Caliendo unofficially belongs to a small group of stand-up comedians who know how to utilize impressions.  It seems to me that many comedians think impressions are inherently funny for no better reason than it’s a famous person’s voice coming from another individual.  Caliendo realizes that impressions need content to make them funny.  Caliendo trusts his audience to recognize a voice not only as a voice but also as an actual being.  He brings an actual person to life on stage with his spot-on impressions, and lets the audience fill in the rest with their imaginations.  He often puts more than one impression in the same scene thus giving the illusion of having several people on stage.  His stand-up comedy album and DVD were both released in September of this year and both entitled Frank Caliendo: All Over the Place.  I heard the album and will be reviewing the stand-up routine as it is presented in a non-visual medium.

Frank Caliendo once again pulls us into his celebrity impression repertoire.  He stands us at the brink of hilarity and shows us a cycling parade of familiar voices.  All voices are recognizable and impressively detailed.  Unfortunately the most prominent voices in his act are the impressions he’s been using for years:  George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Pacino and John Madden.  John Madden is a fairly unique impersonation and therefore always seems fresh and welcome.  (The Madden impression could get tiresome if used too much, but Caliendo is enough of a seasoned pro that his instincts prevent it.)  The Clinton and Bush impressions on the other hand don’t offer much more than your average Clinton and Bush jokes.  Bush is dumb, and Clinton is horny.  That being said, even though Caliendo’s Clinton and Bush impressions aren’t used boldly, he does use them cleverly.  He knows when to use them to spice up a subject, and how to turn a phrase using their personalities.  I was by no means dissatisfied with the use of Clinton and Bush.  But making fun of their character flaws is like laughing at a person you see fall down every day—eventually you’d rather not see it, and probably help them up.  Even in the face of the media’s constant barrage of Clinton and Bush jokes, Caliendo’s jokes of the same content were still funny, and rightfully deserved laughter.  He does give us some knew voices to enjoy like Charles Barkley, Jeff Goldbloom, and Mickey Rooney.

The structure of the show is best described by the title.  Caliendo knew what he was doing when he created a routine that was “all over the place” which further leads me to believe that when comedians gain enough popularity they feel at liberty to say whatever they want even if it displays a lack of clarity or a sensible segue.  To segue, he primarily uses his voices to jump from one topic to the next or he makes a small joke about having not segued.  He mostly relies on his voices to misunderstand something he’s talking about then jump ship onto the outside subject matter of the voice’s random joke.  It’s all funny, but Caliendo could have made a more cohesive piece with a little more work.  One of my pet peeves with stand-up comedy albums is the use of visual humor.  It’s because of this that Stand-up is best received visually.  Caliendo doesn’t do it much, but the first two tracks of the disc involve two particular physical mannerisms that Bush typically shows.  The album listeners, of course, can’t see them and are left at a loss.  I’m sure they’re hilarious in person, but in an album they don’t make much sense.

The Verdict:  It’s funny, but it’s probably better on DVD.

-Vince

Weird Al has had a long and illustrious career. He’s been doing rock parodies since 1976. He’s had 11 albums (not including Greatest Hits, The Food Album, etc.) and at least a couple dozen videos. I often run into fans of Weird Al who have somehow never managed to be exposed to his videos, and other people who have heard one or two of Al’s songs, didn’t like them, and therefore assumed he’s never done anything funny in his career. I’ll admit, his albums are very hit-and-miss– usually there are several very funny tracks mixed with a couple of somewhat-lame attempts. Every band has their good songs and bad songs, and luckily many of Weird Al’s best are accompanied by equally-hillarious videos. 

 So now for your viewing pleasure, here are, in my mind, Weird Al’s five funniest videos of all time. These were tough to pick, and trust me– they’re not the only ones worth watching. If you enjoy these, make sure to do a YouTube search and check out some of the others, and also look up the polkas; Al always puts together a montage of all the videos to the songs he parodes, sped-up to match the polka, and they’re really funny. Also, check out his latest album from 2006, Straight Outta Linwood, which includes several animated videos, the best of which is “Don’t Download This Song.” It’s now one of my favorites, but I’m only including live videos in this list which Al creatively worked on.

Maybe you’ve never seen these or maybe it’s been a long time, but either way, enjoy! And if you’re a big Weird Al fan with differing opinions, feel free to put in your two cents.

5. It’s All About the Pentiums

4. Fat

3. Amish Paradise

2. Smells Like Nirvana

1. White and Nerdy

It might be his most recent video, but what can I say? “White and Nerdy” is one of the cleverist parodies Al has ever written. Chamillionaire, who wrote the original, even says that Al is pretty fantastic rapper and gives him a lot of credit for his Grammy win. The video itself is impressive because there’s so much going on, you have to watch it a few times to catch all the jokes.

I think Al’s best videos are those that are best viewed when also hearing the song for the first time; the ones that add so much to the music and lyrics that they become one clever package. And for me, these are the five that do that the best.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan