This quality made MacDonald an effective villain in Columbia's adventure serials like Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, and Black Arrow.

Beginning in 1953, the comedy in the Columbia shorts became even more physical under producer-director Jules White, and MacDonald obligingly got plastered with pies, fruit, and other missiles.

He left the Columbia shorts department in 1955, but still appeared occasionally in feature films; he played a member of the court martial board in The Caine Mutiny (1954), and had a bit role as Jerry Lewis's father in The Ladies' Man (1961).

From 1951 to 1953 MacDonald was a frequent guest star, mostly as a sheriff, in the syndicated television series, The Range Rider, with Jock Mahoney and Dick Jones.

MacDonald died of brain and lung cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California[5] at the age of 70.