Captain P. Harris

A Reference to Captain Phil Harris who recently passed away, featured on the Discovery channel show The Deadliest Catch, a show portraying real life events aboard fishing vessels during the Alaskan king crab season in the Bering Sea. Phil Harris was captain of the Cornelia Marie

For those complaining about "bad taste," keep in mind that in some cases, Blizzard is required to gain some sort of likeness rights, and I'm positive that by now, either Discovery Channel or the family of Phil Harris would have contacted Blizzard by now to have this character removed, if they had felt this to be in poor taste or shedding negative light on Phil. That being said, try not to get so upset over such things and just enjoy the game.

I would also like to point out that aside from name (and I guess if you count the fact he's "undead") there is no other connection to the late captain. He doesn't seem to say anything and the quest text, when you pick it up and turn it in, doesn't make any reference to the show or the man except for the fact you must kill the in-game character, so I do not believe that Blizzard intended on making a mockery of his name.

... for a fairly lame "Get it? He's a boat captain that's dead!" joke is in poor taste.

Some of us don't have poor enough taste to have thought it was that kind of joke. Considering how long Cataclysm was in development, and how recently Phil Harris died, it seems quite likely he was added to the game before he was dead. Either way, the NPC was likely named as a tribute, not a joke.