December 28, 2023 • 27 mins
Welcome to Episode 34 of The Vikings Tailgate presented by Continental Diamond. We're getting ready to ring in the new year and we thought it'd be best to end 2023 with an incredible guest. Frank Caliendo joins Cy Amundson to look back on the influence of the '85 Bears while growing up in Milwaukee, the intensity of the Packers/Vikings rivalry once Randy Moss arrived, working on FOX NFL Sunday, and the evolution of Frank's famous impressions. It's almost time to celebrate, so grab you party favors and enjoy Episode 34 of the Vikings Tailgate presented by Continental Diamond. Also, be sure to check out frankonstage.com for all of Frank Caliendo's upcoming tour dates.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
An award winning family owned business with exceptional diamonds, engagement rings,
jewelry and time pieces. Continental Diamond is the jeweler Minnesota
adores in Saint Louis Park or online at Continentaldiamond dot com. Hey, everybody,
welcome to another episode of the Tailgate. It's Packer Week.
(00:20):
It's a huge week, and we have an absolutely huge guest.
One of the icons of sports comedy. Frank Caliendo joins us,
talks a little Packers vikings. He's a lifelong Packers fan.
He talks Fox, his time there, stand up comedy, some
of his favorite sports memories. This was an incredible episode.
I think you guys are gonna love it. And hey,
(00:41):
check out his website Frank Onstage dot com. I know
he's gonna be at the Omaha Funnybones soon. He's coming
through the Midwest. Check out all his dates. Frank is
truly the best of the best, and this was a really,
really great episode. I hope you guys like it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Here, we gotta go there, we gotta go back some time.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It is Packer Week, everybody, and it is essentially a
do or die week for both teams. Joining us on
the Tailgate to discuss all things Packers and all things
end of the season. The great Frank kelliendo, Hey, buddy,
how are you doing quite well?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
It is? Listen? Is Packer Viking Week huge for you guys?
I mean, but growing up for me, it was there
was a big rivalry or a rivalry, but it was
Bears Packers. And I was born in Chicago but grew
up in Milwaukee. So we used to have our relatives
(01:49):
from Chicago would send us all the Bear stuff. So
we're talking eighty five bears, like six foot by four
foot posters, and we would hang them up because you know,
we got all the There was just better stuff at
that point from Chicago, right am. I uh, you know,
it's even amazing to even think about this now, and
(02:10):
people don't probably talk about this, but the way we
got the six foot by four foot posters. My uncle
used to trade in like his cigarette miles to get
like like you couldn't even imagine a professional sports league
being associated with cigarettes or anything like it was like
camel Bucks or something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was just gonna say, how many Marlborough miles for
that Jim McMahon poster.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, but these were the giant like and they were.
So we had the giant Bears posters and then the
four or five guys who didn't have mustaches on them,
we you know, drew them on there. But it was
interesting because that, you know, Packer fans, which I became
more of just after I was younger, because that eighty
five were just didn't go by my you know, Italian relatives,
and like Frank, you gotta support that. You gotta support
(02:56):
the Bears, you know, and then everybody's going the bear
shubbar and all that kind of stuff. So and at
the time it was like the Alindi and Fonte Packers
and you know, growing up and that it was Mkowski
and you know that crew before those different quarterbacks, before
we got too far of coming in.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, everybody before they hired Holm Grin and he hired
the greatest coaching staff in the history of professional football
right then.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The coaching tree that will live forever.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
This is a funny thing that Packer fans do, Frank,
and you I think you don't even intend it. Some
of them know, like when because Packers Week is everything
to Vikings fan, you hit it on the head and
there's nothing more hurtful than somebody you don't like not
thinking about you. So when a Packers fan is like,
(03:46):
is it a big deal to you? Because we think
about bears like that is a that is a fun
little jab to the side hard.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
No, no, no, I it was half on purpose and half
like real. It was like it was honest, but there
was I thought that might be the case. So that's
why I said it.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It worked.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It was that type of thing because I just I
don't I know, when it's that week. It seems like,
especially growing up, it was always bears, Bears, bears, bears, bears.
That's how anybody everybody wanted to beat. But I don't know.
Maybe it's because I mean, Minneapol is a bigger city
than Milwaukee, like oh, you know, especially Green Bay. But
(04:26):
Chicago is such a you know, I even do jokes
about Milwaukee. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago Milwaukee,
and people from Milwaukee hate that joke, but people in
Chicago cheer it like we know, we know, you know.
So I never get into that. I never understood geographical
rivalries so much. I guess I do get it with
I get it with the teams somewhat, but I'm also
(04:52):
it hurts when the Packers lose. I have that little
bit of emptiness inside of me, but it's I'm not
a like a crazed Packer fan. That's but I care.
I mean, I do care, and then yet now that
I live in Arizona, second team is kind of the Cardinals,
(05:12):
but it's hard to love them because they just feel
like they're always falling to pieces.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, they're like the Southeast Lions. You know, they'll have
a moment here and there. That's not that joke does
not work this year because of what's going on with
the team. But yeah, I can absolutely understand that. I
think the long history of the Bears Packers. You know,
I have Packer friends who they they take such pride
(05:39):
in the long, like horrible history. But since about ninety eight,
since Randy Moss came in and the Vikings Packers were
a little more it's us or you guys. It's us
or you guys. Yeah, that's I think. But I think
if you're talking about the history of football, you know
those two franchises, you know, they have their stamp on
the early days in a way that almost nobody else does.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
The Moss Vikings those years. Honestly, those were big. That
was big rivalry time. That was some of the most
I'd felt it, and I think it was because they
were such a star star player in Randy Moss, there's
you know, it's interesting the NFL markets more to the
team because it's the ultimate team game, right. I mean,
(06:23):
the NBA is all about single players. This player, that player,
and it's only five people on the court on each
side at once, and in the NFL, you've got everybody's
got their job. It is really that Belichick do your
job kind of mentality that if one little cog in
the machine falls apart or doesn't do his job, everything's gone.
(06:46):
So in the NBA you can have guys mess up,
it doesn't matter, especially if you have a superstar. They're
going to call a foul. Anyways.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You know, I know a lot of people know you
and know your career, but I don't know that everybody
knows that you started the way almost all Midwestern comedians
started in that you had to do and I know
this through some of our mutual friends. You had to
go on the road, you had to do one nighters,
you had to do the rooms in the Midwest. What
was it like because I've mentioned football on stage in
(07:16):
the Midwest doing small rooms as I was coming up,
and people's reaction you want to talk about tribalism. What
was it like doing Madden and doing some of these
impressions and talking sports coming up in a place where
people's sense of humor is Uh, it doesn't exist when
it comes to their favorite team.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Uh yeah, I don't know, Yeah, they definitely. People get
a little bit put up their guard on stuff they
I don't know. The Mad stuff I would do is
always neutral though, you know, it was always neutral and
with the EP like it was the stuff about Brett
farre you know, Brett Favre was the Brett Favre of
(07:57):
Brett Farmers. Without Brett Farves, you wouldn't have Brooks. That's
what that's all about. So they if you love Brett
Farv in Green Bay, people love that you're just talking about, right,
you know. If you're somewhere else, you're like, yeah, that's
all Madden talks about is Brett farb I'm sick of it.
So it works both ways as opposed to picking a
(08:20):
side of something. I mean, and usually you can get
a joke in here or there, you know, making fun
of somebody's team, but you better come back, you know,
quickly before somebody else says something. So I think the
mad stuff, you know, it was always pretty neutral going
through and doing all those one nighters. To me, it
(08:43):
was more of a problem. But people didn't know the
sports stuff that one, because when people first come out
to see you in him, you know, at comedy clubs,
they're not necessarily you're an attraction, you're not necessarily selling
the tickets, so they might just be somebody who's showing
up that night for a show. And if they're not
sports fans, they wouldn't even get that Madden part. So
(09:04):
that would be more the issue for me than anything
in those days.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
One thing, I appreciate you about you greatly, and we
have a mutual friend Mike McCrae. Yeah, and Mike McCrae,
who I've spent a lot of time with in my life.
He is he does what you do, which is you
guys are fantastic impressionists, but you are fantastic comedians, and
so the writing takes over and the impression is almost
(09:28):
I don't want to belittle it by saying that it's secondary,
but the impression lives within the larger concept of well
written comedy, and I think, you know, you're kind of
the height of that with Madden existing early and then
Madden's referencing a joke that you did, you know, kind
of his character flowing throughout your set. Was there a
moment where that happened? Was that intentional? Did it happen
(09:52):
on stage? Was there just one day where you're like,
holy shit, look like how did that come to be?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It actually came from jump cap Bo was watching me,
do you know Johnny Cappinara, Yeah, like I did it
once or something in the show. He's like, you're doing
the greatest color analyst of all time. Explain the jokes,
Explain every joke. I go, but yeah, but then if
you have to explain the joke, isn't the joke not
that good? Not if it's in your acting to explain it.
I joken good night people. I touched on it a
(10:21):
little bit, and then he was like, yeah, you should
just use that, and it really I wasn't even I
kind of did it as a callback, a single callback,
and he's like, no, don't just use it as a
little callback. Explain joke after joke after joke with Madden,
and as Madden got out of you know, being on TV,
I ended up I transitioning that same thing to Morgan Freeman.
(10:42):
I would just explain the jokes, narrate them as Morgan
Freeman if somebody didn't get them. So but that But
that's really the metamorphosis of Madden, like becoming so much
of my act there was because John Cappanio said to me,
just do it. Just got on now and do it.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's uh, it really is. It really is so smartly written,
you know the other thing. And I don't need to
turn this into a Flowers parade, but anybody, any of
us who've ever worked in the realm of comedy and
sports understand how difficult it is to exist there for
any long period of time. And the Fox pregame show
(11:23):
getting two and a half minutes to have to be funny,
be relevant, not make the league angry, not make the
sponsors angry, not make the station angry, and still have
people go that was funny enough to watch. That is
I believe that is the toughest spot in anything sports
(11:44):
humor related to be in that position.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And also you have to remember it's on tape. Yeah,
so you can't it's taped and done, so the best
things on the Fox pregame show to me, and the
same with the NBA and TNT. To be honest with you,
When things go wrong and they start ripping into each other,
I don't care how good the planned segment is. When
(12:09):
Terry Bradshaw completely forgets what he's talking about, or the
camera zooms into how we long to be smart or
whatever it might be, they're going to start ripping on
each other. And that's the fun part. That's the fun.
It's the camaraderie and chemistry. And when you come in
and you're a taped piece, you only get beginning and
(12:31):
end with them, so there's no interaction in between, and
there's no changing to feel how it's going. Some of
the best times I ever had were when I was
in studio with them, just goofing around with them, and
then I could go from thing to thing and do
some voices and do some jokes and make fun of them,
and they could make fun of me back, and it
was a back and forth. Remember when you're doing that
two to two and a half minutes you make you
(12:52):
made your decisions and you went with them, so there's
no there's no navigating. There's no new navigation there, which
is what you know, stand up comedy and immediate, the
immediacy of the reaction from the crowd you get. So
you don't you don't have any of that. That's a
tough thing about being on tape, and people don't even know, like,
(13:12):
you know, the average person doesn't realize you're on tape,
even though it looks completely different, looks more filmed, it
looks it's edited.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The let's throw it to Frank live. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, people just think that it's like na, that's there's
nothing live about that. So so yeah, I think I
do think it. And it's the sports mentality doing comedy
within a sports mentality, which is what are you doing
for me this week? Comedy in general and quote unquote
Hollywood is like they like this, think there is some
(13:43):
what have you done for me? You know lately, but
it's nowhere near the sports feeling of you the last
games over time for the next game, like it's we're
on the Cincinnati there's That's exactly what happens in sports
and the building that mentality is there throughout any sports, uh,
(14:03):
you know, sports entertainment especially that maybe not so much
of the new Younger podcast kind of stuff. But in
terms of the in terms of the old school TV stuff, yeah,
I mean it's those build and those buildings are based
on you know, John Madden and him ruling the roost
and whoever was there at the time, those old school
(14:26):
and they weren't old school at the time that you know, Fox,
it was super innovative. If you look most of the
things you see on sports television, if you go back
and see how much they were ripped, Fox would start popped.
The game just used to be the game on TV.
Nothing was on the screen, and now it's stats and
uh information, all sorts of stuff that was all Fox,
(14:50):
you know, and people sports writers in columns in like
USA Today and whatever they would rip Fox for chain.
We couldn't live without it. Now, now you sit there
with an iPad next to you or your phone looking
up things while you're watching the game. And I remember
a producer saying to me, I don't see people ever
doing that. I'm like, mean, neither, no way would you
(15:11):
sit there with your phone looking up stats while the
game's going on. And now I couldn't imagine not being
able to look stuff up.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
No one hates change more than people who've loved sports
for a really long time. It's like in golf, when
they first went I think Fox, maybe they had a
major or something, but they were like, we're gonna put
the tracker on the ball. We're gonna let you see
the tail off the ball, just like you do in
a video game. And I remember golf people were like,
that's the dumbest thing, and now you're right. Everything they do,
(15:43):
everything they push forward is you know, it eventually sticks.
Even some of the cameras.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
You go and watch a game live or you know,
a golf bets, you watch that live, and you're looking
for the stuff that's on the TV. You're looking for replays,
you're looking for things that you're going it's not the same.
That television product in the NFL is so good, Like
it's just it's it's a great product that you know,
I've gone to. I've been a bunch of Super Bowls,
(16:10):
quite a few, worked with some and it's even not
the same. It's you know, the live game if you're
it's really great when you're a die hard fan of
a team, I think that's great, But just watching other
games on TV, I would probably rather watch on TV personally.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
There's no Maybe the most important evolution of television sports,
in my opinion, is the first down line. I Like,
I'll be at a game and I'll be like, where's
the line? Where's the it is? How that impacts how
you view every single play is insane. It is It
(16:49):
is really really crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yep, totally absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
The you mentioned it is that that clash with you
were talking about how sports is a what have you
done for me lately? Type of situation. It is interesting
because that is the mentality. It's like, well you won
last week.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Look San Francisco VERSUS Baltimore. Yeah, if you look at that,
it's it's Brock Parties out of the running now and
Lamar Jackson is at the top. And you're like, yeah,
it was a prime time type of game and important,
a super important game. But if that game had happened
six weeks ago, nobody cares and you're on and you
(17:28):
have plenty of games to recoup on that, or if
you're Brock Party and if you're Lamar Jackson you have
time to build her up or down either way on
what you did last night. I mean, so such a
what happened this last game? Like that's so much more
important in terms of the you know, MVP voting or whatever,
(17:53):
you know whatever. I'm sure most of these players would
actually rather win the Super Bowl than care about MVP,
unless sure receiver and then you'd rather get MVP.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah that'd be I mean a, I think that's just
more your personality and be you want to be the
first wide receiver who's like, hey, I did it, I'm
the most valuable player.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
It's uh, it is really and when you compare it
to what you do, what we do, you know in
the art and stand up world, where your job is
just like I'm building this thing. I'm building this beautiful thing,
and sometimes it's not going to be great, but I'm
trying to build. So going in each week like you did,
you know to Fox, it's kind of an interesting clash
(18:35):
of art and sports where they're like, hey, you know
how you did the funniest thing we've ever seen last week? Yeah,
what's better this week? You're like, well, that's not how
jokes work at all. That was mine.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Right, There's there's peaks and valleys and you and the
sports will they they'll edit. They do this in TV
sometimes too, in like entertainment. They cut out all the
the air to just be punchline, punchline, punchline, punch. I
was important to have the setups. If you only have
punch on punch, you just look like you're trying too hard.
But my first year at Fox, I thought I was
going to be fired every week because I followed up
(19:08):
Jimmy Kimmel, and I thought every week it was just
a brutal The guys didn't know how to react because
I wasn't ripping on them, and we were doing an impression.
And we had this thing where I was working at
a bar. It was a bartender first, and then it
would be then I'd be throwing to myself doing it.
But it was very weird. But they wanted to and
they wanted to try and emulate what they did with
(19:29):
Kimmel on the couch. I was like, well, why don't
we just do a couch Like, well, that's already been done.
I'm like, well, I mean every talk show host sits
at a desk after doing a monologue, too, what's the difference?
And the whole thing is kind of speaking from the
band perspective, So it was too manufactured at the beginning
and then we started just getting into the sketch of
what it was the heart of a sketch, and it
(19:50):
just was easy, you know, it was it was easy
to just make that work more easier. I mean, whether
it was going to be good or bad. I mean
I looked at like one if I could get one
out of or to be really good, one out of
three to be pretty good, and the other two to
not be awful. I was fine with that because it's
hard doing it every weekend when when I'd come in,
(20:11):
especially after a few years, once the Internet and once
social media got going and podcasts. When Kimmel first did it,
it's hard because nobody else was doing anything like that.
Nobody was doing a comedy segment in sports. But as
soon as Twitter and all these other social media platforms came,
all the jokes had been done by the time the gin,
(20:33):
we'd shoot on Thursday, and then you could do new
jokes on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, even to the day out.
I had to shoot on Thursday, that was on tape
by Thursday to be air on Saturday. Things could change. Yeah,
Sometimes something weird would happen and they'd have to cut
something out because they're like, oh no, there was a
controversy here. I'm like, okay, whatever, but you just have
(20:54):
to deal with it, enroll with it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
When we when I was at ESPN and we were
doing Sports Center for Snapchat, it was it was like
the super version of that where we would get all
the games would finish by ten eleven o'clock at the latest,
we tape at about two in the morning, and by
the next morning when we came out. Seriously, thirty forty
percent if it was a good day, if somebody didn't
(21:17):
comment like hey, we saw that joke on Twitter before
you did it, like yeah, I don't know what. It's
just crazy how the Internet has changed sports in comedy and.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Well that was the same thing like Sports Sports Center.
You super look forward to Sports Center right as kids,
and now all the highlights are available immediately across tons
of platforms, so you can get that. You might not
get the package. So and the odd thing about ESPN
was that they got away from personalities too doing the
(21:48):
Sports Center stuff. And that's that's the only thing that
That's why Scott Van Pelt works too, because it's him,
it's his thing, so you feel, you feel him. It's
less news show and more. I don't even want to
say news magazine. It's entertainment and you have his personality throughout. Yeah,
and that's that's the thing that propels something like that
(22:09):
at this point when everything's available, but you know, the team,
the Bikings put out stuff as soon as it happens.
I mean, that just wasn't twenty years ago. That wasn't available,
that didn't exist. So you have to adapt and change
to that. And that's really hard, especially with jokes because
people say, like you said, people like I saw that joke.
Did you get that joke from Twitter? No? I I
(22:29):
tried to stay off of Twitter so I wouldn't see
any jokes. But there's no way to get to win,
I mean, because there's just too many people look at
too many different things.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, it's it's impossible. It's essentially you versus the world
is what it is. And you know, it's the putting
something together long form. There's always going to be somebody
who can stab out into the open air and hit something,
but you know your job is to put a few
minutes of that in a row.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, And it's the same. It's the same with stand
up comedy, right that when you are funny somebody's limit
living room or out at you know, at the at
the game or whatever. You do a joke here and there,
people are laughing because they're like, oh, this is interesting. Well,
but it's different when they come to tune into you
just for that, like, okay, make me laugh now. All
(23:16):
of a sudden you're on the menu to make people laugh,
and that's a that's a different thing. There's no surprise there.
It's like that's your job, and people have a different
mentality when it's your job.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Last thing before we get you out of here, Frank,
I want to know, uh, and I'm sure our listeners do.
I mean, you've had such a cool career. What do
you can you barrel down to a singular moment? I
mean growing up a football fan and then getting like
you said, you've been to a bunch of Super Bowls,
You've worked with these personalities, you've gotten to be around
these teams. Is there a moment that you look back
on or a couple of moments that you're like, that
(23:47):
was it? That's that's something that I'm that is fun
to hold on to forever as a sports fan.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
I can remember one thing that always comes to mind
is I was in a green room at Fox. Uh
just to in a dressing room Terry talking to Terry
Bradshaw Frank o'harris walks in, who's passed away since then,
but Uh and Terry and Franco hadn't seen each other
in twenty thirty years whatever it was, and just and
(24:13):
nobody and they were having like this mini reader just
chatting that just came across each other, and nobody was
asking me to leave the room. That was one of
those like Oh, you just get to be a part
of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So that's That's one of those those huge, huge moments
that I realized, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Or
when I was another thing was just simple when I
could Jimmy Johnson's hair was different one day, like just
totally different, and I could just call the control room
and a producer and go, what's going on with Jimmy's hair?
And he was doing something for Survivor or something, and
(24:45):
he was on Survivor, So I was like, Wow, that's cool.
I could just call Fox and just say what ask
what's going on in the situation. Another little thing would
be just backstage and Terry Bradshaw, you know, grabbing, you know.
So my son was playing with a broom outside of
the studio and uh, Terry Broad, We're gonna call him sweeper,
(25:09):
a sweeper, and then Terry started showing him here's I
sweep got. And then how he came out later and
he's holding Joey my son. He's like, this is we
call this the discus. I was just holding him like
he's holding a discus. So it was those moments here
around these Hall of Fame, giant personalities great that were
really great. That are just moments for me that I
(25:30):
always remember.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, that's a really the one with your kid.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's that's always stuff with my kids. I mean, that's
everything ties back to my kids for me. As far
as I don't care about things for me, I don't know.
I have all these things, like you know, I've been
on the Tonight Show with Tom Cruise and just I
was in the dressing room and all of a sudden,
he just appeared behind me. That's where the aliens set
him down that day, and I was just like, man,
this is crazy. But the it's but the things, the
(25:56):
moments where I had my daughter got to meet a
bunch of different events and stuff like that when she
was into marvel at those are the cool things for me.
When the kids get to experience this stuff, that's even
better than to me than anything I get to do.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah. I just recently this year had my first child,
and you know, you hear you always hear your friends
and people you know, they talk about and they react
to like, oh, when you're a parent, and it's kind
of corny. But I think what they're referring to is
like literally this biological thing in your brain that I've
now felt that anything that hits my ears about kids
(26:32):
just hits me in this different emotional you you when
you was like there's a discus. When you said that,
I was like, oh, well, isn't that the nicest thing
I've ever heard in my life? You go cry in
my car for a little while thinking about it, is right.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I teer. I tear up at the dumbest stuff now,
just when it's involved my kids, it's like all of
a sudden, So it's just crazy little moments like that.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Well, you're a king, Frank. We appreciated a ton. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Thanks again to Frank Caliendo for joining the show, and
thank you to our sponsor Continental Diamond. Please be sure
to like, subscribe, and download the podcast anywhere you listen
to your favorite shows. We'll see you all again next week.
Join Pa at the Plymouth Buffalo Wild Wings this Friday
from nine to noon for Friday Football Feast presented by
(27:22):
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An award winning family owned business with exceptional diamonds, engagement rings,
jewelry and time pieces. Continental Diamond is the jeweler Minnesota
adores in Saint Louis Park or online at Continentaldiamond dot com. Hey, everybody,
welcome to another episode of the Tailgate. It's Packer Week.
(00:20):
It's a huge week, and we have an absolutely huge guest.
One of the icons of sports comedy. Frank Caliendo joins us,
talks a little Packers vikings. He's a lifelong Packers fan.
He talks Fox, his time there, stand up comedy, some
of his favorite sports memories. This was an incredible episode.
I think you guys are gonna love it. And hey,
(00:41):
check out his website Frank Onstage dot com. I know
he's gonna be at the Omaha Funnybones soon. He's coming
through the Midwest. Check out all his dates. Frank is
truly the best of the best, and this was a really,
really great episode. I hope you guys like it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Here, we gotta go there, we gotta go back some time.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
It is Packer Week, everybody, and it is essentially a
do or die week for both teams. Joining us on
the Tailgate to discuss all things Packers and all things
end of the season. The great Frank kelliendo, Hey, buddy,
how are you doing quite well?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
It is? Listen? Is Packer Viking Week huge for you guys?
I mean, but growing up for me, it was there
was a big rivalry or a rivalry, but it was
Bears Packers. And I was born in Chicago but grew
up in Milwaukee. So we used to have our relatives
(01:49):
from Chicago would send us all the Bear stuff. So
we're talking eighty five bears, like six foot by four
foot posters, and we would hang them up because you know,
we got all the There was just better stuff at
that point from Chicago, right am. I uh, you know,
it's even amazing to even think about this now, and
(02:10):
people don't probably talk about this, but the way we
got the six foot by four foot posters. My uncle
used to trade in like his cigarette miles to get
like like you couldn't even imagine a professional sports league
being associated with cigarettes or anything like it was like
camel Bucks or something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was just gonna say, how many Marlborough miles for
that Jim McMahon poster.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, but these were the giant like and they were.
So we had the giant Bears posters and then the
four or five guys who didn't have mustaches on them,
we you know, drew them on there. But it was
interesting because that, you know, Packer fans, which I became
more of just after I was younger, because that eighty
five were just didn't go by my you know, Italian relatives,
and like Frank, you gotta support that. You gotta support
(02:56):
the Bears, you know, and then everybody's going the bear
shubbar and all that kind of stuff. So and at
the time it was like the Alindi and Fonte Packers
and you know, growing up and that it was Mkowski
and you know that crew before those different quarterbacks, before
we got too far of coming in.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, everybody before they hired Holm Grin and he hired
the greatest coaching staff in the history of professional football
right then.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
The coaching tree that will live forever.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
This is a funny thing that Packer fans do, Frank,
and you I think you don't even intend it. Some
of them know, like when because Packers Week is everything
to Vikings fan, you hit it on the head and
there's nothing more hurtful than somebody you don't like not
thinking about you. So when a Packers fan is like,
(03:46):
is it a big deal to you? Because we think
about bears like that is a that is a fun
little jab to the side hard.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
No, no, no, I it was half on purpose and half
like real. It was like it was honest, but there
was I thought that might be the case. So that's
why I said it.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
It worked.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It was that type of thing because I just I
don't I know, when it's that week. It seems like,
especially growing up, it was always bears, Bears, bears, bears, bears.
That's how anybody everybody wanted to beat. But I don't know.
Maybe it's because I mean, Minneapol is a bigger city
than Milwaukee, like oh, you know, especially Green Bay. But
(04:26):
Chicago is such a you know, I even do jokes
about Milwaukee. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago Milwaukee,
and people from Milwaukee hate that joke, but people in
Chicago cheer it like we know, we know, you know.
So I never get into that. I never understood geographical
rivalries so much. I guess I do get it with
I get it with the teams somewhat, but I'm also
(04:52):
it hurts when the Packers lose. I have that little
bit of emptiness inside of me, but it's I'm not
a like a crazed Packer fan. That's but I care.
I mean, I do care, and then yet now that
I live in Arizona, second team is kind of the Cardinals,
(05:12):
but it's hard to love them because they just feel
like they're always falling to pieces.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, they're like the Southeast Lions. You know, they'll have
a moment here and there. That's not that joke does
not work this year because of what's going on with
the team. But yeah, I can absolutely understand that. I
think the long history of the Bears Packers. You know,
I have Packer friends who they they take such pride
(05:39):
in the long, like horrible history. But since about ninety eight,
since Randy Moss came in and the Vikings Packers were
a little more it's us or you guys. It's us
or you guys. Yeah, that's I think. But I think
if you're talking about the history of football, you know
those two franchises, you know, they have their stamp on
the early days in a way that almost nobody else does.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
The Moss Vikings those years. Honestly, those were big. That
was big rivalry time. That was some of the most
I'd felt it, and I think it was because they
were such a star star player in Randy Moss, there's
you know, it's interesting the NFL markets more to the
team because it's the ultimate team game, right. I mean,
(06:23):
the NBA is all about single players. This player, that player,
and it's only five people on the court on each
side at once, and in the NFL, you've got everybody's
got their job. It is really that Belichick do your
job kind of mentality that if one little cog in
the machine falls apart or doesn't do his job, everything's gone.
(06:46):
So in the NBA you can have guys mess up,
it doesn't matter, especially if you have a superstar. They're
going to call a foul. Anyways.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You know, I know a lot of people know you
and know your career, but I don't know that everybody
knows that you started the way almost all Midwestern comedians
started in that you had to do and I know
this through some of our mutual friends. You had to
go on the road, you had to do one nighters,
you had to do the rooms in the Midwest. What
was it like because I've mentioned football on stage in
(07:16):
the Midwest doing small rooms as I was coming up,
and people's reaction you want to talk about tribalism. What
was it like doing Madden and doing some of these
impressions and talking sports coming up in a place where
people's sense of humor is Uh, it doesn't exist when
it comes to their favorite team.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Uh yeah, I don't know, Yeah, they definitely. People get
a little bit put up their guard on stuff they
I don't know. The Mad stuff I would do is
always neutral though, you know, it was always neutral and
with the EP like it was the stuff about Brett
farre you know, Brett Favre was the Brett Favre of
(07:57):
Brett Farmers. Without Brett Farves, you wouldn't have Brooks. That's
what that's all about. So they if you love Brett
Farv in Green Bay, people love that you're just talking about, right,
you know. If you're somewhere else, you're like, yeah, that's
all Madden talks about is Brett farb I'm sick of it.
So it works both ways as opposed to picking a
(08:20):
side of something. I mean, and usually you can get
a joke in here or there, you know, making fun
of somebody's team, but you better come back, you know,
quickly before somebody else says something. So I think the
mad stuff, you know, it was always pretty neutral going
through and doing all those one nighters. To me, it
(08:43):
was more of a problem. But people didn't know the
sports stuff that one, because when people first come out
to see you in him, you know, at comedy clubs,
they're not necessarily you're an attraction, you're not necessarily selling
the tickets, so they might just be somebody who's showing
up that night for a show. And if they're not
sports fans, they wouldn't even get that Madden part. So
(09:04):
that would be more the issue for me than anything
in those days.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
One thing, I appreciate you about you greatly, and we
have a mutual friend Mike McCrae. Yeah, and Mike McCrae,
who I've spent a lot of time with in my life.
He is he does what you do, which is you
guys are fantastic impressionists, but you are fantastic comedians, and
so the writing takes over and the impression is almost
(09:28):
I don't want to belittle it by saying that it's secondary,
but the impression lives within the larger concept of well
written comedy, and I think, you know, you're kind of
the height of that with Madden existing early and then
Madden's referencing a joke that you did, you know, kind
of his character flowing throughout your set. Was there a
moment where that happened? Was that intentional? Did it happen
(09:52):
on stage? Was there just one day where you're like,
holy shit, look like how did that come to be?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It actually came from jump cap Bo was watching me,
do you know Johnny Cappinara, Yeah, like I did it
once or something in the show. He's like, you're doing
the greatest color analyst of all time. Explain the jokes,
Explain every joke. I go, but yeah, but then if
you have to explain the joke, isn't the joke not
that good? Not if it's in your acting to explain it.
I joken good night people. I touched on it a
(10:21):
little bit, and then he was like, yeah, you should
just use that, and it really I wasn't even I
kind of did it as a callback, a single callback,
and he's like, no, don't just use it as a
little callback. Explain joke after joke after joke with Madden,
and as Madden got out of you know, being on TV,
I ended up I transitioning that same thing to Morgan Freeman.
(10:42):
I would just explain the jokes, narrate them as Morgan
Freeman if somebody didn't get them. So but that But
that's really the metamorphosis of Madden, like becoming so much
of my act there was because John Cappanio said to me,
just do it. Just got on now and do it.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
It's uh, it really is. It really is so smartly written,
you know the other thing. And I don't need to
turn this into a Flowers parade, but anybody, any of
us who've ever worked in the realm of comedy and
sports understand how difficult it is to exist there for
any long period of time. And the Fox pregame show
(11:23):
getting two and a half minutes to have to be funny,
be relevant, not make the league angry, not make the
sponsors angry, not make the station angry, and still have
people go that was funny enough to watch. That is
I believe that is the toughest spot in anything sports
(11:44):
humor related to be in that position.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And also you have to remember it's on tape. Yeah,
so you can't it's taped and done, so the best
things on the Fox pregame show to me, and the
same with the NBA and TNT. To be honest with you,
When things go wrong and they start ripping into each other,
I don't care how good the planned segment is. When
(12:09):
Terry Bradshaw completely forgets what he's talking about, or the
camera zooms into how we long to be smart or
whatever it might be, they're going to start ripping on
each other. And that's the fun part. That's the fun.
It's the camaraderie and chemistry. And when you come in
and you're a taped piece, you only get beginning and
(12:31):
end with them, so there's no interaction in between, and
there's no changing to feel how it's going. Some of
the best times I ever had were when I was
in studio with them, just goofing around with them, and
then I could go from thing to thing and do
some voices and do some jokes and make fun of them,
and they could make fun of me back, and it
was a back and forth. Remember when you're doing that
two to two and a half minutes you make you
(12:52):
made your decisions and you went with them, so there's
no there's no navigating. There's no new navigation there, which
is what you know, stand up comedy and immediate, the
immediacy of the reaction from the crowd you get. So
you don't you don't have any of that. That's a
tough thing about being on tape, and people don't even know, like,
(13:12):
you know, the average person doesn't realize you're on tape,
even though it looks completely different, looks more filmed, it
looks it's edited.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
The let's throw it to Frank live. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, people just think that it's like na, that's there's
nothing live about that. So so yeah, I think I
do think it. And it's the sports mentality doing comedy
within a sports mentality, which is what are you doing
for me this week? Comedy in general and quote unquote
Hollywood is like they like this, think there is some
(13:43):
what have you done for me? You know lately, but
it's nowhere near the sports feeling of you the last
games over time for the next game, like it's we're
on the Cincinnati there's That's exactly what happens in sports
and the building that mentality is there throughout any sports, uh,
(14:03):
you know, sports entertainment especially that maybe not so much
of the new Younger podcast kind of stuff. But in
terms of the in terms of the old school TV stuff, yeah,
I mean it's those build and those buildings are based
on you know, John Madden and him ruling the roost
and whoever was there at the time, those old school
(14:26):
and they weren't old school at the time that you know, Fox,
it was super innovative. If you look most of the
things you see on sports television, if you go back
and see how much they were ripped, Fox would start popped.
The game just used to be the game on TV.
Nothing was on the screen, and now it's stats and
uh information, all sorts of stuff that was all Fox,
(14:50):
you know, and people sports writers in columns in like
USA Today and whatever they would rip Fox for chain.
We couldn't live without it. Now, now you sit there
with an iPad next to you or your phone looking
up things while you're watching the game. And I remember
a producer saying to me, I don't see people ever
doing that. I'm like, mean, neither, no way would you
(15:11):
sit there with your phone looking up stats while the
game's going on. And now I couldn't imagine not being
able to look stuff up.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
No one hates change more than people who've loved sports
for a really long time. It's like in golf, when
they first went I think Fox, maybe they had a
major or something, but they were like, we're gonna put
the tracker on the ball. We're gonna let you see
the tail off the ball, just like you do in
a video game. And I remember golf people were like,
that's the dumbest thing, and now you're right. Everything they do,
(15:43):
everything they push forward is you know, it eventually sticks.
Even some of the cameras.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
You go and watch a game live or you know,
a golf bets, you watch that live, and you're looking
for the stuff that's on the TV. You're looking for replays,
you're looking for things that you're going it's not the same.
That television product in the NFL is so good, Like
it's just it's it's a great product that you know,
I've gone to. I've been a bunch of Super Bowls,
(16:10):
quite a few, worked with some and it's even not
the same. It's you know, the live game if you're
it's really great when you're a die hard fan of
a team, I think that's great, But just watching other
games on TV, I would probably rather watch on TV personally.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
There's no Maybe the most important evolution of television sports,
in my opinion, is the first down line. I Like,
I'll be at a game and I'll be like, where's
the line? Where's the it is? How that impacts how
you view every single play is insane. It is It
(16:49):
is really really crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yep, totally absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
The you mentioned it is that that clash with you
were talking about how sports is a what have you
done for me lately? Type of situation. It is interesting
because that is the mentality. It's like, well you won
last week.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Look San Francisco VERSUS Baltimore. Yeah, if you look at that,
it's it's Brock Parties out of the running now and
Lamar Jackson is at the top. And you're like, yeah,
it was a prime time type of game and important,
a super important game. But if that game had happened
six weeks ago, nobody cares and you're on and you
(17:28):
have plenty of games to recoup on that, or if
you're Brock Party and if you're Lamar Jackson you have
time to build her up or down either way on
what you did last night. I mean, so such a
what happened this last game? Like that's so much more
important in terms of the you know, MVP voting or whatever,
(17:53):
you know whatever. I'm sure most of these players would
actually rather win the Super Bowl than care about MVP,
unless sure receiver and then you'd rather get MVP.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah that'd be I mean a, I think that's just
more your personality and be you want to be the
first wide receiver who's like, hey, I did it, I'm
the most valuable player.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
It's uh, it is really and when you compare it
to what you do, what we do, you know in
the art and stand up world, where your job is
just like I'm building this thing. I'm building this beautiful thing,
and sometimes it's not going to be great, but I'm
trying to build. So going in each week like you did,
you know to Fox, it's kind of an interesting clash
(18:35):
of art and sports where they're like, hey, you know
how you did the funniest thing we've ever seen last week? Yeah,
what's better this week? You're like, well, that's not how
jokes work at all. That was mine.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Right, There's there's peaks and valleys and you and the
sports will they they'll edit. They do this in TV
sometimes too, in like entertainment. They cut out all the
the air to just be punchline, punchline, punchline, punch. I
was important to have the setups. If you only have
punch on punch, you just look like you're trying too hard.
But my first year at Fox, I thought I was
going to be fired every week because I followed up
(19:08):
Jimmy Kimmel, and I thought every week it was just
a brutal The guys didn't know how to react because
I wasn't ripping on them, and we were doing an impression.
And we had this thing where I was working at
a bar. It was a bartender first, and then it
would be then I'd be throwing to myself doing it.
But it was very weird. But they wanted to and
they wanted to try and emulate what they did with
(19:29):
Kimmel on the couch. I was like, well, why don't
we just do a couch Like, well, that's already been done.
I'm like, well, I mean every talk show host sits
at a desk after doing a monologue, too, what's the difference?
And the whole thing is kind of speaking from the
band perspective, So it was too manufactured at the beginning
and then we started just getting into the sketch of
what it was the heart of a sketch, and it
(19:50):
just was easy, you know, it was it was easy
to just make that work more easier. I mean, whether
it was going to be good or bad. I mean
I looked at like one if I could get one
out of or to be really good, one out of
three to be pretty good, and the other two to
not be awful. I was fine with that because it's
hard doing it every weekend when when I'd come in,
(20:11):
especially after a few years, once the Internet and once
social media got going and podcasts. When Kimmel first did it,
it's hard because nobody else was doing anything like that.
Nobody was doing a comedy segment in sports. But as
soon as Twitter and all these other social media platforms came,
all the jokes had been done by the time the gin,
(20:33):
we'd shoot on Thursday, and then you could do new
jokes on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, even to the day out.
I had to shoot on Thursday, that was on tape
by Thursday to be air on Saturday. Things could change. Yeah,
Sometimes something weird would happen and they'd have to cut
something out because they're like, oh no, there was a
controversy here. I'm like, okay, whatever, but you just have
(20:54):
to deal with it, enroll with it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
When we when I was at ESPN and we were
doing Sports Center for Snapchat, it was it was like
the super version of that where we would get all
the games would finish by ten eleven o'clock at the latest,
we tape at about two in the morning, and by
the next morning when we came out. Seriously, thirty forty
percent if it was a good day, if somebody didn't
(21:17):
comment like hey, we saw that joke on Twitter before
you did it, like yeah, I don't know what. It's
just crazy how the Internet has changed sports in comedy and.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Well that was the same thing like Sports Sports Center.
You super look forward to Sports Center right as kids,
and now all the highlights are available immediately across tons
of platforms, so you can get that. You might not
get the package. So and the odd thing about ESPN
was that they got away from personalities too doing the
(21:48):
Sports Center stuff. And that's that's the only thing that
That's why Scott Van Pelt works too, because it's him,
it's his thing, so you feel, you feel him. It's
less news show and more. I don't even want to
say news magazine. It's entertainment and you have his personality throughout. Yeah,
and that's that's the thing that propels something like that
(22:09):
at this point when everything's available, but you know, the team,
the Bikings put out stuff as soon as it happens.
I mean, that just wasn't twenty years ago. That wasn't available,
that didn't exist. So you have to adapt and change
to that. And that's really hard, especially with jokes because
people say, like you said, people like I saw that joke.
Did you get that joke from Twitter? No? I I
(22:29):
tried to stay off of Twitter so I wouldn't see
any jokes. But there's no way to get to win,
I mean, because there's just too many people look at
too many different things.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Yeah, it's it's impossible. It's essentially you versus the world
is what it is. And you know, it's the putting
something together long form. There's always going to be somebody
who can stab out into the open air and hit something,
but you know your job is to put a few
minutes of that in a row.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, And it's the same. It's the same with stand
up comedy, right that when you are funny somebody's limit
living room or out at you know, at the at
the game or whatever. You do a joke here and there,
people are laughing because they're like, oh, this is interesting. Well,
but it's different when they come to tune into you
just for that, like, okay, make me laugh now. All
(23:16):
of a sudden you're on the menu to make people laugh,
and that's a that's a different thing. There's no surprise there.
It's like that's your job, and people have a different
mentality when it's your job.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Last thing before we get you out of here, Frank,
I want to know, uh, and I'm sure our listeners do.
I mean, you've had such a cool career. What do
you can you barrel down to a singular moment? I
mean growing up a football fan and then getting like
you said, you've been to a bunch of Super Bowls,
You've worked with these personalities, you've gotten to be around
these teams. Is there a moment that you look back
on or a couple of moments that you're like, that
(23:47):
was it? That's that's something that I'm that is fun
to hold on to forever as a sports fan.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
I can remember one thing that always comes to mind
is I was in a green room at Fox. Uh
just to in a dressing room Terry talking to Terry
Bradshaw Frank o'harris walks in, who's passed away since then,
but Uh and Terry and Franco hadn't seen each other
in twenty thirty years whatever it was, and just and
(24:13):
nobody and they were having like this mini reader just
chatting that just came across each other, and nobody was
asking me to leave the room. That was one of
those like Oh, you just get to be a part
of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
So that's That's one of those those huge, huge moments
that I realized, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Or
when I was another thing was just simple when I
could Jimmy Johnson's hair was different one day, like just
totally different, and I could just call the control room
and a producer and go, what's going on with Jimmy's hair?
And he was doing something for Survivor or something, and
(24:45):
he was on Survivor, So I was like, Wow, that's cool.
I could just call Fox and just say what ask
what's going on in the situation. Another little thing would
be just backstage and Terry Bradshaw, you know, grabbing, you know.
So my son was playing with a broom outside of
the studio and uh, Terry Broad, We're gonna call him sweeper,
(25:09):
a sweeper, and then Terry started showing him here's I
sweep got. And then how he came out later and
he's holding Joey my son. He's like, this is we
call this the discus. I was just holding him like
he's holding a discus. So it was those moments here
around these Hall of Fame, giant personalities great that were
really great. That are just moments for me that I
(25:30):
always remember.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, that's a really the one with your kid.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
That's that's always stuff with my kids. I mean, that's
everything ties back to my kids for me. As far
as I don't care about things for me, I don't know.
I have all these things, like you know, I've been
on the Tonight Show with Tom Cruise and just I
was in the dressing room and all of a sudden,
he just appeared behind me. That's where the aliens set
him down that day, and I was just like, man,
this is crazy. But the it's but the things, the
(25:56):
moments where I had my daughter got to meet a
bunch of different events and stuff like that when she
was into marvel at those are the cool things for me.
When the kids get to experience this stuff, that's even
better than to me than anything I get to do.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah. I just recently this year had my first child,
and you know, you hear you always hear your friends
and people you know, they talk about and they react
to like, oh, when you're a parent, and it's kind
of corny. But I think what they're referring to is
like literally this biological thing in your brain that I've
now felt that anything that hits my ears about kids
(26:32):
just hits me in this different emotional you you when
you was like there's a discus. When you said that,
I was like, oh, well, isn't that the nicest thing
I've ever heard in my life? You go cry in
my car for a little while thinking about it, is right.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I teer. I tear up at the dumbest stuff now,
just when it's involved my kids, it's like all of
a sudden, So it's just crazy little moments like that.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Well, you're a king, Frank. We appreciated a ton. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Thanks again to Frank Caliendo for joining the show, and
thank you to our sponsor Continental Diamond. Please be sure
to like, subscribe, and download the podcast anywhere you listen
to your favorite shows. We'll see you all again next week.
Join Pa at the Plymouth Buffalo Wild Wings this Friday
from nine to noon for Friday Football Feast presented by
(27:22):
COR's Light. Enjoy food and drink specials and a chance
to in Viking tickets and more. Visit vikings dot com
slash bww for full schedule and details
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