Joseph Flaherty is an American actor, writer and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedySCTV from 1976 to 1984, and as Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks, and for his role in Happy Gilmore.
Life and career
Joseph O'Flaherty was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of a production clerk at Westinghouse Electric. His father was of Irish heritage and his mother was of Italian descent. He moved to Chicago, where he started his comedy career with the Second City Theater as Joe O'Flaherty. 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, Count Floyd/Floyd Robertson, and station owner/manager Guy Caballero who goes around in a wheelchair only for respect. Other memorable Flaherty characterizations included emotional talk show host Sammy Maudlin, seedy saxophonist-private eye Vic Arpeggio, aggressive elocution lecturer Norman Gorman, myopic public television host Hugh Betcha, and "crazy as a snake" ex-convict Rocco. 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. Flaherty has appeared in a number of cult favorite films, for example, playing the part of the Western Unionpostal worker who delivers Doc Brown's 70-year-old letter to Marty McFly in Back to the FuturePart II, as well as the crazed fan yelling "jackass!" in Happy Gilmore. In season eight of Family Guy, Flaherty once again played the Western Union man in "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side". He likewise satirizes his Back to the Future Part II character in "The Big Bang Theory", this time playing a Vatican worker whose role is essentially identical to that of his Western Union character. In 1989, Flaherty played a guest role in Married... with Children in season-four episode "Tooth or Consequences", as a recently divorced dentist who must repair Al Bundy's teeth. During 1997–1998, Flaherty starred in the television adaptation of Police Academy 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 irascible father of two teens. Despite a dedicated cult following, the show only lasted one season. In the third episode, "Tricks and Treats", he dons a cheap vampire costume reminiscent of his "Count Floyd" character of the depicted era. He made appearances on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens as Father McAndrew, 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. Beginning in 2004, Flaherty was a member of the faculty at Humber College, where he taught a comedy-writing course. He was also on the program's advisory committee.
