Frank Caliendo

John Madden has been very good to Frank Caliendo. Except that Madden doesn't seem to much care for him.

"I've never met him," Caliendo says, and he's been told Madden does his best to ignore the signature impression of him. "He doesn't think there should be any comedy in sports."

That would put Madden in the minority. Caliendo has made two worlds collide, introducing NFL Sundays to the impressionist, a breed of entertainer who thrives in Las Vegas but is often ignored elsewhere.

The two hit it off. The 35-year-old's weekly pregame picks on Fox so strongly branded Caliendo as a guy's guy that, when he performs live, "People think, 'Oh it's a sport show.'

"But in the live show, your audience is not following football all week. It's more about pop culture and the history of pop culture."

As the most high-profile impressionist out there now, Caliendo was a no-brainer for the Strip. He opened at the Monte Carlo on Monday as Lance Burton's new roommate, going directly to four nights a week without the interim step of occasional one-nighters.

MGM Mirage had been talking to Caliendo a long time, ever since it became clear in early 2008 that the late Danny Gans was moving to Wynn Las Vegas. That freed MGM Mirage casinos from a contract clause forbidding other impressionists.

Terry Fator ended up replacing Gans at The Mirage, in part because Caliendo was busy at the time with his now-departed TBS series "Frank TV."

But now he's here in earnest, stepping up the act to make it more like a TV talk show. He will have a band for musical bits and dig into a trunk of props and wigs he's never used in concert.

"We're trying to find the balance by adding some grandness," to make it more a Las Vegas show, he says.

Caliendo has always been an impressionist, even if that wasn't clear in the Wisconsin comedian's earliest days. "I couldn't be funny around other people with impressions. I could just do them. And then I got onstage and found out, 'This is what makes people laugh. I know how to do this.'

"I'm probably edgier in real life," he adds. "I like to play (onstage) for everybody."

Caliendo is a crowd pleaser, no doubt about it. But as he stands on his new stage exhibiting his Donald Trump wig, it's clear he pays a lot of attention to detail and puts a lot of thought into how an impressionist can function today.

"The reason impressions died out, the art form didn't evolve with the rest of comedy," he says. "Impressions stayed Vaudevillian and stand-up evolved in a totally different way. (Impressionists) got phased out of TV, really."

Much of Caliendo's act rewrites the Vegas playbook.

"Sometimes you just have to do some crowd-pleasing impressions," he says. "I always remember that the show is for the people." So when someone yells for Jack Nicholson, "The key is, do some of it, but get in and get out. Don't dwell."

Rich Little maintains that current movie stars such as Matt Damon don't have distinctive personas to imitate. Caliendo is working on Tom Hanks -- the real voice, not the Gump one.

He is also test-driving Morgan Freeman, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. Kurt Warner and Charles Barkley work, too, because "most of the sports characters are on commercials or talk shows."

A whole generation knows Madden for hardware-store ads and a video game. "A lot of the young kids don't even know he was a coach."

When a new impression does cross into the pop culture -- be it Dana Carvey's George Bush or Jay Mohr's Christopher Walken -- other impressionists tend to copy the impression, not the original person.

Caliendo says he fought that after his breakthrough casting on "MADtv" in late 2001. The producers wanted Will Ferrell's frat-guy version of George W. Bush. Caliendo countered with the lost little boy that became just as popular.

"If somebody else did John Madden, I can't stop them. I wouldn't try to stop them," he says. "But have a different take. Give me something I'm not doing."

His childhood heroes -- thanks to "Mork & Mindy" -- are Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams. "But you don't do the over-the-top Robin Williams," he explains. "You do the one where he's serious," slipping right into the solemn voice: "Grow a beard and try to win the Academy Award."

Caliendo won't be attempting the same anytime soon. He says no one will confuse his act with the late Gans' highly polished and controlled showcase. "It's a very improvised show.

"My whole act is based on screwing things up myself," and then correcting them as Madden, Bush or maybe even Freeman. "Some of the fun of comedy is, if you screw it up, who cares?

"I mean, if Cirque screws up, lives are on the line. If I screw up, I got a new bit all of a sudden."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.