FIRST Impressions
Frank Caliendo on television, fame and life as a touring comedian.
You may not recognize Frank Caliendo by name, but you’ve almost certainly seen his face. Born in Chicago and raised in Waukesha, Wis., the 34-year-old comedian has arguably become the most successful impressionist since Rich Little and is famous for his impersonations of celebrities ranging from President George W. Bush and Jay Leno to Dr. Phil and his signature impression, John Madden. These skills have earned him gigs as a cast member on “MADtv,” a recurring guest on “FOX NflSunday” and, most recently, his own sketch comedy show, “Frank TV.”
By Bret Love •
Photography by Thomas Delany Jr.
What were your early sources of comedic inspiration?
“I always liked standup comedy. I was a big ‘Saturday Night Live’ fan and loved guys like Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman in high school. I watched guys like Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi all the way back in grade school. Then there was Robin Williams, and old-school guys like Jonathan Winters. My dad was kinda goofy, too, but I didn’t really have any personal reasons for getting into comedy. I was kind of a quiet kid and didn’t really get into comedy until I was in college at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.”
Were you a class clown in school?
“For a little bit in high school, but I never got in trouble because of it. I started making jokes around eighth grade or so, but I was always careful to watch whether the teacher was getting mad or not.”
When did you first realize your talent for doing impressions? Which were your first ones?
“I’ve been doing little impressions of my teachers and friends my whole life. It was only in college, during my freshman year at University of Wisconsin-Parkside, that I tried doing some celebrity impressions at work. People were laughing so hard; that was the first time I thought about doing comedy professionally. The first clear impression I did was Jay Leno, then a little bit later I added people like Robin Williams, Tony Danza, Jack Nicholson, William Shatner and all those guys.”
What was the impetus when you actually tried doing standup for the first time?
“I think the real world made me decide to try it. Why go into the real world if you can do comedy? I graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism and wanted to go into TV, but I didn’t want to start out in a small city and have to work my way up all those years. So I thought, ‘Why not give comedy a try?’ It worked, and I was moving up right away. I just felt like I had to take a chance, because I didn’t want to work a real job for four or five dollars an hour. Of course, I’ve been working 10 times as hard ever since.”
What, in your eyes, makes a good subject for an impression? Do you look for specific traits?
“Somebody has to be unique and have a distinctive cadence to his or her voice. They have to be well known enough to appeal to different audience demographics, because everything is so segmented nowadays. That’s why I started doing Charles Barkley— he’s all over the place with his commercials and stuff. You do a sports impression or a soap opera actor impression, and there’s only gonna be so many people who are gonna get it. But if you do somebody who’s in the news or a politician like current or former presidents, everybody gets it. Then you can throw in somebody like Bill Walton, who’s a little more ‘out there.’”
What’s the process you go through to really nail an impression?
“I don’t really do anything specific anymore. I used to look in the mirror so I could see what I was doing, but now I just kinda hope I can figure it out. I’ll watch or listen to something on the Internet, but it’s mostly just about trying it out during my standup set here and there. The only process I really do these days is to say the alphabet to try to get the tone, pitch and cadence of the person’s voice right. Once you have that stuff, the vocabulary of what they say and their own personal dialect, a few of those elements can make it work.”
Coming from the stage, how did you get your breakthrough gig on “MADtv?”
“Well, I was on a TV show before that, called ‘Hype,’ which was a sketch show on the WB that was supposed to be sort of like ‘Frank TV.’ When ‘Hype’ got cancelled, I went straight to ‘MADtv.’ I’d met with the ‘MADtv’ producers before I started doing ‘Hype,’ so I didn’t even have to audition the second time around. Two to three years later I started doing the ‘Fox NflSunday’ stuff, and talking to Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw, and those guys exposed me to a much bigger audience.”
Was there any fear involved when you stepped out on your own to star in “Frank TV” for TBS?
The show is pretty much all you. “Nah, I went in and pitched it to them. Listen, I look at it this way: Most shows are gonna fail anyway, and everybody forgets about the shows that fail over time and you get another chance. So I wasn’t worried about that.”
What are the best and worst things about life on the road as a touring comedian?
“Well, it’s a little bit different for me now because I usually just go [into a city] and do one night. Being away from my wife and kids stinks, but I’m only doing theaters now. In the last few years, when I was doing clubs, I’d be gone for four days at one club, working all day doing interviews at TV stations and on the radio. That was a lot of work. Now, I may be gone for a Friday and Saturday, but the trips are a lot shorter, so it works out well.”
How are you treated when you go back to Wisconsin now that you’re famous?
“Most of my family still lives there, but I’m usually only there for a short time and I kinda sneak around so I don’t get noticed too much. Sometimes people will [stop me on the streets], but I mostly get that in airports nowadays. They’ll ask me to sign autographs or do an impression, but most people are pretty polite about it.”
