Tuesday night, Americans will vote on who will become the 47th president of the United States.
Dozens of Fake News teams from across North America will be adding their spin to this nail-biter of a story. On Monday, however, the only Canadian Fake News team previewing this historic occasion will be the men and women of This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Sure, the regulars at the anchor desk (Chris Wilson, Aba Amuquandoh, Mark Critch, Stacey McGunnigle and Trent McClellan) got the whole hair and makeup, Fox News-like photo shoot for the occasion. They are well aware what is at stake — not just with the fate of democracy as we know it, but also how all these photo perks will end immediately once the next Canadian election rolls around and Poilievre gets in.
In order to expand this special to a full hour (airing tonight at 8 p.m. ET on CBC and on-demand at CBC Gem), Peter McBain, who serves as executive producer for this 22 Minutes U.S. Election Special, went to his bench and sent three comedy correspondents across the border to take the pulse of the American electorate.
Updating their passports were Dan Dillabough, Clare Belford and Abdullah Usman, who criss-crossed the United States.
Dillabough, a dual citizen who was born in Louisiana, raised in St. John’s, Nfld., and now lives in Toronto, had an advantage heading into this assignment: he was able to vote. The American system, he reports, is like filling out an income tax form compared to the simple one “X” required in Canada.
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“I skimmed it very loosely,” he says, taking note of all the various propositions and down ballot races. “I left a lot of it blank to be honest.”
This is Dillabough’s third season on 22 Minutes as a writer and second as an on-air comedy corespondent. A funny sketch he wrote about Loblaws president Galen Weston Jr. getting pummelled with pricey fruit and vegetables from one of his grocery stores (shoppers were willing to pay his high prices just to aim at his noggin) helped Dillabough get a foot in the door of the 22 Minutes writers room.
The 32-year-old lists Monty Python and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as early comedy influences.
“My dad got me into odd British comedy at a foundational age and that kind of lit a fire under me.”
Dillabough’s assignments for the US Election Special included trips to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention as well as stops in San Francisco, New York, Washington, DC, and Michigan. The other correspondents, Belford and Usman, took America’s temperature in Nevada, Nebraska and Pennsylvania.
One of Dillabough’s assignment brought him face to face with a political comedy hero: filmmaker Michael Moore.
“There’s always a handful of flash points from early in your life that kind of put you on the path to being a politics junkie,” he says. “For me, a big one watching his documentaries and being like, this can be very interesting but also it can be approached in a funny, weird way.”
Getting Moore to help him fill out his American election ballot, therefore, was “surreal and cool, a full circle moment for me.”
Dillabough was once quickly shown the door at a Halifax rally featuring Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre. He says he found folks in Chicago and San Francisco were more ready to laugh at the kind of ambush comedy shtick 22 Minutes has practiced since Mary Walsh first strapped on a breastplate as Marg Delahunty.
“I didn’t feel any hostility,” says Dillabough. “We were very upfront about who we are and what we’re doing and we tell them we’re a TV show from Canada. It almost seems to clear the air a bit, even with people who might be a bit reluctant about the, quote-unquote, media.”
More jarring, he says, was the constant exposure to negative political ads which have aired throughout the election stateside. “It’s kind of disheartening and disgusting.”
Speaking of which, what if Trump wins? With polls showing the race against vice president Kamela Harris a dead heat, the former president still, despite it all, seems to have a shot.
Dillabough quickly dismisses the notion that a Trump victory might mean comedy gold for a satirical comedy sketch show.
“People say, Trump will make your job so much easier,” he says. “I feel like he’d make it harder because Trump is the joke.”
Dillabough pointed to Trump’s recent ramblings at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York. The ex-president turned it into a roast with some shocking, comedy club-level barbs aimed at his opponent as well as many in the room.
“Some of the jokes are pretty good, which was discouraging,” said Dillabough. “He can play an audience like a fiddle. I could not be farther away politically from the man, but some of those speeches you watch and like, damn, the guy is funny.”
This Hour Has 22 Minutes Has 44 Minutes: A Us Election Special premieres Monday, November 4 (tonight) at 8 p.m. ET.
