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Joe Flaherty (born June 21, 1941) is an American-Canadian comedian
Comedian

A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain members of an audience, primarily by making them laughter. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy....
. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy
Sketch comedy

Sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comedic actors, either on stage or through an audio or/and visual medium such as broadcasting....
 SCTV
Second City Television

Second City Television was a Canada television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984....
, from 1976 to 1984. He is currently a judge on The Second City's Next Comedy Legend
The Second City's Next Comedy Legend

The Second City's Next Comedy Legend was a summer reality show that aired on Canada's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2007. Contestants improvisational comedy and create characters for their chance to win a spot on The Second City....
.

erty was born Joseph O'Flaherty in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania with a population of 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is 2,462,571....
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a U.S. state located in the Northeastern United States and Mid-Atlantic States regions of the United States....
, but moved to Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 where he started his comedy career with the Second City Theater as Joe O'Flaherty. After seven years in Chicago, he moved to Toronto, Ontario to help establish the Toronto Second City theatre troupe.






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Encyclopedia


Joe Flaherty (born June 21, 1941) is an American-Canadian comedian
Comedian

A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain members of an audience, primarily by making them laughter. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy....
. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy
Sketch comedy

Sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comedic actors, either on stage or through an audio or/and visual medium such as broadcasting....
 SCTV
Second City Television

Second City Television was a Canada television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984....
, from 1976 to 1984. He is currently a judge on The Second City's Next Comedy Legend
The Second City's Next Comedy Legend

The Second City's Next Comedy Legend was a summer reality show that aired on Canada's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2007. Contestants improvisational comedy and create characters for their chance to win a spot on The Second City....
.

Biography

Flaherty was born Joseph O'Flaherty in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania with a population of 312,819. The population of the seven-county metropolitan area is 2,462,571....
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , often colloquially referred to as PA by natives and Northeasterners, is a U.S. state located in the Northeastern United States and Mid-Atlantic States regions of the United States....
, but moved to Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
 where he started his comedy career with the Second City Theater as Joe O'Flaherty. After seven years in Chicago, he moved 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
Count Floyd

Count Floyd is a fictional character featured in television and played by comic actor Joe Flaherty. He is a fictional horror host in the tradition of TV hosts on local television in the United States and Canada....
/Floyd Robertson ( A bit of SCTV trivia here: Count Floyd, who was SCTV news anchorman Floyd Robertson in a vampire costume and cheesy make-up, is based on Bill Cardille, who Joe Flaherty watched as a kid growing up in Pittsburgh. Cardille did the weather for the local NBC station, and on weekends hosted the studio wrestling matches and as "Chilly Billy" hosted the Saturday night horror feature), and station owner/manager Guy Caballero
Guy Caballero

Guy Caballero is a fictional character on the television series Second City Television played by Second City alum Joe Flaherty. President and owner of the fictional SCTV network, Caballero usually appeared on the series to introduce various network programs, although he also occasionally got wrapped up in behind-the-scenes storylines....
 who goes around in a wheelchair
Wheelchair

A wheelchair is a wheeled mobility device in which the user sits. The device is propelled either manually or via various automated systems. Wheelchairs are used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness , injury, or disability....
 simply for the respect therein.

Other memorable Flaherty characterizations included emotional talk show host Sammy Maudlin, seedy saxophonist-private eye Vic Apeggio, aggressive elocution lecturer Norman Gorman, myopic public television host Hugh Betcha and "crazy as a snake" ex-convict Rocco.

SCTV ceased production in 1984.

Throughout his film career, Flaherty has appeared in a number of cult favorites, for example, playing the part of the Western Union
Western Union

The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is at Englewood, Colorado, and its international marketing and commercial services headquarters are in Montvale, New Jersey....
 postal worker who delivers Doc Brown's 70-year-old letter to Marty McFly
Marty McFly

Martin Seamus "Marty" McFly is a fictional character and the main protagonist in the Back to the Future trilogy motion picture trilogy, played by actor Michael J....
 in 1989's Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part II

Back to the Future Part II is a 1989 in film and a sequel to the 1985 in film Back to the Future. Like the previous film, it was directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale....
, as well as yelling "jackass!" in Happy Gilmore
Happy Gilmore

Happy Gilmore is a 1996 in film Cinema of the United States List of sports films comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan and starring Adam Sandler as the title character....
.

In 1999, Flaherty joined the cast of Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks

Freaks and Geeks is an United States television series, created by Paul Feig and Television producer by Judd Apatow, that aired on NBC during the 1999–2000 television season....
, an NBC hour-long dramedy in which he played Harold Weir, the irascible father of two teens. Despite a dedicated cult following, the show only lasted one season. He made appearances on the CBS
CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American radio network and television network. The name is derived from the initials of Columbia Broadcasting System, its former legal name....
 sitcom The King of Queens
The King of Queens

The King of Queens is an United States sitcom that ran for nine seasons, from 1998 to 2007.The show was produced by Hanley Productions and CBS Productions CBS Paramount Television in association with Columbia Pictures Television , Columbia TriStar Television , Sony Pictures Television and filmed at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver Cit...
 as Father McAndrew, priest at the Heffernan's church. He currently stars on the Bite TV
Bite TV

BiteTV is a Canada English language Category 2 specialty channel digital cable specialty channel. BiteTV is a youth oriented channel that broadcasts short film programming including comedy shorts, videography and gaming, animation, music, professional and amateur productions and more....
 original program called Uncle Joe's Cartoon Playhouse, and serves as a judge on the CBC program Second City's: Next Comedy Legend.

, Flaherty is a member of the faculty at Humber College
Humber College

Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning is a college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Humber provides over 350 programs including: bachelor?s degree, diploma, certificate, apprenticeship and postgraduate programs....
, where he teaches a comedy writing course. He is also on the program's Advisory Committee.

Flaherty's brothers are comedy writers David and Paul Flaherty (the latter being a writer on SCTV). He has a daughter and a son; Gudrun Flaherty and Gabriel Flaherty.

Discography

  • Count Floyd (1982) (RCA)


Filmography

  • Home on the Range
    Home on the Range (film)

    Home on the Range is a 2004 United States animated musical feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on April 2, 2004, and was named after the popular country music song "Home on the Range"....
     (2004)
  • National Security
    National Security (film)

    National Security is a 2003 in film cinema of the United States comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan and starring Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn....
     (2003)
  • Slackers (2002)
  • Detroit Rock City
    Detroit Rock City (film)

    Detroit Rock City is a 1999 cult film about four teenagers in a Kiss cover band who try to see their idols in Detroit in 1978. It takes its title from the Kiss song of Detroit Rock City ....
     (1999)
  • The Wrong Guy
    The Wrong Guy

    The Wrong Guy is a 1997 in film Cinema of Canada comedy film directed by David Steinberg. It was co-written by Dave Foley of The Kids in the Hall and Newsradio fame, along with David Anthony Higgins and Jay Kogen ....
     (1997)
  • Snowboard Academy
    Snowboard Academy

    Snowboard Academy is a 1996 independent comedy film, starring Corey Haim, Jim Varney and Brigitte Nielsen....
     (1996)
  • Happy Gilmore
    Happy Gilmore

    Happy Gilmore is a 1996 in film Cinema of the United States List of sports films comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan and starring Adam Sandler as the title character....
     (1996)
  • Stuart Saves His Family
    Stuart Saves His Family

    Stuart Saves His Family is a 1995 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, and based on a series of popular Saturday Night Live sketches from the early-to-mid 1990s....
     (1995)
  • Maniac Mansion
    Maniac Mansion (TV Series)

    Maniac Mansion is a Canada science fiction/family sitcom based on the Maniac Mansion.The series, produced by Alliance Atlantis for ABC Family in the United States and YTV in Canada, aired from 1990?1993 for three complete seasons....
     (1990) Dr. Fred Edison
  • Who's Harry Crumb?
    Who's Harry Crumb?

    Who's Harry Crumb? is a part comedy part detective mystery film featuring John Candy as the title character. The story revolves around the often incompetent, sometimes genius, private investigator Harry Crumb in his search for the kidnapping victim Jennifer Downing who is being held for ransom....
     (1989)
  • Back to the Future Part II
    Back to the Future Part II

    Back to the Future Part II is a 1989 in film and a sequel to the 1985 in film Back to the Future. Like the previous film, it was directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale....
     (1989)
  • Innerspace
    Innerspace

    Innerspace is a 1987 science fiction comedy film directed by Joe Dante and produced by Steven Spielberg. The film was inspired by the classic 1966 in film sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage....
     (1987)
  • One Crazy Summer
    One Crazy Summer

    One Crazy Summer is a 1986 in film comedy movie starring John Cusack, Demi Moore, Bob Goldthwait, Curtis Armstrong, and Joel Murray. The movie was written and directed by Savage Steve Holland....
     (1986)
  • Club Paradise
    Club Paradise

    Club Paradise is a 1986 in film comedy film directed by Harold Ramis starring Robin Williams, Peter O'Toole, and Jimmy Cliff. The film reunites director/cowriter Ramis with most of his Second City Television co-stars -- SCTV cast members Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Joe Flaherty, and Robin Duke play supporting roles in th...
     (1986)
  • Follow That Bird (1985)
  • Stripes
    Stripes (film)

    Stripes is a 1981 in film United States comedy film film starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Warren Oates, and P.J. Soles. The film director was Ivan Reitman....
     (1981)
  • Heavy Metal
    Heavy Metal (film)

    Heavy Metal is a Canada animated film from executive producer Leonard Mogel, who was also the publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. With Ivan Reitman producing and Gerald Potterton directing, the work was expedited by having several animation houses working simultaneously on different segments, including Cin?Groupe and Atkinson Film-Ar...
     (1981) (voice)
  • Used Cars (1980)
  • 1941
    1941 (film)

    1941 is a period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. It starred John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd and premiered in December 1979....
     (1979)


Characterizations

Celebrities impersonated by Flaherty on SCTV include: Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas is an Academy Award-nominated United States actor and film producer known for his cleft chin, his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once described as "sons of bitches"....
, Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston was an United States actor of film, theater and television.Heston is known for having played heroic roles, such as Moses in The Ten Commandments , Colonel George Taylor in Planet of the Apes , El Cid in El Cid , and Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur , for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor....
, William F. Buckley
William F. Buckley

William F. Buckley may refer to:*William Francis Buckley , U.S. Army officer and CIA operative held captive by Hezbollah*William Frank Buckley, Sr....
, Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman

Jacob Joachim "Jack" Klugman is an American television and film actor, known primarily for his roles in sitcoms, movies and television. He is best-known for his role as Tony Randall's sloppy roommate, Oscar Madison, in The Odd Couple shown on American television during the 1970s, and for his starring role in Quincy, M.E., in the 197...
, Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an Academy Award-nominated United States film actor, author, composer and singer. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s....
, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an United States popular singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death.One of the first multimedia stars, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby held a nearly unrivaled command of record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses....
, Don Knotts
Don Knotts

Jesse Donald Knotts was an United States comedy actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show , and as landlord Ralph Furley on the television sitcom Three's Company in the 1980s....
, Yassir Arafat, Alistair Cooke
Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke Order of the British Empire was a United Kingdom/ United States journalist and Presenter.Born in North West England and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, he became a naturalized United States citizen in later life, and lived in New York City with his family, reporting mainly for the BBC....
, Slim Whitman
Slim Whitman

Slim Whitman is an United States country music singer and songwriter. Whitman lives in Middleburg, Florida, Florida....
, the corpse of Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer was a German theology, musician, philosopher, and physician. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Elsass-Lothringen of the German Empire....
, Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck

Gregory Peck was an American film actor. He was one of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars, from the 1940s to the 1960s, and played important roles well into the 1990s....
, Eddie Anderson
Eddie Anderson (comedian)

Edmund Lincoln Anderson , often known as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, was an American comic actor who became famous playing "Rochester van Jones" , the valet to Jack Benny's eponymous title character on the long-running radio and television series The Jack Benny Program. Anderson also owned Burnt Cork, a Thoroughbred horse racing...
 (as 'Rochester'), Alan Alda
Alan Alda

Alan Alda is an Academy Award nominated, Emmy award-winning United States actor, television director and screenwriter. He is well known for his role as "Hawkeye Pierce" in the television series M*A*S*H ....
, Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was an United Statesn singer, actor, and musician. A cultural icon, he is commonly known simply as "Elvis", and is also sometimes referred to as "List of honorific titles in popular music" or "The King"....
, Hugh Beaumont
Hugh Beaumont (actor)

Eugene Hugh Beaumont was an United States actor and television director. He was also licensed to preach by the Methodist church. Beaumont is best known for his portrayal of Ward Cleaver, the husband of June Cleaver and the father of Wally Cleaver and Theodore Cleaver on the television series, Leave It to Beaver ....
, John Huston
John Huston

John Marcellus Huston was an United States film director and actor. He was known for directing the films, The Maltese Falcon , The Asphalt Jungle , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The African Queen , The Misfits , and The Man Who Would Be King ....
, Larry Fine
Larry Fine (actor)

Larry Fine was an American comedy and actor, who is best-known as a member of the comedy act The Three Stooges....
, Pope Paul VI
Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and monarch of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978....
, Art Garfunkel
Art Garfunkel

Arthur Ira "Art" Garfunkel is an United States singer, poet and actor, best known as half of the Grammy Award winning folk music duo Simon & Garfunkel....
, Broderick Crawford
Broderick Crawford

File:BroderickBurns.jpgWilliam Broderick Crawford was an American Academy Award-winning actor....
, Jacques Cousteau, Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda

Henry Jaynes Fonda was an United States Academy Awards-winning film and Stage actor, best known for his roles as plain-speaking idealists. Fonda's subtle, Naturalism acting style preceded by many years the popularization of method acting....
, Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Mastroianni

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was an Italians actor.During his career, Mastroianni had won or been nominated multiple times for awards such as Volpi Cup, Best Actor Award , BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, David di Donatello for Best Actor, Nastro d'Argento, Sant Jordi Award, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion...
, Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an 48th Academy Awards-nominated American actor, film director, film producer and screenwriter....
, Paul Bradley, Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American classical music composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as "the dean of American composers." Copland's music achieved a balance between modernism music and American folk styles....
, Dom DiMaggio
Dom DiMaggio

Dominic Paul DiMaggio is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Boston Red Sox from 1940 to 1953....
, Dick Beddoes, Gavin MacLeod
Gavin MacLeod

Gavin MacLeod is an United States actor most notable for playing Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat....
, Prince Philip, Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe

Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr. , known as Tom Wolfe, is a best-selling United States author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s....
, Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole

Peter Seamus O'Toole is an Irish people actor of stage and screen who achieved instant stardom in 1962 playing T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia ....
, Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dal? i Dom?nech, 1st Marquis of P?bol was a Spain Catalonia surrealist painter born in Figueres.Dal? was a skilled Technical drawing, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealism work....
, Gene Siskel
Gene Siskel

Eugene "Gene" Kal Siskel was an United States film critic. Alongside colleague Roger Ebert, he pioneered the classic review show, Siskel & Ebert at the Movies....
, and musician Paul Revere.

Flaherty appeared in a cameo in the deleted scenes from Anchorman as the salacious News Director who first employs Rita Genkin after her graduation from Syracuse University. He encourages her to wear a swimsuit to do the weather.

Flaherty appeared as an immigration mountie in the "Canadian Road Trip" episode of That 70's Show alongside fellow SCTV
Second City Television

Second City Television was a Canada television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984....
 member Dave Thomas.

  • In the third episode of Freaks and Geeks
    Freaks and Geeks

    Freaks and Geeks is an United States television series, created by Paul Feig and Television producer by Judd Apatow, that aired on NBC during the 1999–2000 television season....
    , "Tricks and Treats", he is dressed up as a vampire, a reference to his character Count Floyd
    Count Floyd

    Count Floyd is a fictional character featured in television and played by comic actor Joe Flaherty. He is a fictional horror host in the tradition of TV hosts on local television in the United States and Canada....
    .


External links