Joseph O'Flaherty was born on June 21, 1941, in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eldest of seven children. His father was a production clerk at
Westinghouse Electric and of Irish heritage and his mother was of Italian descent. Flaherty served in the
United States Air Force for four years, before becoming involved in dramatic theatre. He dropped the "O" in his birth name as there was another Joseph O'Flaherty registered with
Actors Equity. 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/
Floyd Robertson, and station owner/manager
Guy Caballero, who goes around in a
wheelchair only for respect and undeserved sympathy. 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 (and can be seen in the home video,
Grace Under Pressure Tour). Flaherty appeared in a number of cult-favorite films, including an appearance as a
Western Union postal worker who delivers
Doc Brown's 70-year-old letter to
Marty McFly in
Back to the Future Part II (1989), as well as the crazed heckler Donald Floyd yelling "Jackass!" who secretly works for antagonist Shooter McGavin in
Happy Gilmore (1996). In
season eight of
Family Guy, Flaherty once again played the Western Union man in "
Something, Something, Something, Dark Side". Flaherty plays a Vatican Messenger in the
Family Guy season 9 episode "The Big Bang Theory". In 1989, he played a guest role in
Married... with Children in the season-four episode "Tooth or Consequences", as a dentist who must repair Al Bundy's teeth. During 1997–1998, Flaherty starred in the television adaptation of
Police Academy (
Police Academy: The Series) 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 "imperfect perfect" father of two teens. Despite a dedicated cult following, the show only lasted one season. Flaherty made appearances on the
CBS sitcom
The King of Queens as Father McAndrew, the 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. In 2018, Flaherty participated in
a SCTV cast reunion at Toronto's
Elgin Theatre filmed by
Martin Scorsese for a yet to be released
Netflix special on SCTV. ==Personal life and death==