Frank Caliendo is one of the most successful and recognized impersonators in all of comedy. He got his big break with Fox Sports more than a decade ago and became a Sunday go-to during pregame shows doing spot-on impressions of renowned broadcasters Pat Summerall and John Madden.
That stint led to Caliendo getting his own show, "Frank TV" on TNT, and eventually becoming a regular fixture on ESPN doing a variety of sports impressions that ranged from ESPN personalities to Hall of Famers like Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal.
Caliendo, who will be at The Comedy Catch on Wednesday for two shows (tickets only remain for the 9:30 p.m. show), took some time with ESPN 105.1 the Zone last week to talk about his craft, his school days and some of his favorite impressions.
Q: After all these years, do you have a favorite impression?
A: I think picking a favorite would be like picking your favorite child, which would be my daughter at this point. No, I couldn't pick one. I like impressions for different reasons. The Charles Barkley, because I can just say some things to people. They will be like, "Do some Charles Barkley" and I'll be like, "You a knucklehead." So I can make a comment or have some fun with the person.
Whenever someone says, "Do some John Madden," I have a reflex, and this is how I start out the shows now. The reflex is "Ha, Ha, BOOM!" and that seems to be enough.
It's a lot of fun, and when I get to meet these guys, that's probably the greatest thing for me. When I met John Madden, it was at the Super Bowl in Dallas. He's standing next to Jimmy Johnson and he's talking to these kids, and I didn't want to bother him. Jimmy taps John on the shoulder, and the look on his face was like when Shaggy and Scooby would see the bad guy pop out of the barrel I made his grandkids laugh, so he was all smiles.
Q: Madden is the guy you will forever be linked with, and there was always this urban legend that he detested your impression of him. Is that not the case? Did he wind up liking it?
A: (Our meeting) was like 10 or 15 years later. He never met me (while I was doing the impression), and I knew that he didn't like me because it was the truth. Network executives said he didn't like it and stuff, but when he met me, he saw who I kind of was. Most of the time people are worried about it hurting their bottom line, their ability to be spokespeople and stuff like that. But like Charles Barkley is one of the guys who's like, "Frank, you gotta keep doing me." I ask why's that? "Because every time you do it, I end up making more money."
Charles is one of my favorite people in the world because he's honest. Years ago when he was still playing basketball, he said, "I am not a role model," and then he went out and proved it constantly.
Q: When you first started doing this, you pretty much had a conversation between Summerall and Madden. Now there's so much more.
A: Right now, what I'm doing is talking around the impressions so much more in the act. It's more about meeting the people and some of the stories. By the end of the show, it's a lot more of greatest-hits kind of stuff and doing a bunch of voices back and forth. In the last five, six minutes of the show, after I've basically done what I wanted to do, I say who has some stuff that they know that I do that they want to hear, and I'll start firing off random impressions. So people, I think that if people are paying money, they should get to see some of the stuff they really love.
Frank Caliendo (Photo from FrankCaliendo.com)Q: The last time LeBron James was deciding on his next team, you made headlines reading his famous letter on ESPN Radio as Morgan Freeman. How did you come up with that?
A: You know what, it was crazy I was there at the (ESPN) campus to even be there that day. I had done some things before reading as Morgan Freeman. Luck, I guess, is the real answer. There was not a lot of planning. I thought about it two days before and called the producer and he said, "Yeah, that might work." The funny thing is that Greenie and Golic were laughing in the background, and I couldn't tell. They were holding back their laughter, but I didn't know it until after that they were dancing around and giggling in the background because they knew it was going to be big. When I watched it back later, it was funnier watching them than hearing me read it.
Q: How big of a springboard was "Mike & Mike" and ESPN for you?
A: When I went over there and started doing all the ESPN stuff, I had been at Fox for nine years, and the last four were really repetitive When I went to ESPN I wanted to do something completely different, and they asked, "Do you do anyone from ESPN?" And I said, "I have to be honest with you. I don't know if there's anyone to do." And then I started watching ESPN more closely for that reason and realized there are more characters on ESPN than there are on Cartoon Network.
I just started working on those impressions because everyone in that world is super-famous. At ESPN, it was about doing the Mel Kipers, the Ron Jaworskis, the Adam Schefters and finding their character. With Adam Schefter, he's always so precise and careful not give you wrong information, so the way he words things is like, "According to my sources, at this particular time, it appears there's a chance, that this may happen in the future someday with uneven precisity - if that's even a word." Adam is so precise I once texted Adam "Where you at?" and this is how precise he was: "I am at the doctor's office, three chairs over from the right looking at a magazine."
Q: Were you a class clown growing up, and did you ever get in trouble for impersonating the teachers or principal?
A: I was very quiet up until about sixth grade, and as I got into high school I started to be a little bit of a smart-alec. I didn't really get in trouble because I could read the teacher as far as the audience goes. Mr. Christianson was our U.S. history and geography teacher, and he knew I knew nothing about maps and stuff like that. And he'd say, "Here's our map expert, Mr. Caliendo. Please come and show us where the United States of America is." And I'd point to blue, and he'd say "Sit down, Mr. Caliendo. We've had enough."
Q: What is the hardest impersonation challenge you've taken on, and has there ever been one you just worked and worked and worked and had to punt on it?
A: There are thousands of impressions I'm no good at. I just do the ones I can get pretty decently or I can make a cartoon version of them that makes it funny. So that's really where it's at. The hardest one? It took me a really long time to get George W. Bush, and that's one I'm actually known for. I just realized (pause) that you (pause) have to (pause) forget what you're talking about. Sometimes it's about finding the cadence. President Obama was very similar where I finally realized that what he does is talk slow at the beginning and speed it up at the end. It's always a 1 and a 2 and a 3 and 4,5,6,7.
Q: People do like to hear the impersonations, and it's great that you open it to suggestions at your shows. What are you like on the street when people ask for random impersonations?
A: I usually do the reflective John Madden thing, the "Ha, Ha, BOOM" thing. But it's a lot better now than when my show was on during the baseball playoffs in 2007 and they were running commercials between every inning, and sometimes somebody would be sliding into second base and you'd see my face on the bag. ... To me as long as people are nice, it's always great. If it makes someone happy or makes someone's day, that's always a good thing. The thing that always surprises people is I'm way shorter than they think I'm going to be, and I've lost 40 or 50 pounds and people are like, "You look like you popped out of Frank Caliendo."
Q: What's your favorite sports team?
A: I have so many friends in sports, I'll go with what I grew up with and say the Green Bay Packers.
Q: The impersonation that took the longest to perfect?
A: Chris Berman, probably because it would always turn into Al Pacino.
Q: Did anyone from Saturday Night Live ever ask you to join their cast?
A: Years ago an executive at NBC did, but you want "SNL" to be the one that finds you, and if the network tries to put you on, it becomes a clash. So, yes, there was network talk.