Caliendo can certainly do other things. He's a sportscaster, for one. The 33-year-old comedian grew up in suburban Milwaukee and studied broadcast journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He had hoped to someday become an anchor on ESPN's SportsCenter. "It didn't go that way, though," he says. "When I was in college, I showed up at a comedy club one night and got into stand-up right away. I was working within months. Usually it takes years for people to get regular bookings."

It's easy to understand why his career took off so quickly. Though he's on the short side - about five feet seven inches tall - and has a very Maddenesque frame, Caliendo can be shockingly convincing playing thinner, taller characters. In the Frank TV pilot, he does a killer, albeit heavier, Cosmo Kramer. "You have to suspend a little disbelief with some of the things for me," Caliendo says. "But at the same time, I am trying to lose some weight right now because I watched the Seinfeld skit and I thought, Oh that's just hideous. It was almost like the South Park version of Seinfeld."

Then again, his weight likely helped his Madden impression gain early acceptance, and today, strangely, it might be helping him earn the favor of TV executives who want to cater to a general audience. Caliendo says his stage act has become like "a baseball game of comedy," because so many fathers bring their sons to see him. "And everybody in Hollywood tells me that I'm a regular guy," he says. "They say I'm a real everyman type of person. I think what that really means is that I'm not skinny."