You Might Remember Me The Life and Times of Phil Hartman (15 page)

Robert Smigel, who began writing for
SNL
in 1985, recalls that when Michaels returned that year as executive producer after a five-year hiatus (in the process taking back control from executive producer Dick Ebersol, who had been charged with fixing the fractured show after a lame 1980–81 season), he was “looking for people who were outside the box. A guy who’s going to pick Robert Downey and Randy Quaid and Anthony Michael Hall,” Smigel says of the ’85–’86 season’s individually talented but creatively dysfunctional cast members, “is not really looking for Phil Hartman in that particular year. And he was taking a risk. I think maybe Lorne wanted to challenge himself.”

Michaels, though, says Phil could have joined
SNL
if he wanted to. But he opted out. “He wasn’t passed over. It was his decision.” Not only was Phil still embroiled in his divorce from Lisa at the time, Michaels recalls, he simply didn’t want to leave his comfortable life in L.A. for the bustle of New York.

As per Michaels’s edict (after a thorough housecleaning and the threat of cancellation), starting the following season (1985–86) there would be more emphasis on ensemble work, and no actor would earn more than another. He also planned to revive the “live” component that he believed had diminished under Ebersol by way of more prerecorded material. “It became a television show,” Michaels has said of
SNL
during his extended absence. “There’s nothing wrong with it being a television show, but I think it was something more.”

*   *   *

Back in Pee-wee land, Phil and his original Roxy cohorts—namely, Lynne Stewart, John Paragon, and John Moody—were relegated to minor on-camera roles in
Big Adventure
(Phil played a reporter, Paragon a movie lot actor, Stewart a Mother Superior, and Moody a bus clerk). But Phil’s part in the movie’s creation and subsequent box office success (it grossed $4.5 million on opening weekend—enough to cover the $4 million budget—and has to date earned ten times that amount) cannot be underestimated. True, by mid-August of 1985, when
Big Adventure
was showing on nearly 900 screens across America, Pee-wee’s profile had risen considerably. And, true, budding director Tim Burton (then little-known but mega-talented) and composer Danny Elfman (ditto) imparted their respective magic touches. But according to Varhol,
Big Adventure
“couldn’t have happened without [Phil] for a number of reasons.” His writing was chief among them.

As Phil told radio broadcaster Howard Stern in 1992, “I wrote a lot of the scenes.” Of course, since
Big Adventure
was a team effort, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint which ones are Phil’s alone. But Varhol remembers at least a few portions that bear his co-scribe’s distinctive stamp. Besides the inspired description of Pee-wee’s tricked-out bike, Varhol says some of Phil’s other contributions include snappy action synopses (e.g., “Pee-wee stands pie-eyed and slack-jawed”) and part of Pee-wee’s now-famous “rebel” monologue through which he coolly informs his love interest, “There’s a lotta things about me you don’t know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn’t understand. Things you couldn’t understand. Things you shouldn’t understand.”

In late October 1985, Phil and Paragon accompanied Reubens to New York, where Pee-wee was slated to host
Saturday Night Live
on November 3. Reubens and his manager, Richard Abramson, had gotten the OK from Lorne Michaels for Phil and Paragon to serve as additional writers. The arrangement was and remains atypical. In contracts finalized afterwards, Paragon and Phil were each paid $1,750 for their contributions. “Pee-wee was really hot and we hadn’t done the show yet,” Abramson says. “When they said they wanted him to host, I told Lorne that it would be very difficult for other people to write for Pee-wee. It was a specific character; it wasn’t like bringing Justin Timberlake on and you could write a few things and put him in different roles. Pee-wee had a specific voice.”

On their first day at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, in a conference room that lacked enough chairs for all who were present, Michaels introduced Phil, Paragon, and Reubens to
SNL
’s writers. Being that many of them were Pee-wee Herman fans and the show was Thanksgiving-themed (easy to parody), smiles and laughter abounded. Paragon, for one, felt welcome despite his outsider status. Al Franken and Tom Davis were particularly laid-back and helpful, he says. And Michaels was extremely involved from day one. His TV baby had almost died during his time away, and public opinion was at an all-time low. Critics were especially unkind—one famous headline declared “Saturday Night Dead!”—and ratings reflected the show’s shrinking viewership and diminished status. “Many of the cast members and writers seemed nervous,” Paragon says, “like they had all been threatened before. I was told that Lorne had a way of punishing and rewarding. He would pull a sketch or replace an actor in a sketch, depending on whether or not they pleased him—like Captain Bligh. My experience was that he was totally hands on and a control freak. There was no doubt about whose show it was.”

After seeing Phil in action—he was funny in writing meetings and easy to work with—Michaels expressed his admiration to Abramson. Abramson told him, in effect, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

*   *   *

In preceding months, Phil’s career had begun to gain some traction. Since signing with William Morris, he’d landed minor voice parts on a short-lived TV series titled
The Dukes,
Tom Selleck’s hit show
Magnum P.I.
, and an instantly forgettable cartoon called
The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
A few small movie roles also came his way, albeit in generally panned flicks such as
Last Resort
(with Charles Grodin),
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
(with Whoopi Goldberg) and
Three Amigos!
(shot in Simi Valley, not far from Phil’s home, with Steve Martin, Martin Short, Chevy Chase, and Lovitz). Phil’s biggest score during that stretch was the animated television series
Dennis the Menace,
for which he voiced George Wilson (as an approximation of Paul Ford’s Colonel John T. Hall from
The Phil Silvers Show,
aka
Sgt. Bilko
), Dennis’s father Henry Mitchell, and his dog Ruff. He did sixty-five episodes in all. “It was one of those ironic things,” Phil told CNN host Larry King in 1993, “where as soon as I quit acting I started getting every part I went up for … Because I was relaxed. A casting director and producer can smell the desperation of someone who really needs the job, and I started going on auditions and not caring if I got it. I was relaxed, natural.”

Reluctantly, Phil also committed to reprising his Kap’n Karl role—renamed, less quirkily, Captain Carl—for a Saturday morning kids’ series Reubens was doing for CBS called
Pee-wee’s Playhouse.
The colorful and frenetic program’s cast also included Stewart (back as Miss Yvonne), Paragon as the voice of Pterri and Jambi (“Mekka lekka hi mekka hiney ho!”), future big-screen luminary Laurence Fishburne as Cowboy Curtis, and future
Law & Order
veteran S. Epatha Merkerson as Reba the mail lady. The eye-catching set—populated by Chairry the talking chair, Globey the talking globe, Magic Screen, Mr. Kite, and a gaggle of wonderfully odd-looking puppets—was once again designed by Gary Panter (with assists from Wayne White, Ric Heitzman, and many others). Zippy original sound track music came courtesy of award-winning songsmiths Mark Mothersbaugh (of the techno-pop band Devo), Todd Rundgren, and Elfman, among others. Pop star Cyndi Lauper (credited as “Ellen Shaw”) sang the
Playhouse
theme song.

“I really had to twist Phil’s arm to get him to do the first season in New York,” says Abramson, who produced
Playhouse
with Reubens. “He really didn’t feel like doing it. I think he felt left out of [
Big Adventure
], but he did create this character [Captain Carl] and he did really well with it. So he came to New York and we all had a good time.” In late July or early August, not long after Phil finished work on the Blake Edwards comedy
Blind Date,
he and Varhol flew east together and headed to the
Playhouse
set. When they arrived, tension and temperatures were high. “Both of us couldn’t wait to get out of there,” Varhol says. “It was hot as hell. And Paul was in a very bad mood. Rich Abramson was pretty nuts at the time, too.” Over the next few months, Phil also became increasingly perturbed—with Reubens in particular. “There clearly was resentment on both sides,” Abramson says. “Phil was more of a B-type personality. But there came a point when he was like, ‘Why isn’t Paul treating me better?’”

*   *   *

The break that had come Phil’s way a couple of months prior, in mid-1986, made everything else—the bit parts in movies, the cartoons, the commercials,
Big Adventure, Playhouse
—seem small by comparison: another chance to audition for
Saturday Night Live.
In a nearly eleven-minute set, he earned rare laughs in a typically laugh-less setting (Michaels, in particular, is known to be nearly mirthless when spectating) while showcasing an array of characters. Donning a jauntily cocked fedora and lighting a cigarette, he led off with Chick Hazard (“My life was rapidly going down the porcelain convenience. I could barely afford cigarettes, whiskey, and food. Looked like the food was gonna have to go.”) Next came a fast-talking commercial pitchman followed by impersonations of Jack Benny, John Wayne, and Jack Nicholson—as done by “the funniest man in Germany, Gunter Johann.” He then did a brief bit about marijuana use among teens before Phil slipped on his dark Nicholson shades and launched into a Jack-enhanced scene from
Hamlet.

He also brought with him a list of sketch suggestions, such as
Playhouse 90
—“ninety-second dramas that are very intense. Like, ‘Johnny! Johnny! The cops are here!’ ‘Shut up! Shut up, will ya! I’m tryin’ to think!’” A “permutation” of the old radio-turned-television program
You Are There,
in which news anchor Walter Cronkite and others hosted from the sites of historical events, was another. He also wished to mock “obnoxious”
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
host Robin Leach. Among impressions Phil hoped to perform on
SNL
were Peter Graves, William Shatner, and Charlton Heston. “I can also do any dialect,” he announced confidently. “Go ahead, call out a dialect.” So someone yelled a request: “French.” Phil: “I don’t do that.” But he did—over-the-top French and Greek. Then he and Lovitz swapped lines as Master Sgt. Ernest G. Bilko (Lovitz) and Col. John T. Hall (Phil). An old Groundlings sketch was resurrected as well, with Lovitz playing a movie mogul named Harry and Phil a washed-up actor named Johnny.

Harry:
You’re through! Do you hear me? Through! You’ll never work in this town again! Your life is finished!

Johnny:
What’s the word on the street?

*   *   *

“I remember Lorne saying, ‘He’s been in the Groundlings eleven years. Don’t you think there’s a reason why?’ Lovitz recalled in
The New York Times.
“I told Lorne, ‘If you like me, you’ve got to like him. He’s better than me. He’s a genius.’” Laraine Newman offered high praise as well, telling Michaels that Phil had “the talent of Danny [Aykroyd] without the drama. You can’t go wrong.” It came as something of a shock to those who knew him, then—particularly in light of his career frustrations—that Phil was deeply ambivalent when
SNL
called with an offer. He was settled in L.A., writing screenplays, living quietly in Sherman Oaks. Being famous or merely better known would change his life drastically. Plus—and this was significant—he half-dreaded moving to New York and diving into
SNL
’s well-chronicled shark tank. “Phil was very laid-back,” Lovitz once explained. “He wasn’t competitive.” Julia Sweeney, who joined
SNL
in 1990, has said that his reluctance may have stemmed in part from age concerns. Phil would be thirty-eight at the start of his first
SNL
season, from a few to a dozen or more years older than his fellow cast members and writers. “I think he struggled with that,” Sweeney theorized, “feeling like maybe it was too late or something.” But after speaking with the famously flamboyant and straight-shooting producer Joel Silver, who reportedly told Phil he was nuts to pass on this chance of a lifetime, Phil accepted the job. Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan awaited his arrival. “I always thought he was coming,” Michaels says, “so perhaps the agony of his decision was overplayed.”

Chapter 9

Phil as Frankenstein with Jon Lovitz (Tonto) and Kevin Nealon (Tarzan),
SNL
, December 16, 1989. (Photo by NBCU Photo Bank)

Soon after Phil accepted the offer to join
SNL
, he called his Groundlings mates Craig Strong and Randy Bennett to tell them he could no longer spend time on a project they’d all been working to mount in New York: an Off-Broadway play starring Chick Hazard. The show—titled
The Greenwich Villains
—was to be set in the late 1940s “Red Scare” era, and fund-raising efforts had already brought in around $25,000 from family and friends. New initiatives, they hoped, would raise substantially more. But now Phil had to focus on the highest-profile gig of his career, which meant putting the kibosh on Chick’s debut off the Great White Way. Then again, it was never a done deal—not even close. Financial problems stymied it from the start. “We had given up hope,” Bennett says. “No one could afford to lose this money.” Fortunately, Phil had a solution. As Bennett and Strong remember it, when he sold the rights for a Chick Hazard film to Universal, Phil insisted that his play investors be reimbursed as part of the deal. “This was Phil being a real gentleman,” Strong says of a bold move that could have scared off Universal. “He stood up and said, ‘I owe it to these people. They’ve invested in me and I want them to get their money back.’” Adds Bennett, “That’s unheard of in Hollywood. And we were so moved.” Unfortunately, as Phil himself admitted, he lacked the industry clout to get his Chick film made, and so it sat and sits on the proverbial shelf.