When a solicitor calls Frank Caliendo at his Tempe home, they get Donald Trump.
“What’s your problem? Why are you calling me? I already have everything. In fact I just bought your company. You’re fired,” Caliendo rattles off in a voice so eerily similar that you could swear you had The Donald on the other end of the phone.
Trump is the latest celebrity added to the comedian’s arsenal of characters he impersonates on stage, including a show Saturday, Sept. 5, at Desert Diamond Casino. We’ll also hear him channel President Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and one of his favorites — and the one that he is best known for — the legendary sportscaster John Madden.
But Trump has become a big part of his show — understandable given the GOP presidential frontrunner and reality TV star’s remarkable popularity.
“I was in New Hampshire the other day doing a show and I brought him up and I didn’t know what to expect, but 60 percent of the audience … went crazy when I mentioned Trump,” said Caliendo, 41, best known for his impressions of basketball great Charles Barkley and a host of sports figures, movie stars and politicians. “It was about 50-50 the night before in Connecticut. Then I went to Florida and it was like 80 percent … . I don’t know if these people are going to vote for him, but they find him very interesting.”
Here’s how he sums up Trump: “I didn’t think he was very good on the (first) debate. ... Trump, the way he was arguing in the debate, people would try to come back with facts and what he would do is argue like a second-grader,” Caliendo said. “They would be like, ‘That’s impossible, Mr. Trump.’ ‘Well it’s impossible. You’re a doodie head. That’s right, you’re a poopie face.’ What? You’re a grown man fighting like a little kid.”
Caliendo’s not taking sides. He says he’s neither Democrat or Republican — “I’m somewhere in the middle” — and he will poke fun at both. When he was here back in 2008, he took equal jabs at Democrat Barack Obama and his GOP rival John McCain.
“I’m going to make fun of whomever,” he said. “But Trump is part of the word ‘trumpet’ and he’s blowing that horn I guess. He’s out there and crazy.”
He’s been doing Trump for years but no one really took note until Trump got on the national stage.
“For me, he’s the only guy that can be a bigger cartoon than George W. (Bush),” Caliendo said. “Whether you liked Bush or not doesn’t matter. He just was funny on television, by accident most of the time.”
But, he noted, “there’s one thing I do agree with Trump on and it’s the political correctness in the country. And I do believe there are reasons we don’t use certain words, but a lot of that comes down to intent. Are you intending to hurt people or hurt a group, or are you trying to goof around? … The differences are what makes things funny.”
Not everyone has embraced his unflattering Trump bits. Earlier this year, Caliendo created a Trump video for the ESPN ESPY Awards on how the billionaire would fix sports, including professional baseball. Among Caliendo’s Trump proposals: making the Green Monster at Fenway Park taller “to keep the Mexicans out” and making the Mexican government pick up the tab.
“It was just jokes but there are people who take that too far. If you’re out there trying to run for office, you are a public figure and the job I have is to go around” and point out those foibles, he explained.
In addition to Trump, you can expect Caliendo, father of 11 and 9-year-old boys, to channel George W., Morgan Freeman and John Madden.
“I used to explain all the jokes as John Madden. Now I narrate them as Morgan Freeman; John Madden’s not working anymore so people don’t get the joke,” he said, then assumed his Morgan Freeman voice: “Relax. Frank Caliendo has no idea what he’s talking about.”
