Joe Flaherty
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Joe Flaherty (June 21, 1941) is an Canadian-American comedian. He is best known for his work on SCTV.
Flaherty was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but moved to Chicago where he started his comedy career with the Second City Theater as Joe O'Flaherty. After seven years in Chicago, he emigrated to Toronto, Ontario 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 (the latter being a spoof of CBC newsman Lloyd Robertson), and station owner/manager Guy Caballero who goes around in a wheelchair simply for the respect therein.
Other memorable Flaherty characterizations included emotional talk show host Sammy Maudlin, seedy saxophonist Vic Hedges, aggressive elocution lecturer Norman Gorman, myopic public television host Hugh Betcha and "crazy as a snake" ex-convict Rocco.
Flaherty left the show in 1984.
Throughout his film career, Flaherty has appeared in a number of cult favourites, most notably playing the part of the Western Union postal worker who delivers Doc Brown's 70-year-old letter to Marty McFly in the climax of 1989's Back to the Future Part II. Younger audiences may know him best as the heckler who taunts Happy Gilmore with under-his-breath intonations of 'Jackass!' in the film of the same name.
In 1999, Flaherty joined the cast of Freaks and Geeks, an NBC hourlong dramedy in which he played Harold Weir, the irascible father of two teens. (He would often lecture them with cautionary tales concluding, "You know where he is now? He's dead!") Despite a dedicated cult following, the show only lasted one season. He makes appearances on the CBS show "The King of Queens" as Father McAndrew, Priest at the Heffernan's Church.
As of 2004, Flaherty is a member of the faculty at Humber College, where he teaches a comedy writing course. He is also on the program's Advisory Committee.
Discography
- Count Floyd (1982) (RCA)
Selected filmography
- Home on the Range (2004)
- National Security (2003)
- Slackers (2002)
- Detroit Rock City (1999)
- Happy Gilmore (1996)
- Stuart Saves His Family (1995)
- Who's Harry Crumb? (1989)
- Back to the Future Part II (1989)
- Innerspace (1987)
- One Crazy Summer (1986)
- Club Paradise (1986)
- Follow That Bird (1985)
- Stripes (1981)
- Heavy Metal (1981) (voice)
Trivia
Celebrities impersonated by Flaherty on SCTV include: Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, William F. Buckley, Jack Klugman, Robert Mitchum, Bing Crosby, Don Knotts, Yassir Arafat, Alistair Cooke, Slim Whitman, the corpse of Albert Schweitzer, Gregory Peck, Eddie Anderson (as 'Rochester'), Alan Alda, Elvis Presley, Hugh Beaumont, John Huston, Larry Fine, Pope Paul VI, Art Garfunkel, Broderick Crawford, Jacques Cousteau, Henry Fonda, Marcello Mastroianni, Sylvester Stallone, Paul Bradley, Aaron Copland, Dom DiMaggio, Dick Beddoes, Gavin MacLeod, Prince Philip, Tom Wolfe, Peter O'Toole, Salvador Dali and musician Paul Revere.
Quotations
As Charlton Heston: "Damn! When are they going to stop building these buildings so high that our ladders can't reach.... Conversely, when are we going to start using ladders that are tall enough to reach these buildings?!?"
External links
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