FirstCuts: Ready For More Frank TV Ads?

There was a time, when, in small doses, a lot of people probably thought Frank Caliendo was pretty funny. Look, I’ll admit that his Jim Rome and John Madden impressions used to put me in stitches.↵
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↵Then the 2007 MLB playoffs rolled through. If you watched more than 30 seconds on TBS, you were probably drowned by the deluge of Frank TV.↵
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↵It was at this point that a nation of sports fans went from amused to annoyed. Do a Google search for Frank TV ads, and you’ll find a host of bloggers who were pretty happy when the NLCS ended.↵
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↵After just four episodes, the writers’ strike hit and because the show wasn’t exactly a raging success, it seemed it would just go away quietly after such a ridiculous ad campaign. As it turns out, we were all wrong. ↵
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↵Alan Sepinwall from the Star-Ledger, at the Television Critics Association press tour, sat in on Caliendo’s session and managed to get a question in between impressions.↵↵⇥I brought up the plague-like barrage of “Frank TV” ads that aired during last year’s baseball playoffs, and asked whether Caliendo had maybe asked his bosses to tone it down this fall. Sadly, the answer was no.↵⇥
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↵⇥“They worked,” he said, while acknowledging that some of that work involved annoying baseball fans with the same three clips played ad nauseum. He then apologized in advance for TBS’ plan to show even more “Frank TV” spots this time around.↵↵Seeing as how TBS has no respect for its viewers, given what they’ve done in advertising The Bill Engvall Show, it should be no surprise Caliendo will be back in the face of baseball viewers early and often. Thanks for nothing, TBS.↵