Latest / The Vikings Tailgate / Vikings Tailgate: Frank Caliendo & The Evolution Of John Madden | GB | Episode 34

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Vikings Tailgate: Frank Caliendo & The Evolution Of John Madden | GB | Episode 34 · The Vikings Tailgate

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Speaker 1: An award winning family owned business with exceptional diamonds, engagement rings,
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Speaker 1: jewelry and time pieces. Continental Diamond is the jeweler Minnesota
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Speaker 1: adores in Saint Louis Park or online at Continentaldiamond dot com. Hey, everybody,
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Speaker 1: welcome to another episode of the Tailgate. It's Packer Week.
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Speaker 1: It's a huge week, and we have an absolutely huge guest.
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Speaker 1: One of the icons of sports comedy. Frank Caliendo joins us,
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Speaker 1: talks a little Packers vikings. He's a lifelong Packers fan.
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Speaker 1: He talks Fox, his time there, stand up comedy, some
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Speaker 1: of his favorite sports memories. This was an incredible episode.
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Speaker 1: I think you guys are gonna love it. And hey,
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Speaker 1: check out his website Frank Onstage dot com. I know
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Speaker 1: he's gonna be at the Omaha Funnybones soon. He's coming
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Speaker 1: through the Midwest. Check out all his dates. Frank is
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Speaker 1: truly the best of the best, and this was a really,
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Speaker 1: really great episode. I hope you guys like it.
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Speaker 2: Here, we gotta go there, we gotta go back some time.
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Speaker 1: It is Packer Week, everybody, and it is essentially a
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Speaker 1: do or die week for both teams. Joining us on
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Speaker 1: the Tailgate to discuss all things Packers and all things
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Speaker 1: end of the season. The great Frank kelliendo, Hey, buddy,
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Speaker 1: how are you doing quite well?
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Speaker 2: It is? Listen? Is Packer Viking Week huge for you guys?
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Speaker 2: I mean, but growing up for me, it was there
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Speaker 2: was a big rivalry or a rivalry, but it was
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Speaker 2: Bears Packers. And I was born in Chicago but grew
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Speaker 2: up in Milwaukee. So we used to have our relatives
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Speaker 2: from Chicago would send us all the Bear stuff. So
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Speaker 2: we're talking eighty five bears, like six foot by four
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Speaker 2: foot posters, and we would hang them up because you know,
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Speaker 2: we got all the There was just better stuff at
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Speaker 2: that point from Chicago, right am. I uh, you know,
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Speaker 2: it's even amazing to even think about this now, and
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Speaker 2: people don't probably talk about this, but the way we
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Speaker 2: got the six foot by four foot posters. My uncle
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Speaker 2: used to trade in like his cigarette miles to get
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Speaker 2: like like you couldn't even imagine a professional sports league
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Speaker 2: being associated with cigarettes or anything like it was like
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Speaker 2: camel Bucks or something like that.
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Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, how many Marlborough miles for
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Speaker 1: that Jim McMahon poster.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but these were the giant like and they were.
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Speaker 2: So we had the giant Bears posters and then the
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Speaker 2: four or five guys who didn't have mustaches on them,
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Speaker 2: we you know, drew them on there. But it was
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Speaker 2: interesting because that, you know, Packer fans, which I became
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Speaker 2: more of just after I was younger, because that eighty
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Speaker 2: five were just didn't go by my you know, Italian relatives,
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Speaker 2: and like Frank, you gotta support that. You gotta support
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Speaker 2: the Bears, you know, and then everybody's going the bear
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Speaker 2: shubbar and all that kind of stuff. So and at
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Speaker 2: the time it was like the Alindi and Fonte Packers
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Speaker 2: and you know, growing up and that it was Mkowski
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Speaker 2: and you know that crew before those different quarterbacks, before
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Speaker 2: we got too far of coming in.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody before they hired Holm Grin and he hired
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Speaker 1: the greatest coaching staff in the history of professional football
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Speaker 1: right then.
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Speaker 2: The coaching tree that will live forever.
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Speaker 1: This is a funny thing that Packer fans do, Frank,
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Speaker 1: and you I think you don't even intend it. Some
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Speaker 1: of them know, like when because Packers Week is everything
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Speaker 1: to Vikings fan, you hit it on the head and
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Speaker 1: there's nothing more hurtful than somebody you don't like not
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Speaker 1: thinking about you. So when a Packers fan is like,
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Speaker 1: is it a big deal to you? Because we think
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Speaker 1: about bears like that is a that is a fun
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Speaker 1: little jab to the side hard.
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Speaker 2: No, no, no, I it was half on purpose and half
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Speaker 2: like real. It was like it was honest, but there
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Speaker 2: was I thought that might be the case. So that's
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Speaker 2: why I said it.
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Speaker 1: It worked.
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Speaker 2: It was that type of thing because I just I
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Speaker 2: don't I know, when it's that week. It seems like,
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Speaker 2: especially growing up, it was always bears, Bears, bears, bears, bears.
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Speaker 2: That's how anybody everybody wanted to beat. But I don't know.
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Speaker 2: Maybe it's because I mean, Minneapol is a bigger city
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Speaker 2: than Milwaukee, like oh, you know, especially Green Bay. But
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Speaker 2: Chicago is such a you know, I even do jokes
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Speaker 2: about Milwaukee. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago Milwaukee,
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Speaker 2: and people from Milwaukee hate that joke, but people in
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Speaker 2: Chicago cheer it like we know, we know, you know.
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Speaker 2: So I never get into that. I never understood geographical
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Speaker 2: rivalries so much. I guess I do get it with
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Speaker 2: I get it with the teams somewhat, but I'm also
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Speaker 2: it hurts when the Packers lose. I have that little
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Speaker 2: bit of emptiness inside of me, but it's I'm not
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Speaker 2: a like a crazed Packer fan. That's but I care.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I do care, and then yet now that
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Speaker 2: I live in Arizona, second team is kind of the Cardinals,
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Speaker 2: but it's hard to love them because they just feel
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Speaker 2: like they're always falling to pieces.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like the Southeast Lions. You know, they'll have
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Speaker 1: a moment here and there. That's not that joke does
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Speaker 1: not work this year because of what's going on with
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Speaker 1: the team. But yeah, I can absolutely understand that. I
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Speaker 1: think the long history of the Bears Packers. You know,
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Speaker 1: I have Packer friends who they they take such pride
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Speaker 1: in the long, like horrible history. But since about ninety eight,
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Speaker 1: since Randy Moss came in and the Vikings Packers were
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Speaker 1: a little more it's us or you guys. It's us
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Speaker 1: or you guys. Yeah, that's I think. But I think
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Speaker 1: if you're talking about the history of football, you know
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Speaker 1: those two franchises, you know, they have their stamp on
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Speaker 1: the early days in a way that almost nobody else does.
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Speaker 2: The Moss Vikings those years. Honestly, those were big. That
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Speaker 2: was big rivalry time. That was some of the most
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Speaker 2: I'd felt it, and I think it was because they
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Speaker 2: were such a star star player in Randy Moss, there's
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Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting the NFL markets more to the
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Speaker 2: team because it's the ultimate team game, right. I mean,
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Speaker 2: the NBA is all about single players. This player, that player,
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Speaker 2: and it's only five people on the court on each
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Speaker 2: side at once, and in the NFL, you've got everybody's
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Speaker 2: got their job. It is really that Belichick do your
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Speaker 2: job kind of mentality that if one little cog in
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Speaker 2: the machine falls apart or doesn't do his job, everything's gone.
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Speaker 2: So in the NBA you can have guys mess up,
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Speaker 2: it doesn't matter, especially if you have a superstar. They're
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Speaker 2: going to call a foul. Anyways.
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Speaker 1: You know, I know a lot of people know you
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Speaker 1: and know your career, but I don't know that everybody
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Speaker 1: knows that you started the way almost all Midwestern comedians
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Speaker 1: started in that you had to do and I know
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Speaker 1: this through some of our mutual friends. You had to
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Speaker 1: go on the road, you had to do one nighters,
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Speaker 1: you had to do the rooms in the Midwest. What
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Speaker 1: was it like because I've mentioned football on stage in
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Speaker 1: the Midwest doing small rooms as I was coming up,
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Speaker 1: and people's reaction you want to talk about tribalism. What
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Speaker 1: was it like doing Madden and doing some of these
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Speaker 1: impressions and talking sports coming up in a place where
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Speaker 1: people's sense of humor is Uh, it doesn't exist when
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Speaker 1: it comes to their favorite team.
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Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I don't know, Yeah, they definitely. People get
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Speaker 2: a little bit put up their guard on stuff they
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Speaker 2: I don't know. The Mad stuff I would do is
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Speaker 2: always neutral though, you know, it was always neutral and
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Speaker 2: with the EP like it was the stuff about Brett
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Speaker 2: farre you know, Brett Favre was the Brett Favre of
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Speaker 2: Brett Farmers. Without Brett Farves, you wouldn't have Brooks. That's
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Speaker 2: what that's all about. So they if you love Brett
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Speaker 2: Farv in Green Bay, people love that you're just talking about, right,
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Speaker 2: you know. If you're somewhere else, you're like, yeah, that's
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Speaker 2: all Madden talks about is Brett farb I'm sick of it.
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Speaker 2: So it works both ways as opposed to picking a
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Speaker 2: side of something. I mean, and usually you can get
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Speaker 2: a joke in here or there, you know, making fun
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Speaker 2: of somebody's team, but you better come back, you know,
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Speaker 2: quickly before somebody else says something. So I think the
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Speaker 2: mad stuff, you know, it was always pretty neutral going
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Speaker 2: through and doing all those one nighters. To me, it
8:43
Speaker 2: was more of a problem. But people didn't know the
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Speaker 2: sports stuff that one, because when people first come out
8:47
Speaker 2: to see you in him, you know, at comedy clubs,
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Speaker 2: they're not necessarily you're an attraction, you're not necessarily selling
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Speaker 2: the tickets, so they might just be somebody who's showing
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Speaker 2: up that night for a show. And if they're not
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Speaker 2: sports fans, they wouldn't even get that Madden part. So
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Speaker 2: that would be more the issue for me than anything
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Speaker 2: in those days.
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Speaker 1: One thing, I appreciate you about you greatly, and we
9:11
Speaker 1: have a mutual friend Mike McCrae. Yeah, and Mike McCrae,
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Speaker 1: who I've spent a lot of time with in my life.
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Speaker 1: He is he does what you do, which is you
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Speaker 1: guys are fantastic impressionists, but you are fantastic comedians, and
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Speaker 1: so the writing takes over and the impression is almost
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Speaker 1: I don't want to belittle it by saying that it's secondary,
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Speaker 1: but the impression lives within the larger concept of well
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Speaker 1: written comedy, and I think, you know, you're kind of
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Speaker 1: the height of that with Madden existing early and then
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Speaker 1: Madden's referencing a joke that you did, you know, kind
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Speaker 1: of his character flowing throughout your set. Was there a
9:48
Speaker 1: moment where that happened? Was that intentional? Did it happen
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Speaker 1: on stage? Was there just one day where you're like,
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Speaker 1: holy shit, look like how did that come to be?
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Speaker 2: It actually came from jump cap Bo was watching me,
10:01
Speaker 2: do you know Johnny Cappinara, Yeah, like I did it
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Speaker 2: once or something in the show. He's like, you're doing
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Speaker 2: the greatest color analyst of all time. Explain the jokes,
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Speaker 2: Explain every joke. I go, but yeah, but then if
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Speaker 2: you have to explain the joke, isn't the joke not
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Speaker 2: that good? Not if it's in your acting to explain it.
10:17
Speaker 2: I joken good night people. I touched on it a
10:21
Speaker 2: little bit, and then he was like, yeah, you should
10:23
Speaker 2: just use that, and it really I wasn't even I
10:27
Speaker 2: kind of did it as a callback, a single callback,
10:30
Speaker 2: and he's like, no, don't just use it as a
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Speaker 2: little callback. Explain joke after joke after joke with Madden,
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Speaker 2: and as Madden got out of you know, being on TV,
10:39
Speaker 2: I ended up I transitioning that same thing to Morgan Freeman.
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Speaker 2: I would just explain the jokes, narrate them as Morgan
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Speaker 2: Freeman if somebody didn't get them. So but that But
10:47
Speaker 2: that's really the metamorphosis of Madden, like becoming so much
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Speaker 2: of my act there was because John Cappanio said to me,
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Speaker 2: just do it. Just got on now and do it.
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Speaker 1: It's uh, it really is. It really is so smartly written,
11:03
Speaker 1: you know the other thing. And I don't need to
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Speaker 1: turn this into a Flowers parade, but anybody, any of
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Speaker 1: us who've ever worked in the realm of comedy and
11:13
Speaker 1: sports understand how difficult it is to exist there for
11:17
Speaker 1: any long period of time. And the Fox pregame show
11:23
Speaker 1: getting two and a half minutes to have to be funny,
11:28
Speaker 1: be relevant, not make the league angry, not make the
11:31
Speaker 1: sponsors angry, not make the station angry, and still have
11:35
Speaker 1: people go that was funny enough to watch. That is
11:39
Speaker 1: I believe that is the toughest spot in anything sports
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Speaker 1: humor related to be in that position.
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Speaker 2: And also you have to remember it's on tape. Yeah,
11:50
Speaker 2: so you can't it's taped and done, so the best
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Speaker 2: things on the Fox pregame show to me, and the
11:57
Speaker 2: same with the NBA and TNT. To be honest with you,
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Speaker 2: When things go wrong and they start ripping into each other,
12:04
Speaker 2: I don't care how good the planned segment is. When
12:09
Speaker 2: Terry Bradshaw completely forgets what he's talking about, or the
12:14
Speaker 2: camera zooms into how we long to be smart or
12:19
Speaker 2: whatever it might be, they're going to start ripping on
12:22
Speaker 2: each other. And that's the fun part. That's the fun.
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Speaker 2: It's the camaraderie and chemistry. And when you come in
12:27
Speaker 2: and you're a taped piece, you only get beginning and
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Speaker 2: end with them, so there's no interaction in between, and
12:35
Speaker 2: there's no changing to feel how it's going. Some of
12:37
Speaker 2: the best times I ever had were when I was
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Speaker 2: in studio with them, just goofing around with them, and
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Speaker 2: then I could go from thing to thing and do
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Speaker 2: some voices and do some jokes and make fun of them,
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Speaker 2: and they could make fun of me back, and it
12:48
Speaker 2: was a back and forth. Remember when you're doing that
12:50
Speaker 2: two to two and a half minutes you make you
12:52
Speaker 2: made your decisions and you went with them, so there's
12:56
Speaker 2: no there's no navigating. There's no new navigation there, which
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Speaker 2: is what you know, stand up comedy and immediate, the
13:04
Speaker 2: immediacy of the reaction from the crowd you get. So
13:08
Speaker 2: you don't you don't have any of that. That's a
13:09
Speaker 2: tough thing about being on tape, and people don't even know, like,
13:12
Speaker 2: you know, the average person doesn't realize you're on tape,
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Speaker 2: even though it looks completely different, looks more filmed, it
13:17
Speaker 2: looks it's edited.
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Speaker 1: The let's throw it to Frank live. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, people just think that it's like na, that's there's
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Speaker 2: nothing live about that. So so yeah, I think I
13:28
Speaker 2: do think it. And it's the sports mentality doing comedy
13:32
Speaker 2: within a sports mentality, which is what are you doing
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Speaker 2: for me this week? Comedy in general and quote unquote
13:40
Speaker 2: Hollywood is like they like this, think there is some
13:43
Speaker 2: what have you done for me? You know lately, but
13:46
Speaker 2: it's nowhere near the sports feeling of you the last
13:51
Speaker 2: games over time for the next game, like it's we're
13:53
Speaker 2: on the Cincinnati there's That's exactly what happens in sports
13:58
Speaker 2: and the building that mentality is there throughout any sports, uh,
14:03
Speaker 2: you know, sports entertainment especially that maybe not so much
14:07
Speaker 2: of the new Younger podcast kind of stuff. But in
14:11
Speaker 2: terms of the in terms of the old school TV stuff, yeah,
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Speaker 2: I mean it's those build and those buildings are based
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Speaker 2: on you know, John Madden and him ruling the roost
14:22
Speaker 2: and whoever was there at the time, those old school
14:26
Speaker 2: and they weren't old school at the time that you know, Fox,
14:28
Speaker 2: it was super innovative. If you look most of the
14:32
Speaker 2: things you see on sports television, if you go back
14:36
Speaker 2: and see how much they were ripped, Fox would start popped.
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Speaker 2: The game just used to be the game on TV.
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Speaker 2: Nothing was on the screen, and now it's stats and
14:46
Speaker 2: uh information, all sorts of stuff that was all Fox,
14:50
Speaker 2: you know, and people sports writers in columns in like
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Speaker 2: USA Today and whatever they would rip Fox for chain.
15:00
Speaker 2: We couldn't live without it. Now, now you sit there
15:02
Speaker 2: with an iPad next to you or your phone looking
15:05
Speaker 2: up things while you're watching the game. And I remember
15:07
Speaker 2: a producer saying to me, I don't see people ever
15:09
Speaker 2: doing that. I'm like, mean, neither, no way would you
15:11
Speaker 2: sit there with your phone looking up stats while the
15:15
Speaker 2: game's going on. And now I couldn't imagine not being
15:18
Speaker 2: able to look stuff up.
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Speaker 1: No one hates change more than people who've loved sports
15:23
Speaker 1: for a really long time. It's like in golf, when
15:26
Speaker 1: they first went I think Fox, maybe they had a
15:28
Speaker 1: major or something, but they were like, we're gonna put
15:30
Speaker 1: the tracker on the ball. We're gonna let you see
15:33
Speaker 1: the tail off the ball, just like you do in
15:36
Speaker 1: a video game. And I remember golf people were like,
15:38
Speaker 1: that's the dumbest thing, and now you're right. Everything they do,
15:43
Speaker 1: everything they push forward is you know, it eventually sticks.
15:47
Speaker 1: Even some of the cameras.
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Speaker 2: You go and watch a game live or you know,
15:51
Speaker 2: a golf bets, you watch that live, and you're looking
15:53
Speaker 2: for the stuff that's on the TV. You're looking for replays,
15:57
Speaker 2: you're looking for things that you're going it's not the same.
15:59
Speaker 2: That television product in the NFL is so good, Like
16:03
Speaker 2: it's just it's it's a great product that you know,
16:07
Speaker 2: I've gone to. I've been a bunch of Super Bowls,
16:10
Speaker 2: quite a few, worked with some and it's even not
16:14
Speaker 2: the same. It's you know, the live game if you're
16:18
Speaker 2: it's really great when you're a die hard fan of
16:21
Speaker 2: a team, I think that's great, But just watching other
16:24
Speaker 2: games on TV, I would probably rather watch on TV personally.
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Speaker 1: There's no Maybe the most important evolution of television sports,
16:35
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is the first down line. I Like,
16:39
Speaker 1: I'll be at a game and I'll be like, where's
16:41
Speaker 1: the line? Where's the it is? How that impacts how
16:45
Speaker 1: you view every single play is insane. It is It
16:49
Speaker 1: is really really crazy.
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Speaker 2: Yep, totally absolutely.
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Speaker 1: The you mentioned it is that that clash with you
16:57
Speaker 1: were talking about how sports is a what have you
17:00
Speaker 1: done for me lately? Type of situation. It is interesting
17:04
Speaker 1: because that is the mentality. It's like, well you won
17:06
Speaker 1: last week.
17:07
Speaker 2: Look San Francisco VERSUS Baltimore. Yeah, if you look at that,
17:11
Speaker 2: it's it's Brock Parties out of the running now and
17:15
Speaker 2: Lamar Jackson is at the top. And you're like, yeah,
17:19
Speaker 2: it was a prime time type of game and important,
17:21
Speaker 2: a super important game. But if that game had happened
17:24
Speaker 2: six weeks ago, nobody cares and you're on and you
17:28
Speaker 2: have plenty of games to recoup on that, or if
17:31
Speaker 2: you're Brock Party and if you're Lamar Jackson you have
17:35
Speaker 2: time to build her up or down either way on
17:39
Speaker 2: what you did last night. I mean, so such a
17:42
Speaker 2: what happened this last game? Like that's so much more
17:48
Speaker 2: important in terms of the you know, MVP voting or whatever,
17:53
Speaker 2: you know whatever. I'm sure most of these players would
17:55
Speaker 2: actually rather win the Super Bowl than care about MVP,
17:59
Speaker 2: unless sure receiver and then you'd rather get MVP.
18:03
Speaker 1: Yeah that'd be I mean a, I think that's just
18:05
Speaker 1: more your personality and be you want to be the
18:07
Speaker 1: first wide receiver who's like, hey, I did it, I'm
18:11
Speaker 1: the most valuable player.
18:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: It's uh, it is really and when you compare it
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Speaker 1: to what you do, what we do, you know in
18:20
Speaker 1: the art and stand up world, where your job is
18:23
Speaker 1: just like I'm building this thing. I'm building this beautiful thing,
18:27
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's not going to be great, but I'm
18:29
Speaker 1: trying to build. So going in each week like you did,
18:32
Speaker 1: you know to Fox, it's kind of an interesting clash
18:35
Speaker 1: of art and sports where they're like, hey, you know
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Speaker 1: how you did the funniest thing we've ever seen last week? Yeah,
18:42
Speaker 1: what's better this week? You're like, well, that's not how
18:44
Speaker 1: jokes work at all. That was mine.
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Speaker 2: Right, There's there's peaks and valleys and you and the
18:48
Speaker 2: sports will they they'll edit. They do this in TV
18:52
Speaker 2: sometimes too, in like entertainment. They cut out all the
18:56
Speaker 2: the air to just be punchline, punchline, punchline, punch. I
18:59
Speaker 2: was important to have the setups. If you only have
19:01
Speaker 2: punch on punch, you just look like you're trying too hard.
19:04
Speaker 2: But my first year at Fox, I thought I was
19:06
Speaker 2: going to be fired every week because I followed up
19:08
Speaker 2: Jimmy Kimmel, and I thought every week it was just
19:11
Speaker 2: a brutal The guys didn't know how to react because
19:14
Speaker 2: I wasn't ripping on them, and we were doing an impression.
19:17
Speaker 2: And we had this thing where I was working at
19:19
Speaker 2: a bar. It was a bartender first, and then it
19:22
Speaker 2: would be then I'd be throwing to myself doing it.
19:24
Speaker 2: But it was very weird. But they wanted to and
19:27
Speaker 2: they wanted to try and emulate what they did with
19:29
Speaker 2: Kimmel on the couch. I was like, well, why don't
19:30
Speaker 2: we just do a couch Like, well, that's already been done.
19:32
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I mean every talk show host sits
19:35
Speaker 2: at a desk after doing a monologue, too, what's the difference?
19:38
Speaker 2: And the whole thing is kind of speaking from the
19:40
Speaker 2: band perspective, So it was too manufactured at the beginning
19:43
Speaker 2: and then we started just getting into the sketch of
19:46
Speaker 2: what it was the heart of a sketch, and it
19:50
Speaker 2: just was easy, you know, it was it was easy
19:52
Speaker 2: to just make that work more easier. I mean, whether
19:56
Speaker 2: it was going to be good or bad. I mean
19:57
Speaker 2: I looked at like one if I could get one
19:59
Speaker 2: out of or to be really good, one out of
20:02
Speaker 2: three to be pretty good, and the other two to
20:04
Speaker 2: not be awful. I was fine with that because it's
20:08
Speaker 2: hard doing it every weekend when when I'd come in,
20:11
Speaker 2: especially after a few years, once the Internet and once
20:15
Speaker 2: social media got going and podcasts. When Kimmel first did it,
20:20
Speaker 2: it's hard because nobody else was doing anything like that.
20:23
Speaker 2: Nobody was doing a comedy segment in sports. But as
20:26
Speaker 2: soon as Twitter and all these other social media platforms came,
20:31
Speaker 2: all the jokes had been done by the time the gin,
20:33
Speaker 2: we'd shoot on Thursday, and then you could do new
20:36
Speaker 2: jokes on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, even to the day out.
20:39
Speaker 2: I had to shoot on Thursday, that was on tape
20:42
Speaker 2: by Thursday to be air on Saturday. Things could change. Yeah,
20:45
Speaker 2: Sometimes something weird would happen and they'd have to cut
20:48
Speaker 2: something out because they're like, oh no, there was a
20:50
Speaker 2: controversy here. I'm like, okay, whatever, but you just have
20:54
Speaker 2: to deal with it, enroll with it.
20:55
Speaker 1: When we when I was at ESPN and we were
20:57
Speaker 1: doing Sports Center for Snapchat, it was it was like
21:00
Speaker 1: the super version of that where we would get all
21:03
Speaker 1: the games would finish by ten eleven o'clock at the latest,
21:07
Speaker 1: we tape at about two in the morning, and by
21:10
Speaker 1: the next morning when we came out. Seriously, thirty forty
21:14
Speaker 1: percent if it was a good day, if somebody didn't
21:17
Speaker 1: comment like hey, we saw that joke on Twitter before
21:20
Speaker 1: you did it, like yeah, I don't know what. It's
21:22
Speaker 1: just crazy how the Internet has changed sports in comedy and.
21:26
Speaker 2: Well that was the same thing like Sports Sports Center.
21:29
Speaker 2: You super look forward to Sports Center right as kids,
21:34
Speaker 2: and now all the highlights are available immediately across tons
21:39
Speaker 2: of platforms, so you can get that. You might not
21:42
Speaker 2: get the package. So and the odd thing about ESPN
21:45
Speaker 2: was that they got away from personalities too doing the
21:48
Speaker 2: Sports Center stuff. And that's that's the only thing that
21:51
Speaker 2: That's why Scott Van Pelt works too, because it's him,
21:54
Speaker 2: it's his thing, so you feel, you feel him. It's
21:57
Speaker 2: less news show and more. I don't even want to
22:00
Speaker 2: say news magazine. It's entertainment and you have his personality throughout. Yeah,
22:05
Speaker 2: and that's that's the thing that propels something like that
22:09
Speaker 2: at this point when everything's available, but you know, the team,
22:13
Speaker 2: the Bikings put out stuff as soon as it happens.
22:15
Speaker 2: I mean, that just wasn't twenty years ago. That wasn't available,
22:18
Speaker 2: that didn't exist. So you have to adapt and change
22:21
Speaker 2: to that. And that's really hard, especially with jokes because
22:23
Speaker 2: people say, like you said, people like I saw that joke.
22:27
Speaker 2: Did you get that joke from Twitter? No? I I
22:29
Speaker 2: tried to stay off of Twitter so I wouldn't see
22:31
Speaker 2: any jokes. But there's no way to get to win,
22:34
Speaker 2: I mean, because there's just too many people look at
22:36
Speaker 2: too many different things.
22:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's impossible. It's essentially you versus the world
22:41
Speaker 1: is what it is. And you know, it's the putting
22:44
Speaker 1: something together long form. There's always going to be somebody
22:47
Speaker 1: who can stab out into the open air and hit something,
22:51
Speaker 1: but you know your job is to put a few
22:53
Speaker 1: minutes of that in a row.
22:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's the same. It's the same with stand
22:56
Speaker 2: up comedy, right that when you are funny somebody's limit
23:01
Speaker 2: living room or out at you know, at the at
23:03
Speaker 2: the game or whatever. You do a joke here and there,
23:07
Speaker 2: people are laughing because they're like, oh, this is interesting. Well,
23:10
Speaker 2: but it's different when they come to tune into you
23:12
Speaker 2: just for that, like, okay, make me laugh now. All
23:16
Speaker 2: of a sudden you're on the menu to make people laugh,
23:18
Speaker 2: and that's a that's a different thing. There's no surprise there.
23:20
Speaker 2: It's like that's your job, and people have a different
23:23
Speaker 2: mentality when it's your job.
23:25
Speaker 1: Last thing before we get you out of here, Frank,
23:27
Speaker 1: I want to know, uh, and I'm sure our listeners do.
23:30
Speaker 1: I mean, you've had such a cool career. What do
23:33
Speaker 1: you can you barrel down to a singular moment? I
23:36
Speaker 1: mean growing up a football fan and then getting like
23:38
Speaker 1: you said, you've been to a bunch of Super Bowls,
23:40
Speaker 1: You've worked with these personalities, you've gotten to be around
23:43
Speaker 1: these teams. Is there a moment that you look back
23:45
Speaker 1: on or a couple of moments that you're like, that
23:47
Speaker 1: was it? That's that's something that I'm that is fun
23:49
Speaker 1: to hold on to forever as a sports fan.
23:52
Speaker 2: I can remember one thing that always comes to mind
23:55
Speaker 2: is I was in a green room at Fox. Uh
23:59
Speaker 2: just to in a dressing room Terry talking to Terry
24:02
Speaker 2: Bradshaw Frank o'harris walks in, who's passed away since then,
24:05
Speaker 2: but Uh and Terry and Franco hadn't seen each other
24:10
Speaker 2: in twenty thirty years whatever it was, and just and
24:13
Speaker 2: nobody and they were having like this mini reader just
24:15
Speaker 2: chatting that just came across each other, and nobody was
24:18
Speaker 2: asking me to leave the room. That was one of
24:20
Speaker 2: those like Oh, you just get to be a part
24:22
Speaker 2: of this stuff.
24:23
Speaker 1: That's great.
24:24
Speaker 2: So that's That's one of those those huge, huge moments
24:28
Speaker 2: that I realized, oh my gosh, this is crazy. Or
24:31
Speaker 2: when I was another thing was just simple when I
24:33
Speaker 2: could Jimmy Johnson's hair was different one day, like just
24:37
Speaker 2: totally different, and I could just call the control room
24:40
Speaker 2: and a producer and go, what's going on with Jimmy's hair?
24:42
Speaker 2: And he was doing something for Survivor or something, and
24:45
Speaker 2: he was on Survivor, So I was like, Wow, that's cool.
24:47
Speaker 2: I could just call Fox and just say what ask
24:50
Speaker 2: what's going on in the situation. Another little thing would
24:54
Speaker 2: be just backstage and Terry Bradshaw, you know, grabbing, you know.
25:00
Speaker 2: So my son was playing with a broom outside of
25:03
Speaker 2: the studio and uh, Terry Broad, We're gonna call him sweeper,
25:09
Speaker 2: a sweeper, and then Terry started showing him here's I
25:11
Speaker 2: sweep got. And then how he came out later and
25:14
Speaker 2: he's holding Joey my son. He's like, this is we
25:16
Speaker 2: call this the discus. I was just holding him like
25:19
Speaker 2: he's holding a discus. So it was those moments here
25:22
Speaker 2: around these Hall of Fame, giant personalities great that were
25:27
Speaker 2: really great. That are just moments for me that I
25:30
Speaker 2: always remember.
25:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really the one with your kid.
25:33
Speaker 2: That's that's always stuff with my kids. I mean, that's
25:35
Speaker 2: everything ties back to my kids for me. As far
25:38
Speaker 2: as I don't care about things for me, I don't know.
25:40
Speaker 2: I have all these things, like you know, I've been
25:43
Speaker 2: on the Tonight Show with Tom Cruise and just I
25:45
Speaker 2: was in the dressing room and all of a sudden,
25:47
Speaker 2: he just appeared behind me. That's where the aliens set
25:49
Speaker 2: him down that day, and I was just like, man,
25:53
Speaker 2: this is crazy. But the it's but the things, the
25:56
Speaker 2: moments where I had my daughter got to meet a
25:59
Speaker 2: bunch of different events and stuff like that when she
26:01
Speaker 2: was into marvel at those are the cool things for me.
26:04
Speaker 2: When the kids get to experience this stuff, that's even
26:06
Speaker 2: better than to me than anything I get to do.
26:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just recently this year had my first child,
26:13
Speaker 1: and you know, you hear you always hear your friends
26:17
Speaker 1: and people you know, they talk about and they react
26:20
Speaker 1: to like, oh, when you're a parent, and it's kind
26:22
Speaker 1: of corny. But I think what they're referring to is
26:25
Speaker 1: like literally this biological thing in your brain that I've
26:28
Speaker 1: now felt that anything that hits my ears about kids
26:32
Speaker 1: just hits me in this different emotional you you when
26:36
Speaker 1: you was like there's a discus. When you said that,
26:37
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, isn't that the nicest thing
26:40
Speaker 1: I've ever heard in my life? You go cry in
26:42
Speaker 1: my car for a little while thinking about it, is right.
26:45
Speaker 2: I teer. I tear up at the dumbest stuff now,
26:47
Speaker 2: just when it's involved my kids, it's like all of
26:49
Speaker 2: a sudden, So it's just crazy little moments like that.
26:56
Speaker 1: Well, you're a king, Frank. We appreciated a ton. Thank
26:59
Speaker 1: you so much.
27:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
27:01
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Frank Caliendo for joining the show, and
27:04
Speaker 1: thank you to our sponsor Continental Diamond. Please be sure
27:07
Speaker 1: to like, subscribe, and download the podcast anywhere you listen
27:10
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. We'll see you all again next week.
27:16
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27:19
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