An Evening with the ‘Veep’ Cast

While the trouble-plagued Democratic National Convention was playing out in Philadelphia, one of the world’s biggest comedy festivals — Just For Laughs — was being held in Montreal.

As a result, there was a heavy dose of political comedy and discussion at this year’s event — and a surprising amount of the jokes and comments were at the expense of Hillary Clinton.

“Justice Scalia was a huge fan of ours.”

One of the events was a panel discussion of the HBO comedy series “Veep,” featuring Emmy-winning star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as well as supporting players Tony Hale and Timothy Simons and current showrunner David Mandel, all answering questions by famed theater and TV critic Frank Rich.

The night made it clear that Canadians are fascinated by American politics and willing to enjoy satirical jabs at the topic in general — and this election in particular.

“The biggest key to our success is the fact that the show never says what party Selina Meyer is in,” said Louis-Dreyfus, who plays the mishap-prone, potty-mouthed first female U.S. vice president. “That way, for six seasons we’ve had real congressmen and staffers from both parties saying how funny they think it is that we are making fun of the other guys. No one has any idea who were actually making fun of.”

That said, Louis-Dreyfus noted that she’s an ardent Hillary supporter and that Meyer is “the furthest thing from Hillary Clinton.”

Rich asked the cast and Mandel if they ever had any idea that an actual U.S. presidential election could become as much of a comical circus as the events pictured on the show, and Mandel had an intriguing answer ready.

“Of course no one could have known about the comedy magic of Trump and Bernie,” said Mandel. “But sometimes we had to wonder if those two were sitting at home taking notes, seeing if they could top what we came up with.”

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The panel also noted that, in keeping with its nonpartisan spirit, the show won’t take any shots at Trump.

They feel that the character of Jonah — who infamously melted down amid his own congressional campaign — had surprising comic parallels to some of Trump’s most controversial moments. But the most intriguing part of the evening’s discussion came when Louis-Dreyfus revealed that the show served as the linchpin for a close friendship between the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and his liberal colleague Elena Kagan.

“They used to get together weekly and watch or discuss every new episode together,” said Louis-Dreyfus. “Justice Scalia was a huge fan of ours, and if that doesn’t show how bipartisan our appeal is, nothing does.”

One other key, politically themed show in the fest is “Trump vs. Bernie,” in which rising comics James Adomian and Anthony Atamanuik portray the titular candidates. The show already experienced a successful run of several months in Los Angeles and played at Politicon, the L.A.-based comedy and politics convention held in late June.

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At several other shows and panels last week, both Trump and Clinton were the subjects of scathing jokes by comics who found Canada’s socialist-minded audiences most approved of Bernie Sanders. At a discussion between top liberal comics Lewis Black and Greg Proops called “Living in Fictional Times: A Political Conversation with Lewis Black,” Black focused some of his ire on the Clintons.

“One of the worst things about them is their sense of entitlement,”said Black, his voice bursting for with his trademark outrage. “They think they just deserve it, that it has to be handed to them because she’s been around so long. And that’s not right or healthy.”

But Black wasn’t done with Hillary yet. In a comment that drew gasps as well as laughter from the audience, he came up with his own take on why she is perpetually struggling in the polls.

“No one can relate to her putting up with what Bill put her through,” said Black. “People would relate to and respect her a lot more if she had dropped him long ago.”

And that wasn’t really a joke.