Phil Hartman

Hartman came to comedy sideways. He took a graphic arts degree at Cal State Northridge and designed album covers for bands including Poco and America, then joined the Groundlings in 1975, where he helped Paul Reubens develop Pee-wee Herman. He co-wrote Pee-wee's Big Adventure and appeared as Captain Carl on Pee-wee's Playhouse. That is an unusual apprenticeship: he was a co-author of somebody else's character years before he was a star of his own.

Eight seasons on Saturday Night Live followed, from 1986. The Primetime Emmy on his record is for writing on a variety series rather than for performing, which fits the reputation. He was the cast member other people's sketches were built around, the one who could play the anchor, the announcer, the president or the pitchman and make the sketch legible enough for everyone else to be strange in front of.

The register he owned was institutional confidence: men whose warmth is entirely professional. Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz on The Simpsons are two versions of it, and Bill McNeal on NewsRadio is the finished article, a local newsreader with total self-belief and no evident interior life. The film work runs the same seam, Ted Maltin in Jingle All the Way, Phil Fimple in Small Soldiers, the park ranger in So I Married an Axe Murderer, Major Thorn in Sgt. Bilko, plus a large body of voice work from The Brave Little Toaster to Eek! The Cat.

He died in 1998, while NewsRadio was still running and Troy McClure was still turning up on Sunday nights.