Joseph Montgomery Hackett is the owner and manager of Sandpiper Air on Nantucket. He was played by actor Tim Daly.
Bio
Joe Hackett is the oldest son of Donald Hackett and Mae Hackett, and the other brother of Brian Hackett. The most mature of the two Hackett brothers, he is highly responsible and sometimes mildly neurotic while being compulsively neat to the point he might have mild OCD. Long interested in planes and flight, he starts the one-plane airline Sandpiper Air, which he on Nantucket Island. He has a brother named Brian, who is two years younger than him.
Joe Hackett has spent his entire life on Nantucket since he was twelve. His family moved to 427 Madaket Way (possibly from Boston), just before his mother, Mae Hackett ran out on the family. He thought she left because he broke the antique pitcher given to her by her mother. That day, he made a new pitcher at school out of clay, but his mother had left before he arrived home to give it to her.
From an early age Joe always had a dream to become a pilot. Shortly thereafter, a new family moved in next door to the Hacketts, and their daughter Helen Chapel would soon become a lifelong friend to both Brian and Joe. They attended Siasconset High School where Joe was an excellent athlete and star pitcher for the baseball team. It was during this time that Joe met and fell in love with Carol. However, Joe and Helen remained forever close. After a spring dance, when Helen was only asked on a date because of a bet, he walked her home and she cried on his shoulder. He told her, "Any guy who would hurt a girl like you has got to be a real jerk."
Both Joe and Brian pursued Carol through high school, little knowing her diva personality, but it was Joe who finally won her in the end. Joe envisioned a future which involved his airline where Joe would handle all the flying while Carol handled the ground terminal details. Unfortunately, Carol left Joe just before they were wed, and ran off with his Brian. It sent him into a tailspin of desperation and almost killed him. About to give up on his dreams, he was on a flight to Hawaii when he met Fay Cochran and heard her story of woe, Being drunk, she said the two of them should begin their own business together. Joe quit the charter company he worked for, and the two of them built Sandpiper Air came into business.
Six years after creating Sandpiper air, Brian wandered into Joe's life for the reading of their father's will, revealing that Carol had left him. Joe hired Brian as an extra pilot, but his casual and laid-back lifestyle continued to antagonize him. About a year later, Joe was grounded by the FAA for hypertension (high blood pressure), and his competitor Roy Biggins, the owner of Aeromass tried buying him out, but Brian came in at the last minute and helped him to save the business.
Trivia
- As a child, he hated his aunt Sarah, saying she smelled like Play-doh.
- Joe has a birthmark on his left thigh.
- Joe used to keep issues of Playboy in a secret compartment by one of the floor boards in his and Brian's bedroom wall. With them, he kept all the letters his brother had written to Captain Kangaroo that Joe claimed to have mailed.
- On the day the Hacketts moved into their new house on Madaket Way, they met their neighbor Helen Chapel, Joe's future wife. His first words to her were "Boy, are you fat!"
- His childhood dream was to be the most famous baseball player ever. He even dreamed that the island would be renamed Nanhackett.
- Joe cannot sleep at night if his shoes in the closet are touching.
- Joe loves fly fishing and collecting all sorts of airplane memorabilia.
- Joe considers Peter Jennings to be the handsomest man in the world.
- As a friendship gift, before they ever dated, Joe gave Helen his mother's cameo pin to make up for a fight they had.
- Joe considers his most negative quality to be that he is a control freak.
- He has his own filing system.
- Joe thinks eyes are the sexiest body part.
- Off-season jobs: Delivers pizza from Boston to rich lawyer on Nantucket named Mr. Pike.
- Nicknames include: Ace (created by Alex Lambert), Pretty Boy, Pope (Brian calls him this sometimes), Joey-Bear (used by Sandy Cooper).
- Good Luck Charm: A pair of plastic wings given to him by a stewardess when he was a child
- In the Episode Titled "The Love Life and Times of Joe and Helen" it was revealed at the End of the Episode Joe and Helen have a Grandaughter and Grandson to unknown parents that never were mentioned in the series or did Helen get pregnant.
