The most famous Michael McDonald who didn’t sing for the Doobie Brothers is, of course, the actor and comedian who starred on MADtv. In his ten years on the show, McDonald played over the top characters like man-child Stuart Larkin, the nerdy Rusty Miller and some weirdo named “Howie Mandel.”
While MADtv obviously didn’t have the longevity of its main sketch comedy competition, Saturday Night Live, as McDonald recently told Cracked’s Brian VanHooker, the TV adaptation of the popular humor magazine perhaps deserves recognition for the “killer” women in the cast whose talents, thankfully, weren’t minimized.
McDonald noted that his favorite sketch is a People’s Court parody in which Daniele Gaither played an “ insane woman” on The People’s Court who had her neighbor’s children taken away simply because some leaves fell on her lawn.
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“Her performance and commitment was so fucking great,” McDonald stressed. “And it was just really well written. It just ripped me to shreds when I watched it. It’s just so simple. There’s nothing to it. Also Nicole Parker is in it, and Stephnie Weir does Judge Milian.”
“One of the early strengths of MADtv was that they weren’t afraid of killer, funny women,” he continued. “Just destroyers – so, so many of them. Not that they aren’t on SNL. I mean, in our world of sketch, we all came largely from either stand-up or sketch comedy troupes. So we all know each other and I don’t want to disparage them. But one of the things I liked about MADtv was that I don’t think I heard the women say, ‘Oh, the boys are getting all the attention.’ They took care of themselves.”
While the former Groundlings member stopped short of criticizing SNL specifically, it’s true that Lorne Michaels’ show wasn’t always the most welcoming to female talent. Live From New York: An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales pointed out that the show has long been accused of institutional misogyny, fostering an environment that “women had to struggle first for admission and then for recognition.” And although “women writers were easily among the most prominent and creative of the first group” they “still remained in the minority.”
Original Not Ready For Prime Time Player Jane Curtain recalled that both John Belushi and Chevy Chase told her that “women were not funny.”
Additionally, Janeane Garofalo argued that “life is a boys club. So SNL is a reflection of that.” But Garofalo also added that “Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer and Cheri Oteri and Rachel Dratch and Tina Fey kicked ass. They came in and would not be denied.”
Despite Michael McDonald’s assertions, MADtv wasn’t a complete paragon of equality. Original MADtv cast member Debra Wilson once revealed that she left the show after noticing that newly hired white male cast members were being paid more than her.
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