Joe Flaherty

American actor (1941–2024)

5 min read

Joseph Flaherty (né O'Flaherty, June 21, 1941 – April 1, 2024) was an American actor, writer, and comedian. In television, Flaherty starred on the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV from 1976 to 1984 (on which he also served as a writer, winning two Primetime Emmy Awards) and as Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks (1999). His film roles include the heckler in Happy Gilmore (1996).

Early life and career

Joseph O'Flaherty was born on June 21, 1941, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eldest of seven children. His father was a production clerk at Westinghouse Electric and of Irish heritage and his mother was of Italian descent.

Flaherty served in the United States Air Force for four years, before becoming involved in dramatic theatre.

Flaherty moved to Chicago, where he started his comedy career in 1969 with the Second City Theater as Joe O'Flaherty and would work with future stars such as John Belushi and Harold Ramis. He dropped the "O" in his birth name as there was another Joseph O'Flaherty registered with Actors Equity. Along with several other Second City performers, he began appearing on the National Lampoon Radio Hour from 1973 to 1974. After seven years in Chicago, he moved to Toronto to help establish the Toronto Second City theatre troupe. During those years, he was one of the original writer/performers on SCTV, where he spent eight years on the show, playing such characters as Big Jim McBob (of Farm Film Report fame), Count Floyd/Floyd Robertson, and station owner/manager Guy Caballero, who goes around in a wheelchair only for respect and undeserved sympathy.

SCTV ceased production in 1984. The same year, Flaherty played Count Floyd in a short film that was shown at concerts by the rock band Rush before the song "The Weapon", for their tour in support of Grace Under Pressure (and can be seen in the home video, Grace Under Pressure Tour).

In 1988, Flaherty reprised his Count Floyd character for live-action segments of the animated series The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, a character created and voiced by another SCTV alum, Martin Short.

Flaherty appeared in a number of cult-favorite films, including an appearance as a Western Union postal worker who delivers Doc Brown's 70-year-old letter to Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II (1989), as well as the crazed heckler Donald Floyd yelling "Jackass!" who secretly works for antagonist Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore (1996). In season eight of Family Guy, Flaherty once again played the Western Union man in "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side".

Flaherty plays a Vatican Messenger in the Family Guy season 9 episode "The Big Bang Theory". In 1989, he played a guest role in Married... with Children in the season-four episode "Tooth or Consequences", as a dentist who must repair Al Bundy's teeth. From 1990–93, Flaherty starred in The Family Channel series, Maniac Mansion.

During 1997–1998, Flaherty starred in the television adaptation of Police Academy (Police Academy: The Series) as Cmdt. Stuart Hefilfinger. The series lasted for only one season. In 1999, Flaherty joined the cast of Freaks and Geeks, an NBC hour-long dramedy set in the 1980–1981 academic year, in which he played Harold Weir, the "imperfect perfect" father of two teens. Despite a dedicated cult following, the show only lasted one season.

Flaherty made appearances on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens as Father McAndrew, the priest at the Heffernans' church. He starred on the Bite TV original program, Uncle Joe's Cartoon Playhouse, and served as a judge on the CBC program The Second City's Next Comedy Legend.

From 2001 to 2004, he had appeared in various Disney shows and films, including The Legend of Tarzan and Home on the Range.

In 2018, Flaherty participated in a SCTV cast reunion at Toronto's Elgin Theatre filmed by Martin Scorsese for a yet to be released Netflix special on SCTV.

Beginning in 2004, Flaherty was artist-in-residence at Humber College's School of Creative and Performing Arts in Toronto, where he taught a comedy writing course. He previously helped found the school's comedy writing and performance program serving as its artistic director. He was also on the program's advisory committee.

Personal life and death

Flaherty was married to Judith Dagley for 22 years until their divorce in 1996. They had two children, Gudrun, who is also an actress and writer, and Gabriel. His brothers, Paul (b. 1945) and Dave (1948–2017), were both comedy writers.

Flaherty died on April 1, 2024, at the age of 82, after a short illness.

Characterizations

Flaherty impersonated a number of celebrities, including Kirk Douglas, Richard Nixon, Gregory Peck, Alan Alda, Bing Crosby, Gavin McLeod, William F. Buckley Jr. and Elvis Presley.

Flaherty appeared in a cameo in the deleted scenes from Anchorman as the manager of a Texas television station and the boss of Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), one of the members of the station's news team. He also appeared as an immigration Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in the "Canadian Road Trip" episode of That '70s Show alongside fellow SCTV member Dave Thomas.

In the third episode of Freaks and Geeks, "Tricks and Treats", he is dressed up as a vampire, a reference to his character Count Floyd.