OTHER TECH

Michael McDonald Is Everywhere

I love the Michael McDonald "video" bit at the end of Episode 6 in the box set, where you were driving fast and then running into the studio just in time to sing your lines. What was the inspiration for that?Exactly what you would think. He was just everywhere. I don't remember the group, but there was a song called "Stealing Away," or something.

"Steal Away." That was Robbie Dupree.Yeah. He was omnipresent, so that people were ripping him off. He was everywhere. He was on Steely Dan albums, and by the time I heard him on [Christopher Cross's] "Ride Like the Wind," I thought, "Okay, we have to do something with this."

But it was done out of reverence. I love the guy and really love his music. I think he took the Doobie Brothers to a whole other level. And I'm thrilled that he's had the success with the Motown album.

It's a nice return for him.He's a sweet guy. He's got an amazing voice. I met him for the first time after [the sketch first aired] and he said [done in a Mike McDonald voice], "That was brutal, man. Brutal." I told him it was out of reverence, out of admiration. He said, "No, I liked it, I liked it."

I didn't take it as being harsh. I thought it was funny.I couldn't believe how much I wound up lookin' like the guy. But that's to the credit of Bev Schechtman and Judi Cooper-Sealy, our makeup and hair people.

When you were running back and forth from singing in the studio to the control booth and talking to the engineers and signing the papers, were you listening to real-time playback?Yeah, definitely, sure. And it's clearly done with one camera.

Yeah, it was a straight-on shot, and there weren't any cuts.I didn't do it with cuts, and it wound up looking real. Because if it had cuts in it, it could look like we fudged it. Here you can see he's running in to get there just in time [to sing the next harmony line].

You could have really run yourself ragged, because besides the choruses ["such a long way to go"], he also doubled the "bop-bas" as well.Oh, did he really?

Yeah, you would have had a heart attack trying to do all that.