RIP Joe Flaherty, 82

Actor and comedian Joe Flaherty has died at the age of 82.


Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Flaherty served four years in the Air Force before in the Second City Theater under his real name, Joseph O'Flaherty. He dropped the O when he learned that someone with the same name was already listed with Actor's Equity.


After seven years in Chicago, Flaherty moved to Toronto. There he appeared on SCTV from 1976 - 1984 as a writer and performer. Among his more well know characters were Big Jim McBob of Farm Film Report, Count Floyd, and station owner Guy Caballero. After SCTV ended, 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 appeared in numerous films after SCTV including a crazed fan in Happy Gilmore, a Czech soldier whose guard shack gets blown up in Stripes and in Back to the Future Part II as a Western Union man. Flaherty reprised the BTTF role in Family Guy's "Something Something Dark Side" and in The Big Bang Theory.


Flaherty's other television appearances included Married With Children, Freaks and Geeks, The King of Queens, That 70's Show, and The Legend of Tarzan. His other film roles included Heavy Metal, One Crazy Summer, Detroit Rock City, Used Cars, 1941, and Innerspace.



Beginning in 2004, Flaherty was a member of the faculty at Humber College, where he taught a comedy-writing course.




Flaherty had been married for 22 years before getting divorced. He had two children, one of whom became an actress and writer. He had two brothers who were also comedy writers.


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

__________________
A hundred percent death proof.

Tomato Necromancy - now with Vitamin R!
https://www.movieforums.com/communit...ad.php?t=65140

Very funny guy...loved him in Happy Gilmore, RIP

Bummer. RIP Mr. Flaherty.

"This place is going to the rats!"

Still trying to figure out if it was Joe who was the Bass / Baritone of the 5 Neat Guys.

I just found out who he was, thanks to this thread. This whole scene is genius, mostly because of his presence and delivery.

__________________

The most quiet and humble of legends.

Ahhh, living here in Pittsburgh, I loved that Flaherty was a Pittsburgher. (I used to watch SCTV back when it was originally on the air.) One of the Count Floyd scary movie titles that always made me laugh was Bloodsucking Monkeys from West Mifflin, Pennsylvania... because that's a town here in Pittsburgh, of course.

In fact, one of my sons used to live in West Mifflin till about two years ago. I always drove carefully near his house, trying to avoid those bloodsucking monkeys... which, according to Count Floyd, left West Mifflin and made their way down to Sewickley, a nice suburb of Pittsburgh.

__________________
Linda's Author Website
Linda's Amazon Author page

Count Floyd was my favorite Joe Flaherty character. I loved how nothing ever went right for him.

He was a satire of these folks (referencing a long forgotten thread that never received a single response...) https://www.movieforums.com/communit...ad.php?t=51402

When all the kids were watching SNL I was watching SCTV and loving it. Joe Flaherty was one funny guy on that show who had a number of repeating characters. One day I'm going to track down and watch SCTV again.

Same here. I think I liked SCTV more and I think my parents preferred me watching that instead of SNL because SCTV was a bit less suggestive. Plus it had no break for musical guests - one part of SNL I never cared for (unless it was a performer or group I really liked).

If I remember correctly, SCTV was also on Saturday nights - I think it came on (another channel) after SNL (???)

I can't remember what channel it was originally on. I do remember being at my grandma's house bored and flipping through the channels, manually because it was an old TV without a remote...While doing this I came across this weirdly funny show that seemed to be another whole tv channel that I'd never seen before...I liked it and started watching it. I guess like you I didn't care for the musical guess much, though I did like Devo when they were on.

SCTV >>>> SNL (and, yes, this stands even if we are only counting the early years of SNL, and not all the (mostly) mountains of garbage that followed once the original cast left)

SCTV had lots of musical guests. It just wasn't a regular thing.

I know there were a couple different versions of the show.
Did the original show (or season) have musical guests or was it just skits?

I also didn't remember the show having guests - but apparently Robin Williams was a guest on the show...

I recently found out that America got a completely different version of the show than we did here in Canada. I'm not sure exactly what the differences were, but they are pretty substantial because when I saw what American's were watching (about a year ago, on a US DVD bootleg my friend had), the whole vibe of the thing felt totally different. For one, I believe you got an hour long show, where the original format was always half an hour here in Canada.


I remember not liking the changes enough to tell my friend to turn it off. I found it very jarring the whole way the sketches were strung together. Something important was missing, but I can't put my finger on what exactly that was.


Because I was loaded when he showed me, I probably had lots to say about it at the time. What I was grousing about though has been lost to the ages at this point. It was probably mean and loud though.

The show certainly had a complicated broadcast history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_City_Television

I think I'm slowly remembering what I didn't like about the American version. Something about a bunch of footage I had never seen before, probably a lot of Guy Caballero stuff, that connects some of the sketches. And it's shitty.


Or maybe I'm just loaded again and imagining all of this.

Loved Flaherty. Count Floyd and Guy Caballero were two of my favorites of his. I particularly liked this Guy sketch, especially the announcer at the first and how Guy reacts:



Godspeed, Joe.

__________________
"Miss Jean Louise, Mr. Arthur Radley."