Joe Flaherty hardly needs an introduction to most Canadians, but the SCTV veteran, who is conducting comedy classes in Winnipeg this weekend, says his name doesn't ring a bell for some students.

"There's always a few that don't have a clue who I am, they just want to learn comedy," Flaherty says.

Flaherty, his brother David Flaherty and Yuk Yuk's founder Mark Breslin planned to hold Humber College sketch and standup comedy workshops in Winnipeg April 5 and 6, but were grounded by an ice storm that shut down Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

David Flaherty says most of the budding comics who signed up for the workshops were able to reschedule and join the trio at the Fairmont Hotel this weekend.

Joe, who played dad Harold Weir in cult-hit but ratings poor NBC series Freaks and Geeks in 1999-2000, starred in recent feature National Security and occasionally appears on U.S. cablenet Comedy Central as Jiminy Glick's half-brother Clay on Prime Time Glick. But he's best known in Canada for his SCTV roles as Count Floyd, mawkish talk-show host Sammy Maudlin, TV news anchor Floyd Robertson and station owner Guy Caballero.

Born in Pittsburgh and raised in Toronto, Flaherty lived in Los Angeles before joining Humber College's School of Comedy last year, after shooting a pilot for The WB that never made it to air.

He says he'd love to do another sitcom -- it's easy work and the hours and money are good -- but there aren't many good roles to be had and he skipped the annual round of pilot auditions altogether this spring.

"I hate it, I hate going out for auditions, and a lot of them are cattle calls," he says. "A lot of (the producers) are so young they don't even know what the hell you've done."

He says the comedy workshops are fun, but he sticks to teaching rather than performing with the students.

"I've been tempted to get up there a couple of times and join in, but I generally don't," he says, adding comedy courses didn't exist when he got into the business.

"I certainly would have liked something like this because the only way to learn is through working, which means you've gotta get a job somewhere."


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