It has been a long time since I thought “MadTV” was funny. So when I first watched “frankTV,” starring former “MadTV” alumnus Frank Caliendo, I had certain preconceptions about the quality of the comedy I was about to partake in. Sure, I had seen some of his impressions on “Fox NFL Sunday” but that still didn’t give me enough comedic fodder to judge him on.

Lots of people do John Madden impressions, and although Caliendo’s was funny, it only showed one side of the much wider scope he is capable of. My favorite being his near perfect replication of President George W. Bush, which shows him as a great word “makeupificator” while not making him seem like he is literally the dumbest man in the United States.

Throughout the first couple of episodes of the upcoming season of “frankTV,” Caliendo portrays several widely-known actors and celebrities. Some of the ones that stood out were Bush and Madden of course, but his impressions of politicians Al Gore, Bill Clinton and presidential hopeful John McCain were hilarious. In one skit, Caliendo is taking a shot at Oliver Stone’s new movie “W” by playing out a scenario of what really happened with the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In this farce, Gore is the one who is carousing with Lewinsky and in an act of courage and patriotism, Clinton takes the rap for it to protect Gore’s image to the public. It is lewd and sometimes catches you off-guard after seeing how soft-spoken and nice Caliendo seems between skits, but it has risen above the level of other failed attempts at skit comedy shows.

Now, saying all of this, the show does have its faults. The show employs two other impressionists, Mike MacRae and Freddy Lockhart, to help expand the skits and add dimensions that Caliendo can’t produce by himself. Though if he could, I don’t think the show would suffer much from losing the other two.

There is one skit in particular which involves all three of them and is about the normal everyday lives of the Jedi from the “Star Wars” films. Caliendo plays Yoda, Lockhart plays Obi-Wan Kenobi and MacRae plays Mace Windu who is the Samuel L. Jackson character from the newest movies. Caliendo plays a convincing Yoda even though that character has been done to death in sketch comedy and Lockhart plays a very Tom Brokah-ish Obi-Wan, which is passable. But it’s MacRae’s portrayal of Windu that sours the skit a little for me, and is a perfect example on a larger scale of why the show is funnier without them. He plays Windu more like the Samuel L. Jackson from “Pulp Fiction” then from “Star Wars”; which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it makes me disbelieve that he is not actually the character he is portraying. This then leads me to question the whole skit, and I quickly fall into frustration with having to sit through another lame attempt at a sketch comedy show.

Lockhart and MacRae don’t completely hinder the success of the show as a whole, and with Caliendo leading the way, “frankTV” has a chance to continue to shine regardless of them.

Matt Rascher can be reached at [email protected]