The day before Thanksgiving, Joey Mulinaro tweeted his first video impersonating Nick Saban. And to his surprise, the video of his spot-on impression quickly went viral and currently has 1.68 million views.
The 26-year-old sports radio host from Indianapolis had shared his impressions with the internet before and said his Andrew Luck ones went what he described as locally and regionally viral. But nothing compared with how his impression of the cantankerous Alabama football coach took off.
“This is not meant to be a brag, but I’ve just always [had] the ability to hear a person or watch a person a handful of times, and I can get them down pretty decently well,” said Mulinaro, who hosts a one-hour college football radio show on Saturdays, The Tailgate, on 107.5 The Fan in Indy.
“I’ve always been able to do that kind of stuff and figured now, might as well try to take advantage of it and see what people think. So it’s been mostly good so far.”
In addition to Saban and Luck, Mulinaro impersonates LSU coach Ed Orgeron and Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, whose teams face off in the College Football Playoff national championship game Monday. He also does Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, college football icon Lou Holtz and celebrity pastor Joel Osteen.
A video of him impersonating Saban and Orgeron talking on the phone about the CFP, tweeted in December the day before the semifinal games, has nearly two million views.
As his videos continue to rapidly circulate around college football Twitter and beyond, For The Win spoke with Mulinaro about how he started doing them, where he finds inspiration and who his next target is.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Are you a part-time stand-up comedian or just a funny guy? How did you first start doing impressions?
I don’t do stand-up regularly, so I wouldn’t give myself that title. I was the living room funny guy, growing up impersonating family members or teachers that we all knew from school or friends’ parents. And people always really enjoyed them.
And then I was like, I can do a couple people that are public figures, and I’ve always had big dreams to do this for a living. And if I want to do that, I have to start doing public figures, so I started with people in sports.
Who was the first famous person you went after then?
The first one I tried and put out was Andrew Luck before he retired. I did that in March of 2019. I put it out there, and it kind of took off, especially around here. So then I became the Andrew Luck guy, and then he decided to retire and that threw a wrench in things. So from that point on, I’ve been trying to find people that are topical and have some fun with it.
And high-profile college football coaches were easy targets?
I kind of lucked out that Coach Orgeron and LSU have done so well this year because on one of the podcasts I host here, I would always do a little Coach O voice, and people would ask me to do it every now and then on there. And that was back in 2018 or early 2019 before LSU went on to be undefeated and No. 1.
So I had been dabbling in it for a little bit, and then when they took off, I was just like, “Man, I’ve got to take advantage of this.”
And Nick Saban was just a natural follow-up to that?
It’s funny because for the Saban one on Thanksgiving, I was like, this is just some little bit, 15 seconds of the scenario of him being in his living room, talking to either his wife or his family like that. That’s what was funny to me, and I was like, “Yeah, I can do an alright impression.”
But I didn’t expect it to do what it did at all, and then people had just really taken to that one as well. And he’s so fun to poke fun at because he’s such a crabby guy who’s always annoyed. And that’s really funny to me.
You capture that really well. Even in those 15 seconds, it’s like a halftime interview with him on the field.
Exactly, and that’s why that was hilarious to me. It was taking this persona that we all see — whether it be in press conference or halftime interviews — and translating that to him talking to his kids or talking to his wife or him at a car dealership, I don’t know, whatever. There’s all these funny instances that you could take and pluck him out of and then put him in that I think are hysterical.
To get their voices down, do you just watch a lot of interviews or is there more to it?
With the Saban one, that was a parody of the interview with Maria Taylor where he kind of got hot with her. So I just pulled up that clip and just watched it probably six or seven times and just got his cadence down a little bit. I tried it a few times in my living room and probably about the seventh or eighth take of it, I was like, “All right, I feel pretty good about this.”
That’s usually the process. Maybe the first couple takes I’ll just try out loud, but then it gets to the point where I need to film it and see it. It’s just like in football. I’ll need to watch it back and see if I need to nail that mannerism a little bit more or I need to change my voice to be a little bit lower or have more of an accent.
But beyond their voices, it seems like you put a little extra in, like Saban’s Coke bottle.
One thing I want to try to get across — and have probably failed at for new people who follow me — is I do impressions, but I’m not an impressionist. There’s a difference in my mind between a comedic impression and an impressionist. For me, mine are the whole embodiment of the character: the mannerisms, the things around them, the things they would be saying.
I look at it like SNL. All the impressions they do don’t necessarily sound or even look like these people, but it’s the comedic approach to it that makes it work. So that’s what I’m trying to do. So the Coke bottle is big. My Coach O shirt that I throw on when I do him is big.
Do you have to get into a certain mindset for the impressions?
So with Saban, very much so. The way I get into character for him is acting like I had to take my car to the shop, and they tell me I have to pay $400 for something that’s tiny on my car. It’s not devastating enough to really, really piss me off, but it’s just like, “Are you kidding me? What a day I’ve had.” Just an annoyed feeling you’d have.
I did a Dabo Swinney one recently, and people talk about how he just whines a lot. And that was the approach I took for that one.
Who’s your favorite person to impersonate?
Probably either Saban or Coach O, just because I think those are two of my best. But also, it’s so fun to do all the shrugs and get pissed off like Saban does. I don’t know why, but it’s hilarious, and I really enjoy doing it.
And with Coach O, there’s just not like ripping a “Go Tigers” like he does at the end of the interview. When I connect on that one, that feels really good.
Do you have an impression you’re really trying to work on or one that needs the most improvement?
Definitely really trying to hone in on Dabo Swinney at this point. The first one I did, I think I nailed mannerisms but could definitely work on his voice a little bit more.
And then one I’m working on would be Jim Harbaugh. The funny thing about that is he’s such a polarizing figure that it’s kind of like cheating the system almost because I know there will be a reaction either way because it’s Jim Harbaugh. But definitely trying to tackle that one here soon.
Do you make sure you have those classic characteristics in each video, even if it’s 15 seconds long?
Most definitely, because those are some of the things people identify with the most. It’s like the Mike Gundy one I dropped the other day. Everybody remembers him for, “I’m a man! I’m 40!” So I try to drop little, subtle hints to that as well. People say, “Oh, I remember that. That does sound like him.” Or the “Quit asking!” That’s classic Saban for sure.
When you say this might be something you could turn into a career, what’s the end goal?
Saturday Night Live for sure. I’ve struck a chord with people in the college football world, which is really great. I’m really thankful, and I have so much fun with it and love doing it. But definitely there are other impressions I do, there are other skits I’ve done that don’t involve impressions. The light at the end of the tunnel, the end all, be all, that’s it.
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