12 TV Moments Made Unintentionally Depressing By Real Life Events

The Season 4 finale of the classic sitcom NewsRadio is a non-canonical “what if” episode that places the cast on the Titanic. To let audiences know that this would be something different, the show opens with Phil Hartman breaking character to explain the premise in a typical Phil Hartman way. 

In the episode itself, as you’d expect from a Titanic storyline, basically every single character dies and the remaining two eat each other. Pretty depressing for a season finale, huh?

Hartman comes back at the end joined by the whole cast and crew, and in a lighthearted little moment he says, “It’s just a TV show. None of us really died!” He waves the audience goodnight with a smile. This ended up being Phil Hartman's final ever scene on television, and just 16 days after this aired, he was tragically murdered.

It’s supposed to be a fun finale with a little fourth wall breaking gag of Hartman being goofy, but now it’s so unintentionally sad. Here you’re watching one of the great comedic actors of the time cheerfully assuring you that nobody actually died, having no idea that he himself would be dead just two weeks later.