Timothy Patrick Herlihy (born October 9, 1966) is an American screen actor, film producer, screenwriter, and Broadway musical bookwriter.
Films written or produced by Herlihy have grossed over $3 billion at the worldwide box office. He frequently collaborates with Adam Sandler, who played a Saturday Night Live character, "The Herlihy Boy", in honor of Tim Herlihy.
While double majoring in accounting and international business at New York University, he roomed with Sandler in the Brittany Hall dormitory. When Sandler began doing stand-up comedy during their sophomore year, Herlihy wrote material for Sandler.
After graduating in 1988, Herlihy spent a year as an accountant at Ernst & Young in Manhattan before attending the New York University School of Law. Herlihy continued to collaborate with Sandler, who had recently been hired at SNL in 1990. After law school, Herlihy worked as a securities lawyer at Cahill Gordon & Reindel in Lower Manhattan.
While working as an attorney, Herlihy continued collaborating with Sandler on SNL sketches, including Canteen Boy. They also began working on a screenplay for Billy Madison, which Herlihy wrote at his law firm late at night.
Herlihy was hired as a writer at Saturday Night Live in March 1994. He remained at the show after Sandler was let go in 1995 (Herlihy was one of only five writers to return the next season), rising to head writer (1996-97) and eventually producer (1997-1999). He wrote many political sketches leading up to the 1996 Presidential election, and co-wrote (with Tina Fey) the 1999 sketch in which Monica Lewinsky appeared. He left the show in later that year to focus on film work.
He wrote or co-wrote the Sandler films Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), The Wedding Singer (1998), The Waterboy (1998), Big Daddy (1999) and Pixels (2015).
In 1999, Herlihy appeared in the film Big Daddy as the "Singing Kangaroo," and sang "The Kangaroo Song" on the film's soundtrack.
Herlihy played a bartender in both The Wedding Singer (1998) and The Ridiculous 6 (2015).
Herlihy has written for and or performed on three of Sandler's comedy albums: They're All Gonna Laugh at You! (1993), What the Hell Happened to Me? (1996) and Shhh...Don't Tell (2004).
In 2006, Herlihy co-wrote the book and two songs for a Broadway musical version of The Wedding Singer. It opened at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on April 27, 2006 and closed on December 31, 2006 after 284 performances. Herlihy's and Chad Beguelin's book was nominated for the 2006 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, and the show itself was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical. It subsequently has had many international productions.
In 2015, Herlihy co-wrote (with Sandler) the Western comedy film The Ridiculous 6, distributed by Netflix. Despite being universally panned by critics, on January 6, 2016, it was announced by Netflix that the film had been viewed more times in 30 days than any other movie in Netflix history.
Herlihy returned to Saturday Night Live for one episode in 2015, to work with Tracy Morgan on a recurring sketch they had created in the 1990s, Brian Fellow's Safari Planet. The episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding writing, and won a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy/Variety sketch series.
His son, Martin, part of the comedy trio Please Don't Destroy, joined the writing staff of SNL in 2021 alongside his two comedy partners.
SNL Career[]
- 1994-1999: Writer (first episode: March 12, 1994; left the show after: November 20, 1999)