'SCTV' cast member, 'Back to the Future' actor Joe Flaherty dies at 82
April 2 (UPI) -- Actor Joe Flaherty died Monday at age 82 after a brief illness. His daughter, Gudrun Flaherty, confirmed the news to the Toronto Star and Variety.
Flaherty was part of the cast of the sketch comedy series Second City Television which also featured Martin Short, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara and Rick Moranis. He re-teamed with Short as Count Floyd in live-action segments on Short's Ed Grimley cartoon.
A recognizable face in comedies from comedies like Stripes, Happy Gilmore, One Crazy Summer and Who's Harry Crumb, Flaherty was a regular on Freaks & Geeks, playing father to the main character teens played by Linda Cardellini and John Francis Daley.
Daley posted on X, formerly Twitter, "Joe Flaherty made me crack up so hard it ruined takes."
Flaherty's one scene in Back to the Future Part II was memorable. He plays a Western Union deliverer who brings a letter Doc Brown wrote in 1885 to Marty McFly in 1955, setting up the plot of Back to the Future Part III.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pa., on June 21, 1941, Flaherty joined Second City in Chicago and moved to Toronto when the comedy group established a Toronto chapter.
Flaherty's last credit was a 2014 Count Floyd short Nightlife. TV host Joe Bob Briggs recalled Flaherty donning Count Floyd costume for a 1999 episode of his TNT show, Monstervision.
Joe Flaherty was kind enough to fish out his old costume and reprise Count Floyd for one last time on one of my MonsterVision episodes and he was hilarious. One of the nicest guys ever. R.I.P. pic.twitter.com/iMX7ij4Rze— Joe Bob Briggs (@therealjoebob) April 2, 2024
"He was hilarious," Briggs wrote. "One of the nicest guys ever."
