Yesterday was the ten year anniversary of the murder of Phil Hartman.

In May of 1998 I had just graduated college and my brother and I were driving out to California so I could start at Disney Animation, and he could do a summer internship at Disney.

Being on the road and immersed in our CD collection (yes, kids, this was pre-iPod) we didn't even hear about Hartman's death until we called our parents to check in. We were in some motel in the Southwest.

As teens in the early 1990s, my brother and I soaked up Saturday Night Live - back when it was Carvey, Myers, Farley, Sandler, Spade, Rock, Garofalo, Meadows ... and of course, Hartman.

He wasn't our favorite - that would have been Spade and Farley (me being Spade, my brother Farley) - but he was always so consistently funny. Precise.

He only got funnier as Bill McNeal on NewsRadio and as the duo Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure from The Simpsons. Those are some of my favorite shows.

It's too bad to wonder what more he could have done.