During the mid-1990s as part of his work with Channel 9, O'Donnell was a regular on the daytime program "The Midday Show", teaming up with former rugby league footballer Paul "Fatty" Vautin on Fridays to give an overview of the weekends sporting events, usually the AFL and NSWRL competitions, and to give their racing tips. The pair would generally get into silly situations (e.g. coming out onto the set dressed in blowup Sumo suits), or would be on location such as in early 1994 when O'Donnell was taken on some hot laps of the high speed Calder Park Thunderdome oval racetrack in Melbourne with multiple AUSCAR champion Brad Jones.