He is best known for his tenure as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1990 for which he was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards.

Outside of SNL, he starred as Jay Sherman in The Critic (1994–1995), has played various roles on The Simpsons (1991–), and has acted in numerous television shows such as Seinfeld, Friends, and NewsRadio.

He played Alan Dershowitz on Saturday Night Live and George Santos on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

[4] His paternal grandfather Feivel Ianculovici left Romania around 1914 and Anglicized his name to Phillip Lovitz after arriving in the United States.

[3] He graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama from UC Irvine in 1979, then studied acting with Tony Barr at the Film Actors Workshop.

[6] Lovitz's first stint as a regular in a situation comedy was that of Mole, an investigator for a New York City district attorney's office, in the short-lived 1985–86 series Foley Square, starring Margaret Colin.

One of his most notable SNL characters was "Tommy Flanagan, The Pathological Liar" who used an old Humphrey Bogart line "Yeah!

His other recurring characters and impersonations included Annoying Man, Master Thespian, Tonto, Mephistopheles, David Crosby, Harvey Fierstein, and Michael Dukakis.

In a 1986 SNL episode, he portrayed a virgin Trekkie, who was scripted to hang his head when asked by William Shatner if he had ever kissed a girl.

On February 15, 2015, on the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special, he was named by Steve Martin as one of the many SNL cast members who had died over the years, with the camera cutting to show Lovitz's reaction.

He has made several appearances on The Simpsons—as Marge's prom date Artie Ziff in "The Way We Was", the art teacher in "Brush with Greatness", theater director Llewellyn Sinclair and his sister who owned a daycare center in "A Streetcar Named Marge", and numerous other appearances, including the character of Jay Sherman in the episode "A Star Is Burns", a crossover with The Critic.

Between 1999 and 2000 Lovitz appeared in a $33 million advertising campaign that featured a series of television commercials promoting the Yellow Pages.

He has appeared on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre in Neil Simon's play The Dinner Party, taking over the lead role from Henry Winkler.

A premiere event called Podammit was held, in which Kevin Smith hosted a variety of six podcasts, including Plus One 3D with his wife, Jennifer Schwalbach; Hollywood Babble-On with Ralph Garman; and Jay & Silent Bob Get Old with Jason Mewes; as well as The ABCs of SNL with Lovitz himself, a six-episode This Is Your Life-style biographical interview about Lovitz's life and career.

[15] The Club periodically hosted other podcasts such as Rob Paulsen's Talkin' Toons (which subsequently left in October 2013).

[17] That same year he portrayed lawyer Alan Dershowitz on season 45 of Saturday Night Live with Adam Driver as the host playing Jeffrey Epstein.

[19] In a 2011 interview, Lovitz described his comedic influences, "When I was 13, I saw Woody Allen's movie Take The Money and Run, and I wanted to be a comedian.

I thought the movie was so great, and I'd never heard of Lenny, so I went to the record store because I wanted to hear the real guy.

Lovitz was involved in an intense feud with former NewsRadio costar Andy Dick concerning the death of their mutual friend Phil Hartman.