Bryn grace. Quote, they were victims of the same accident. There is no one to hate and no blame to be laid. I beg you to forgive her, So put this incident in your past and close the door, forget if you can.

1:23:05 I understand the point he's making, but that's a really that's a really big ask to ask somebody to forgive that. I think I was surprised that their funerals were held together. Yeah, it is a little unusual. Phil's brother, John was several years older than him, and he was very successful in his own right, and I think he was kind of aggressive, and he was aggressive with the family members, and he locked them down and only wanted them to say good things and wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page and that no one said anything bad about Brn or bad about Phil or about their marriage. Interesting. I mean, I guess I understand the point. I mean, at that point, there's nothing else you can do. They're both gone and you can't change that. So I understand his point, but it's also just hard to imagine myself forgiving someone who had done that to someone that was close to me.

1:23:54 Right on Phil's fiftieth birthday, friends and family members chartered a yacht and scattered the remain of his and Bryn's ashes and the waters off of Santa Catalina Island. The Hartman's last will and testament appointed Kathy Wright, Brinn's sister, as the legal guardians of nine year old Shawn and six year old Bergen. Some of Phil's side of the family were uncomfortable with this with the children under the control of Brin's side of the family given what Brynn had done, but for the sake of the children's well being, nobody fought the decision. They were moved to Wisconsin and their last name was changed, and they were loved and well cared for. The characters of Lionel Huts and Troy McClure were both written off of The Simpsons as a tribute to Phil.

1:24:37 Matt Groining and the rest of the cast were devastated to lose him. Phil was set to lend his voice to another Matt Groening character, Zapp Bram again on Futurama. Before his death. He was also working with Graining on an animated full length feature film about Troy McClure, Phil's all time favorite character, John Lovettz, Phil's longtime friend and fellow SNL cast member, was shattered by the loss of his friend. Here he is talking with Howard Stern about Phil. He could do anything, I mean, Plus, he was the nicest guy in the humblest guy. You know, it's amazing to me, the guy that talented and confident goes to see the Groundlings and somehow has the balls to walk up on stage during an intermission when he's never really performed and start entertaining people. I mean, I wish I could see what he did. I mean, that's insane.

1:25:24 I mean too, Yeah, everybody loved him. You know, he was the only guy I know that in every group he was in. Everyone loved him. From the Groundlings to Saturday Night Live to news Radio, you know, and comedians they are they're very, very competitive, you know, and Zamba always has a problem with somebody, but not Phil. John replaced Phil on the next season of News Radio, which was its last. The show had been in a ratings slump for years and had nearly been canceled, and with Phil gone, the show took its last gasp before being permanently canceled. Season five opens with Bill McNeil's funeral a heart attack. Clever writing of the episode gave voice to Phil or Bill one last time, as each cast member was read a letter from him full of his usual on point insults. Bad blood began to build between John and Andy Dick, as Lovittz blamed Dick for the death of his friend. This led to a legendary feud which culminated at the Los Angeles comedy club the Laugh Factory in two thousand and seven. Andy Dick cracked an indelicate joke about the subject to John and he snapped.

1:26:32 Andy allegedly said quote, I put the Phil Hartman hex on you. You're the next one to die. Unquote. Oh, what horrible thing to say. According to Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada, John Lovetz picked Andy up by the head and smashed him into the bar four or five times, and blood started pouring out of his nose. When asked about it, Lovett said quote, I would have kept going, but the doorman broke it up. Unquotew I don't blame him. I was really touched reading about John Lovetts and Phil's friendship. Yeah. Sean Hartman is now thirty five years old and a graphic designer, taking after his father. Bergen is thirty two and has a career in education. Both seem to be doing well despite all the tragedy they faced early in their lives. In twenty fifteen, Bergen attended the Saturday Night Live fortieth anniversary celebration special to honor her father. She said, quote, it's just heartwarming for me to see after all these years, that he is still remembered and admired. Her Instagram is public and I was able to see pictures of her.

1:27:33 She's stunning. She looks really happy and she was recently married. That's good. I'm so glad to hear that they're doing well. Rest in peace, Phil and Brnn. Phil Hartman, the Master of a Thousand Voices, had the gift of charisma and talent that only a handful of performers in each generation possess. Similar to legends like Jim Carrey and Robin Williams, Phil had the ability to slip effortlessly into any character and devate audiences and offer them and escape from the weight of their own struggles, if only for a moment. Phil was generous, sensible, and kind, grounded in a way that many great artists are not. But Phil's dedication to his work came at a great cost. He had little of himself to give where it mattered most, at home with his wife and children. Could Phil have saved Brinn, We'll never know, but she saw his attention and approval. Phil's legacy lives on in countless characters he brought to life and the joy and laughter he gave to so many.

1:28:32 After learning more about Phil Hartman, how do you feel about him now? Well, it is interesting because I didn't really know a lot about Phil Hartman other than his characters on TV and things like that. And you know, I think he was it just seemed like he was such a likable guy. It seemed like everyone loved him. It actually reminds me a lot of Robin Williams, like nobody really has a bad thing to say about him, But I do, at the same time understand, you know, after going through the story that he probably wasn't the partner, wasn't the best spouse. He was pretty wrapped up in his own in his own world. But that obviously doesn't excuse what Brynn did. But well, comparing him to Robin Williams, I think is poignant because they both gave so much. Yeah, and that takes a lot out of you. No one could be on twenty four hours a day, right, And sadly, you know, because he was such a good performer he had, he didn't have as much to give it home Yeah.

1:29:24 It kind of sense like they both had like this sadness inside of them. You know, they had this funny outward, you know, mask that they would put on for people, but deep down they were probably a little sad. Yeah, most comedians, you know do have that. Yeah. Phil almost quit Saturday Night Live once for the opportunity to be this sidekick of j Letto on the Tonight Show. Really, however, Ja Leto denies this. Who I can't even think who was Jay Leno's sidekick? Did he have a sidekick? I don't know, I never watched. I always prefer David Letterman j let And Phil was also offered the job of an announcer on The Prices Right, oh okay, which would be a pretty funny job for him to take. Phil wrote a dark comedy called Mister fix It that he wanted to star in. He most enjoyed being fully immersed in a character. He compared the mood of Mister fix It to beetlejuice. It was never made and it sits on a studio shelf somewhere in Hollywood.

1:30:25 I bet it's probably really funny. Phil's ultimate dream was to use Saturday Night Live as a jumping off point to write movies for himself and then star in them, and sadly he was never able to. Yeah, that's too bad. Before we go, we want to pay tribute to Lauren Michaels as Saturday Night Live celebrates its fiftieth season. Lauren has been at the Helm for all but five of those years. Did you know that he took a five year highda you know now that you. Say that, I remember he did, but yeah, I'd forgotten that. Lauren, like Phil is Canadian born in Toronto. Before he created Saturday Night Live, he worked for CBC Radio as a writer. In nineteen sixty, he moved to la to work as a writer for Rowan and Martin's Laughin and the Beautiful Philis Diller Show. Lauren appeared in the show during its first season, where he offered the Beatles. Sometimes I just say these things like I'm writing this actually for you, share my audience, and you know you're my love.

1:31:18 Rich loves the Beatles, no one. I don't know if we've talked about that before, but Lauren appeared on the show during the first season where he offered the Beatles three thousand dollars, a deliberately paltry sum to reunite on the show. He later increased his offer to thirty two hundred dollars, but the money was never claimed. According to an interview with John Lennon and Playboy magazine, Lennon and Paul McCartney were in New York City that night and wanted to see the show. They decided against it as it was too late to get there in time and they were both tired. This near reunion was the basis for the TV movie The Two of Us. On the November twentieth, nineteen seventy six show, musical guest George Harrison appeared, but Lauren told them told him that the offer was conditional on all four members of the group showing up.

1:32:07 That's really funny. Did you know that story? I knew the part of it where he made the offer, and that John and Paul had been hanging out in New York and talked about going down there. You imagine if they would have shot. Lauren also produced The Kids in the Hall and a show called The New Show. He left SNL in nineteen eighty informed his own production company, Broadway Video, and still continues to produce many shows, including The Tonight Show and The Jimmy Fallon Show and also The Late Show with Seth Myers. Lauren's production company also has a film division, and he has developed and produced many films by former Saturday Night Live cast members, including Mean Girls, Tommy Boy, and Wayne's World.

1:32:48 Lauren will celebrate his eightieth birthday on November seventeenth. Since he has no plans to retire, Wow, he is worth an estimated five hundred million dollars. That's it, five hundred million. I would have thought it would be more than that five hundred million. I mean, I know, five hundred millions a lot, but I would have thought more. It was just like a, I don't know. Yeah, he's had an amazing career. Though, Cana. It's insane to me, like he's been at the show almost the entire time, Yeah, for years, fifty years, Like the amount of egos that he has had to deal with and fires he had to put out. Yeah, last weekend, in preparation for this, we saw what was Saturday Night Saturday Night, and it was it was wild.

1:33:32 It was really good. Yeah, I mean it was good. Yeah. Not to not reveal it too many spoilers, but it was basically a movie about the first night that Saturday Night Live came on. Yeah, it's kind of like an episode of twenty four it's like in real time. I didn't know. I didn't. Yeah. Yeah, the movie opened like an hour and a half before Saturday Night Live. It's set to air for the first time, and it was It was really interesting. The casting I thought was brilliant. Yeah, it was really very I definitely recommend it. It was very frenetic, and sometimes I don't enjoy that. I think it took me a while to kind of settle into the pace of it. Yeah, sometimes things like that make me a little anxious, like watching The Bear on TV. Sometimes that that show can make me a little bit stressed out.

1:34:14 Yeah, it was. It was well done, though. Hey, how was your lunch today? My lunch was just fine. How was your lunch today? Oh it was a little lonely because you weren't here, So listeners, dear listeners. Last night, Rich said, oh, hey, I forgot to mention that I have a lunch date today. I was like, oh, okay, cool. He said he was meeting a colleague. I said, who is the colleague? And you've just acted slightly shady about it, and I instantly knew it was with a woman, even though you didn't tell me, and so you had a nice time. I did have a nice flowers. No, I did not bring her. I have so many questions. No, I did not pay. She was a colleague and I treated her as I would any colleague, male or f Okay, yes, I actually have one colleague that lives in the same area that we do. So, yeah, a nice lunch.

1:35:08 Well, I hope you guys have many more lives just together. I'm just kidding. I'm not a jealous person, and I know it was all above board. You were just kind of like you didn't lead with, oh, I'm having lunch with you know, Sally or whoever? Right, I know, it's just it is a little bit of an awkward situation, you know. But but I do. I do trust you. I know you do. Well. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Despite the tragic circumstances. It was a lot of fun to look up all these old clips and Phil was He just really was such a talented guy. Saturday Night Live holds a very special place in my heart. Yeah, same here. I've been watching it most. Of my life, and comedy is just it's what's going to get us through the hard times? And I remember, you know, in the darkest days of my life, you know, I always tried to laugh still and have a sense of humor.

1:36:00 So yeah, it's really important. Really grateful to have so many talented comedians out there that are doing their best and making us laugh. Yep, well, we hope we made it through the whole episode. We weren't sure if we should make this into two episodes, but we decided to just do it all in one. In an effort to save our sanity and give us slightly more free time, we have hired some writers. This episode was written by our friend Owen with Sorik. If you have a podcast or you need a writer for any reason, you can reach out to Owen. He is available. We will put his contact information in our show notes. He did a great job writing this episode with a little help from me. Yeah, thanks, Sollen.

1:36:40 The main source for this episode was a book called You Might Remember Me, The Life and Times of Phil Hartman, written by Mike Thomas. It was a great book, super interesting and informative. And also last night I was digging through clips and I found Phil's Saturday Night Live audition tape, which is great. We'll put that in our show notes too as source number one if anyone wants to watch that. But click around on YouTube. There's so many great Phil Hartman clips out there. Yeah, we mentioned it at the beginning of the episode, but just a reminder that we will have merch coming out soon, probably within the next couple of weeks. We'll have t shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, coffee mugs, a variety of things with I think really cute design them.

1:37:27 I think it's pretty cute. It's supposed to be us, just so you know. Yeah, So that'll be out probably by the end of November. If you want to order, you should be able to get anything in time for Christmas, and we will it will be available for international listeners as well. So yeah, very exciting. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about it too. Thank you all so much for your support, for your friendship, for your kind messages. We appreciate it so so much. The only reason that there is a podcast is because you keep listening and encouraging us and supporting us so sily. Thank you. Please rate, review, follow and subscribe, find us on social media, or send us an email at Lovemarykill at gmail dot com, and please consider supporting us on patreon dot com slash Lovemrykill.

1:38:14 We have one tier for five dollars a month for early ad free access and a monthly bonus episode until next time. Don't kill your wife. And don't kill your husband? Play us out, phil. Well, Sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine bona fide electrified six car monorail. What I say, monorail? What's it called? That's right, monorail? I hear those things are awfully loud. It glides as softly as a cloud. Is that a chance the track could pend? Not on your life, my Hindu friend? What about us? Brenda slobs? You'll be given cushy jobs? Were you sent here by the devil? No good, sir, I'm on the level.

1:38:56 The ring came off my pudding. Can take my penknife, My good man, I swear at Springfield's only choice. Thumb up your hands and raise your voice. What's it called? Once again? Matrios? To walk rack the broken Sorry mom? The mom spoken. Mono. Don't hey, homie, I can see your doodle. Shut up. Flanders