Frank Caliendo, known for his famous impression of notable personalities like Barack Obama, George W. Bush, John Madden, Adam Sandler, and Jon Gruden, may be one of the funniest comedians out there. But on his new podcast, Al Jackson & Frank Caliendo Try To Be Serious, fans get the opportunity to see a more serious side of the 45-year-old funny man.
In an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Caliendo explains that despite the title of his new podcast series, he and fellow comedian, Jackson aim to push out more “logical” conversations on their podcast than anything.
Videos by PopCulture.com
“The Al and Frank Try To Be Serious is taking all the fighting that we see — Al Jackson is my co-host — and we see all the fighting on different topics that are out there, and we go, ‘Listen, let’s try and not make this political and just talk about this as two people trying to be logical,’” he said.
“Al and Frank Try To Be Serious is actually a little bit more serious, but we have the laughter to make it fun,” Caliendo added.
During one episode, the comedians hosted fellow comic Ryan Davis on their show as they discussed what they deal with in their profession that the public either doesn’t see or maybe forgets to think about. For instance, it takes time to perfect jokes. The first time they use one isn’t the final product, and if that joke has been used for years, it took time to get it where it’s at currently.
Something else their guest Davis brought up is being a comic trying to tell jokes on sensitive topics.
“For me, it all comes down to tone,” Caliendo expressed. “And that was something we talked about, and that’s not true for everybody ’cause not everybody thinks that same way. But when we make fun of different groups, it’s not about trying to hurt the person, it’s trying to say, ‘You’re different from me, I’m different from you, you know what? That’s kind of funny. Our cultures are a little bit different, you mean you guys eat pizza too? We eat pizza! That’s crazy!’”
“It’s turned into people think everybody’s bashing each other and I think that has been some of the comedy,” he added.
Davis specifically discusses the topic of the gay community — specifying that his brother is gay and runs all of his jokes by him first before going on stage with them in hopes of not coming across as insincere. Not only this, but with social media limiting social users to so many words or with time restrictions on video clip, things can get taken out of context.
“That’s the problem with social media, especially Twitter, you only have a short amount of time and people can take it, not even out of context [because] you’re putting it out there out of context because they don’t have the full context to go with, and it makes it difficult.
“When you sit down and talk to people, you find out, ‘Oh, you’re actually a nice person and we might have some differences in opinion,’ but in the end you go, ‘Well, we’re people, it’s okay to disagree, as long as we respect each other,’” he added.
Caliendo also has another podcast called The Frank Caliendo-Cast that touches on not only sports topics but pop culture as well.
The comedian is currently on tour, to see his dates and for more information, visit his official website.
