Mack MacKay is a stand-up comedian who gets entangled in a dangerous predicament with a mobster who has designs on his female partner in a comedy act trio that Sam leaps into in the Season 4 episode of Quantum Leap tilted "Stand Up". The part of Mack is played by comedian/actor Bob Saget, known for his role as Danny Tanner on the long-running ABC-TV sitcom Full House.
About Mack[]
Mack, who is known to have a quick temper, gets he and his comedy act partners, Davey Parker, who Sam leaps into (leapee played by Rafe Batiste, and female partner Frankie Warsharskie (Amy Yasbeck) fired from a gig at a club in the Poconos after getting into it with the manager Lou Collins (Mark Lonow).
Having had several comedy partners in the previous 4 years, Mack, who constantly changed the act, is known to set his partners up to fail, so that he doesn't have to look at himself as the blame; perhaps, as it is interpreted by Sam and Al, because of some insecurity on his part, as in he having trouble opening up emotionally to those who try to get close to him, and a fear of failure, which goes back to his childhood, when he developed an interest in comedy and found that he could make people laugh, particularly at school, when he used his sense of humor to get out of predicaments with bullies.
Poor Sam is burdened with the arduous task of making sure that Mack and Frankie, who constantly bicker over her role in the act, and who also act as if they can't stand one another, but are in really love with each other but cannot face it, to develop their relationship, and, in the same time try to protect the hot-tempered Mack from getting killed by mobster Carlo DeGorio (Robert Miranda) who offers them a contract to perform at his club in Las Vegas, but whose real interest is in Frankie. Sam, who leaps into Davey while they are on stage at a Poconos resort, by telling DeGorio that the two, Mack and Frankie, are engaged, is able to get the mobster to lay off of Mack, saving his life, and getting the mobster to pay for the couple's wedding, too.