Brother of the late Phil Hartman plans new film with unreleased recordings, illustrations

Comedic legend Phil Hartman died 25 years ago this month. His brother, Paul is hoping to make a new film about the Brantford native, using previously unreleased recordings and illustrations.

The man of a thousand voices, Brantford’s own Phil Hartman was a staple of The Simpsons, a star of Saturday Night Live, and played radio news anchor Bill McNeal in the hit 90s sitcom Newsradio.

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His comedic career was cut short after he was killed at his California home by his wife on May 28, 1998, before she died by suicide hours later.

Phil’s younger brother Paul has worked to honour his brother’s memory in the years since by getting him a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2012, and now hoping to earn him Hollywood’s top award, an Oscar.

He said, “It would be kind of the greatest thing that I could have ever done for Phil is get him an Oscar in the animated short category.”

Phil Hartman’s Flat TV will be animated by Ontario animator Brian Lemay, using sketches and recordings made by Phil just before he joined Saturday Night Live. Paul said, “Originally a voiceover demo that he did for animation. Phil wrote the whole thing, he did 99 per cent of the voices. It just seemed to me, wow, we could animate this.”

Paul is hoping to find funding to animate a 45-minute short film using the material as well as create a 45-minute documentary about his brother that would run together.

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Hamilton’s Tracy Lamourie is a co-executive producer on the project and was just at the Cannes Film Festival looking for backers. “If somebody jumps in on funding then it could be done as early as next year, it could be in theatres just a little bit after that.”

Paul is also looking at crowdfunding options to get the film made.