Raye Birk

Raye Birk born May 27 1943 Flint Michigan is an American film and television actor best known for playing the role of Pahpshmir in the first and last of the Naked Gun movies He was the main villain in Naked Gun 3313 The Final Insult He has also starred in Due South as the terrorist Francis Bolt in the Episodes All the Queens Horses Red White and Blue Call of the Wild Part One and Call of the Wild Part Two He also had roles in the XFiles and Babylon 5 His other film credits include roles in Best Defense 1984 Amazon Women on the Moon 1987 Throw Momma from the Train 1987 Doc Hollywood 1991 and Star Trek Insurrection 1998 In addition to these roles he had a frequently occurring role as the assistant principal on The Wonder Years starting with the pilot episode when he had a conference with Kevin Arnolds parents for throwing food in the cafeteria While generally antagonist a more sympathetic role on the show was seen in the award winning episode Goodbye where he confides in Kevin that he is Kevins new math teacher as Kevins hardnosed algebra teacher has just died He was also on a pair of Home Improvement episodes as one of Tims poker buddies Raye appeared in several episodes on the TV series Night Court He appeared twice on The Golden Girls both times playing a wedding caterer Furthermore in 1985 1986 and 1992 he appeared on three episodes of Cheers as Walt Twitchell a mailman who got into minor altercations with Cliff Clavin Birk reprised the role of Twitchell in a 2002 episode of the Cheers spinoff series Frasier in which the title character played by Kelsey Grammer returned to Boston and reacquainted himself with old friends from the bar He played a recurring role on Coach as university band director Riley Pringle from 1989 to 1993 He also appeared in an episode of Mr Belvedere as an accordion player In 20042008 he played Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis Raye has been married to his wife Candace Barrett for 41 years They have one son Joshua who is a professor of medieval history