On TV or on the stage, Caeti 'Mad' for improv

Frank Caeti's home used to an attraction on Second City's tour ofOld Town. The tour guide "would say things like, 'Chris Farley livedhere. John Belushi used to live over here. Ladies and gentleman,here's Frank Caeti's apartment.'

"People were like, 'Who the f--- is that?'" Caeti says. "Andthen, I'd pop out and throw Twinkies at them. People like freestuff."

After five years of improvising at Second City, Caeti wasrecruited by Fox's "Mad TV," where he has portrayed a portly RockyBalboa, a fake Asian parent and "Big Whitey" in a blacksploitationspoof: He distributed crazy-making grape juice in Harlem.

"Mad TV" returns with a new show at 10 p.m. Saturday on WFLD-Channel 32. Also this weekend, Caeti will take the stage at twoChicago Improv Festival shows.

For the first time in years, he's not a Chicagoan. During hisfirst season on "Mad," Caeti, 33, commuted to Los Angeles. Lastyear, he and fiancee Rachael Romanski, who worked in the businessoffice at Second City, made the big move to pretend land.

"We're very skeptical. You [feel your] soul kind of just wiltingaway, all of your dreams and desires," he says (or jokes; it's hardto tell).

Caeti isn't really complaining. "Mad TV" is great work, he says,and he figures it's possible he could even go the way of sketchactors like Eddie Murphy and Jamie Foxx and turn from "goofy yuk-'em-up guy" to serious thespian.

"We're this far away from being Telemundo, wearing bumblebeeoutfits," he says of improvisers. "So it's tough sometimes to takesketch actors seriously after that part of their career ends."

Caeti and Romanski haven't made all their wedding plans yet (shenow runs the Second City training center in L.A.), but they're quitesure it won't take place onstage.

"I always got skeeved out by that, because that happens at SecondCity," he says, "where somebody's like, 'Do you guys mind if Ipropose to my girlfriend?'

"And then we get them up there, and they would do it, and it'salways like, 'Yay.' Oh, God, that's so weird. Why would you do thatto somebody? ... Now we've gotta do comedy!"

Romanski seems proud that Caeti, who grew up in Bloomingdale andin Denver, is blue collar, like many Second City actors.

"They're not fancy people," she says. "They embrace theopportunities they have to work [onstage]. But they don't thinkthey're above cleaning toilets in between gigs."

At one point in Chicago, Caeti waited tables. Even as a TV actor,steady work isn't guaranteed, he says, so he also doesn't rule outbusing dirty dishes again someday.

"You're always a step away from that. I'll be glad to do it. Ihope I don't have to," he says. "You have to be prepared to ride itout, man."

Caeti improvises with ComedySportz at 8 tonight at the ChicagoCenter for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green. Tickets ($19) areavailable at (312) 733-6000; www.theaterland.com.

Then Saturday at 8, he does improv with fellow "Mad TV" castmembers at the Park West, 322 W. Armitage. Tickets ($37.50) areavailable through Ticketmaster. Call (312) 902-1500.

delfman@suntimes.com