By Brian Landa
@BrianLandaLawyer
Sledge-O-Matic. Striped shirt with suspenders. Jaunty cap topping wild long hair. Signature mustache. Trademark Gallagher. Born Leo, but we know him best as Gallagher. A tortured genius with father issues. We see it a lot in the comedy world. They say comedy is tragedy plus time. And there is some truth to that.
Archival footage & new interviews tell the story of Gallagher, a new feature documentary that recently screened on the closing night of the 2025 Dallas International Film Festival. Flat animation and claymation are used as well, to spectacular effect. Director Josh Forbes, who was present for Q&A, apparently did everything one can to not become a subject of your “famous person” documentary. But there was no way around that, as Gallagher went from cooperative to wholly uncooperative throughout the years.
There are scenes of Josh (he’s a character here, so I will refer to him as Josh going forward) talking to Gallagher on the phone that are almost more painful than pulling teeth. Gallagher would probably groan at the ordinariness of that particular cliché. He was a poetic genius and was certainly underestimated by many. He always felt unappreciated. Especially at the end.
I’ve been a Gallagher fan since the 1980s. He did not like to revisit those times, even though they are the ones we all seem to remember most. Numerous Showtime specials. In fact, the very first comedy special on Showtime was a Gallagher. Toured constantly. I saw him live in 1988. I remember the exact night. It was a date that ended in absurdity. But more about that below.
He was all about human absurdity and said we can never truly understand humankind, so that’s why he enjoyed poking fun so much. But there was a seething anger beneath the surface and smashing things was part of the act. An act of violence at its core.
Endlessly creative with words and props, but “prop comic” was an insufficient description. Carrot Top is one of the interview subjects, and he was really trying to honor Gallagher with his prop comedy, not steal from a mentor, but Gallagher‘s ego would not allow anybody else to be successful in his presence.
Like one interview subject says, he loved to hear the sound of his own voice and seemed to enjoy the conflict. He was a happy go lucky guy, but the thing he’s most known for is violently smashing fruit. That’s an aggression reliever.
Brother Ron is very much a part of the story because he looked a lot like Gallagher in the classic years and even took on a persona of a “Gallagher Too.” At first, it was a gimmick and everybody knew he was not Leo, but then he kind of took the entire act over and it led to lawsuits and estrangement for many years. And then at one point, the father claimed he invented the sledgehammer bit. Family strife among the Gallaghers was a bit epic. Showbiz success bred some toxic ego here.
In order to revive his career, handlers found him a spot on Mark Maron’s hot “WTF” podcast. But when Maron tried to challenge some of his (then) current beliefs and actions, he ended the interview and walked out. This hotel room encounter is dramatically depicted with some fantastic animation, which was apparently done very quickly and economically. With documentaries, you do what you can to get it done.
Josh endured quite a bit of abuse along the way. And there was no way to avoid becoming a subject of his own film. This one has been more than a decade in the making. At one point, Gallagher quits altogether. But even interrupted, Josh journeys on.
When Josh couldn’t get material directly from Gallagher himself, he was able to get some from the kids, had an interesting encounter with brother Ron and one of the more open ex-wives, who had been a featured character on “M*A*S*H” was quite forthcoming about their time together.
At one point near the end of his life, after suffering five heart attacks, he called her and said that he would not be the person he was if he had not been with her at that particular time. She was moved by that because she had never heard him say anything like that during the time they were together in the 1970s.
He was not a very warm person with family (his son says it was almost like being “fathered” by a fictional character), though he was always jolly and smiling with the audiences. Even when he was leaning into some troublesome racism and homophobia, he was still smiling.
He was a grumpy Trumpy curmudgeon at the end. But I think it was somewhat by design. As one interview subject says, the times just left him behind. He took a certain pleasure in being an aggressively unpleasant aging hippie. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd has also been leaning into the confusing curmudgeon by design ethos.
Such beliefs could be rabblerousing or could be upbringing. The father was abusive when Leo was a child and Leo was the target of much of the abuse, even though there were other siblings.
Josh still has access to massive archives and is considering a companion piece or sequel. There is certainly enough material, although Gallagher repeatedly exclaimed that he’s not interesting enough to be the subject of a documentary. This proves there’s still plenty to tell.
The other review that I wrote for this festival acts sort of a companion piece. It is about another long haired gray beard aging hippie. Lovey, Willie Nelson‘s favorite roadie. Willie Nelson Presents: King of the Roadies. A few odd parallels. My favorite: Lovey was a professional ice dancer. Gallagher was a highly skilled roller skater. But their paths were quite different.
I’m glad my memories of his live show were great, even though the gal I went with, who I asked to the prom that night, said she was going with her brother. Human absurdity on display. That seemed odd at the time, but now it’s very common. And it made for a more memorable evening overall.
Tortured genius, poet, prop master and fruit destroyer. Problematic to the end. Real life is messy. Even messier than the front few rows at the end of a Gallagher show.
