AS A CANADIAN AND A GEN-XER IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT SCTV WAS FORMATIVE. Once I was able to understand just what the talented comedians who wrote and performed the show were trying to do – the country was a bit satire-challenged at the time – it became essential; the only sane reaction to showbiz culture and television I can imagine, then or now. And Joe Flaherty was at the centre of this genius troupe for every improbable season as it fought to stay on the air from 1976-1984.
My life was once filled with SCTV cast sightings, starting with the day in 1980 when John Candy came into the McDonalds where I was working as a cook. I photographed Joe Flaherty in 2004 for the free national daily, in the old Second City Playhouse on Peter Street (now the Bisha luxury hotel). As I wrote back then, the shoot was the usual rushed affair and the lighting was awful – the only spot I had with enough light was on the landing of a stairwell in the atrium of the theatre. But I did what I could (and Photoshop has done the rest, years later).
He was funny and friendly – as much as I would have hoped. Sometimes you’re disappointed when you meet someone who was important to you as a young person. Joe Flaherty wasn’t disappointing at all, and I wish in retrospect that I’d been a bit more ambitious with my portrait shoots back then, barely two or three years since I thought I’d retired from shooting. And now he’s gone, joining Harold Ramis and John Candy wherever comedians go. He apparently died on April Fool’s Day; I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have seen the humour in that.
Flaherty had a lot of great characters on SCTV – Count Floyd, Guy Caballero, Rocco, Sammy Maudlin – but my personal favorite was his role on the legendary one season sitcom Freaks & Geeks. His Harold Weir (“I had a friend who used to smoke. You know what he’s doing now? He’s DEAD. You think smoking makes you look cool? Let’s dig him up now and see how cool he looks.”) was a major parenting role model for me, alongside Robert Duvall in The Great Santini. You couldn’t help but perk up when he showed up for a cameo in a TV show or a movie – for at least a scene or two, things were going to get good. RIP Joe.
Rick McGinnis Photographs 