 |
| Joe Flaherty as Guy Caballero, Count Floyd, and Floyd Robertson |
I've posted a depressing number of obituaries here over the last seven months—for Allan Asherman, David McCallum, Marty Krofft, Norman Lear, Charles Dierkop, Richard Lewis, Ron Harper, and Barbara Rush—and today's dispatch adds another name to that sad roster: Joe Flaherty.
My life-long love for absurdist humor can be traced back to a few sources: Mad Magazine, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Saturday Night Live, and Second City Television, or SCTV.
In 1981, NBC—looking for a replacement for their late-night Friday concert show, The Midnight Special—slipped a Candian comedy import, Second City Television, into the timeslot.
At the time, I was already on the lookout for something to tickle my funny bone. Saturday Night Live had just said goodbye to its original cast and creator/producer Lorne Michaels after five seasons, and the early episodes I'd seen from season six weren't very promising.
ABC's Fridays had shown initial promise as an alternative to SNL, but its quality varied so much from week to week that I'd already given up on it by 1981.
SCTV, on the other hand, was hilarious right from the start and only seemed to get better each week. Much like SNL's original Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players, SCTV boasted a superb line of comic actors: Eugene Levy, John Candy, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Andrea Martin, and Joe Flaherty.
SCTV stalwarts: Levy, Candy, Thomas, Moranis, O'Hara, Flaherty, and Martin.
Flaherty created a bevy of original characters for SCTV: station owner Guy Caballero, horror-host vampire Count Floyd, talk show host Sammy Maudlin, and news anchor Floyd Robertson—not to mention his hilarious celebrity impersonations like Bing Crosby.
I suppose it was Flaherty's performance as Count Floyd that most endeared me to him. Having grown up with a local horror-host of my own, I just loved it when the Count exited his coffin to introduce a schlocky fright film like "Dr. Tongue's House of Cats."
It takes a lot to stand out among a cast of comedy pros, but Joe Flaherty's SCTV performances—much like those of Phil Hartman on SNL— were always pitch-perfect and hilarious. Fellow cast-member Martin Short referred to Flaherty as the show's anchor.
 |
| Mr. and Mrs. Weir |
Fifteen years later, when he was cast on NBC's Freaks and Geeks, Flaherty got to riff on his Count Floyd character during their Halloween episode. For this SCTV fan, those appearances as the grumpy but loveable Mr. Weir were usually the highlight of any episode.
Life has its share of ups and downs—sometimes more of the latter—so it's important to laugh when we can. Whenever I needed a chuckle most, Joe Flaherty always delivered the goods.
You can read his New York Times obituary here.
There's more to come in the next dispatch.
©2024 SummitCityScribe